Script Review: RIVER ROAD

by Darwin Mayflower

WARNING: SPOILERS!

(10/08/00)

NOTE: The screenplays we review are often in development and may experience many rewrites, some could end up being completely different than what is filmed. It is our hope that our reviews generate more interest in the film. Thank you. -- Staff

In Andrew Niccols new script -- RIVER ROAD -- he introduces us to a prison-homeland. An unnamed country is bisected by a river. One side makes up 33rd District; the other 34th. On the 33rd District life is hard and despotic. You live meagerly, working the job youre assigned to, and if you even approach the gate blocking your way across the river...you are shot dead.

The one hope that keeps these people alive is to sneak across the river and into the utopia they can only dream waits on the side (since none have actually seen it).

Im a tremendous fan of Andrew Niccols. He has only two credits to his name, but they are lofty ones: writer-director of GATTACA and writer of THE TRUMAN SHOW.

Niccol was a music-video director of all things. But with those two scripts (his first draft of TRUMAN even better than the movie) he showed himself to be a true original. A person who could show us a future world or a representation of human paranoia and keep us memorized.

Niccol says the following of his world:

Being vague about things can work wonders. Not being smacked in the head with information can make it a much more personal experience.

But I think it works to a disadvantage here. Niccol might have been going for Kafka (a glorious example of his vagueness can be found in THE TRIAL), but sticking so closely to the grubby 33rd District and leaving so many questions unanswered hurts the piece.

The same was true, in a way, of GATTACA. Presenting a world where children are made to design opens up so many ideas that youd need a 1000-page novel to contain them. But GATTACA, unlike RIVER ROAD, had more plot and wasnt as stagnant.

I suppose Niccols inspiration was the Berlin Wall. It was erected by the Communists to keep people from fleeing to West Berlin. On one side there was freedom; on the other -- oppression. But the lines in Niccols script are never that clearly defined. We never actually learn whether or not its any better on the other side of the river.

What shocked me about RIVER ROAD -- having adored the originality of GATTACA and THE TRUMAN SHOW -- was just how commonplace the story is. I dont expect Niccol to reinvent the wheel every time he writes a script. But when I hear something he wrote called "an epic escape film" -- I expect more than this. Which is really nothing more than a rehash of THE GREAT ESCAPE and THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION (theres even references to the famous motorcycle jump and the way those movies showed the disposal of dug-up dirt). But what we dont have in this case that we did in those movies is people we deeply care for.

Niccol is, without a doubt, a competent writer. There are numerous escape attempts and theyre all exciting, suspenseful and intelligent. But I believe in Character Above All Else and I have to assume the script would work better if the characters werent such obvious-motivation stick figures.

Niccols three scripts have thus far been about a man getting somewhere hes not allowed. Ethan Hawke wanted to travel to space but wasnt genetically perfect in GATTACA. Jim Carrey wanted to leave his TV-show existence in THE TRUMAN SHOW. And now Milar (MY-lar) Kline is out to cross the small, gently-flowing river that might mean the difference between prison and freedom.

Niccol sets up a somewhat interesting villain -- the fastidious Gideon. Gideon might not be the greatest character ever written. But his torture for trying to escape is sure inventive. If you try to cross you must eat a bucket of 34th District dirt. Try again -- two buckets. And onwards.

Milar falls in love and eventually wins the heart of a local woman who runs a boarding house. The affair isnt quite logical because Niccol sets her up as a woman still getting over the death of her husband (who was trying to build a tunnel for them all to escape and got killed for it).

The script becomes a touch redundant as Milar tries to escape, gets caught, eats dirt, heals, goes back out, etc.

The escapes are always astute and intriguing. Theyre never boring. But one would have to think the script would move a bit faster if Niccol took you out of the 33rd District even for a few scenes.

I suppose its all made up for with the ingenious ending, which combines brains and spectacular, exhilarating action (hard to find these days).

Niccol has said in interviews that he writes and writes and writes so he can weed out the trash and extract whats good about his work. He was paid three million dollars to write, produce and direct this. But dropped it to make SIMON, a Hollywood satire with Al Pacino about a CGI actress who becomes a star.

Im assuming Niccol put this aside because he had his three million dollars and his funding, but he saw that the script was still flabby and needed to be shaped.

On the strength of his previous work, and all the greatness (as old hat as it might be) he hints at in this script, I have no doubts that RIVER ROAD will stand as another example of Niccols formidable, singular mind.

-- Darwin Mayflower.