The Abridged Script
FADE IN:
INT. APARTMENT OF MISERY
PAAPA ESSIEDU
Good news honey! We're in a movie with a powerful message about MISOGYNY!
JESSIE BUCKLEY
What's the message?
PAAPA ESSIEDU
Misogyny exists!
JESSIE BUCKLEY
Groundbreaking.
PAAPA ESSIEDU
Now, to illustrate that point:
He threatens her, gaslights her, invades her privacy, and punches her in the face.
JESSIE BUCKLEY
OOOOKAY point fucking ILLUSTRATED. We can stop the movie right here, I'm leaving you and the next ninety minutes can be about something other than my suffering.
PAAPA ESSIEDU
But you now have Trauma! And in a horror movie the only way to get over your trauma is to experience EVEN WORSE TRAUMA!
JESSIE BUCKLEY
Hell no. I said I'm leaving, you're wasting your time talking to me.
PAAPA climbs to the balcony above and jumps. Romantic music plays as he falls past her in slow motion with a hilarious "deuuuuuhr" face.
JESSIE BUCKLEY
Or that works, too!
INT. REMOTE COUNTRY MANOR
JESSIE splurges on a fancy AirBnB. The HOMEOWNER welcomes her.
HOMEOWNERORY KINNEAR
Welcome! Let me carry your bags, you dainty little fairer-sex broad. Oof this is heavy, probably all the tampons amirite? So where's hubby? I'm sure he'll enjoy the amazing house while you enjoy the kitchen! Hey are you ovulating?
JESSIE BUCKLEY
Oh my GOD. Alex Garland is declaring war on subtlety, huh?
(eats apple)
HOMEOWNERORY KINNEAR
HISS! APPLE! FORBIDDEN FRUIT!
He leaves. JESSIE video-calls her friend GAYLE RANKIN.
GAYLE RANKIN
Well that guy sounds like a weirdo. I bet he fucks pigs.
JESSIE BUCKLEY
Sorry what? You're breaking up, this place has the kind of reception that makes staticky faces look like they're screaming.
EXT. WOODS
JESSIE goes for a walk and there is NATURE, SO MUCH NATURE, PRETTY NATURE! Then she finds a tunnel which is NOT NATURE.
JESSIE BUCKLEY
Oh look, there's more nature over PENIS gah there's a naked man running at me!
She flees back to civilization, then immediately sends the guy's naked pictures to her friends.
NAKED GUY
THAT IS HIGHLY UNETHICAL AND I WOULD LIKE YOU TO ERASE THAT PLEASE
(bangs on windows)
JESSIE freaks out and calls the police, who arrest the guy.
LADY COP
No worries, just some homeless weirdo who will probably forget about you and doesn't know who you are and isn't played by Rory Kinnear that's for sure!
RORY COPNEAR
In fact whoops we already released him, that's how sure we are he's harmless.
HOMEOWNERORY KINNEAR
How distressing for you, Jessie! Might I recommend getting blitzed at our local pub surrounded by leering testosterone bundles.
RORY KINBARTENDER
All drinks are a dollar, we insist on paying! Your drinks are only 75 cents.
INT. CHURCH
JESSIE visits a church which is empty except for a PREACHER played by ALEX GARLAND and a CHOIR played by the audience.
RORY KID-DEAR
Hi, female! Let's play a game!
JESSIE BUCKLEY
Is the game "Guess if you're supposed to be an adult with a stunted pituitary gland?" Because you so clearly do not look like an actual kid, it's mostly confusing why I seem to think you are.
RORY KID-DEAR
I said let's play some hide and seek, bitch!
A VICAR appears and scares off the CGI KID-THING.
VICARORY KINNEAR
Sorry about him, lass. I heard you doing some Midsommar-style grief wailing in the church and wondered if I could help?
JESSIE BUCKLEY
Well, I know my husband was toxic, but there's still grief in losing what I used to think we had, anger at myself for ever loving him, wondering if I should have had the strength to prevent the mistreatment, then more anger that I'm blaming myself when he was the one causing me pain, so I'm stuck in a cycle of trying to move on yet feeling like I can't until I know how I ended up in that awful situation, which inevitably loops back to "What could I have done different?" and blaming myself.
VICARORY KINNEAR
Whoa sweetums, I asked if I could help, not how you're doing. This movie doesn't care about that other than "She's sad."
(touching her)
Anyway, have you tried accepting everything was your fault and you should have obeyed his every whim, you harlot?
JESSIE BUCKLEY
Jesus, NO!
VICARORY KINNEAR
(groping)
Jesus, YES! Join me at the church bonfire where we'll be ceremonially burning IUDs and oral contraceptives!
JESSIE leaves and, disturbed, decides to get blitzed at our local pub surrounded by leering testosterone bundles.
The VICAR stares after her, smearing on a bunch of EVIL CHAPSTICK. Because decent men only have DRY LIPS.
INT. HOUSE
JESSIE BUCKLEY
(texting)
Gayle, can you come get me?
PHONE
Bwa ha ha, you cannot phone Gayle! All your text are belong to us! Prepare for hodgepodge of creepy events bound by no discernible rules for the rest of the runtime! lol (B==> :eggplant:
Lights flash! RORY appears, disappears, appears again, runs at JESSIE screaming, disappears again, appears acting normal, disappears, appears and washes the windows with so much Windex that a bird hits the glass, then disappears again! FIFTY APPLES fall off a tree and presumably get really bruised!
RORY KINNAKED
I'm now covered in either self-induced ritual scars or I finished a really great S/M scene, but one of those involves understanding consent so take a wild guess. Have some dandelions!
NAKED RORY blows evil dandelion seeds in JESSIE'S face, which is, like, symbolic of roofies I think.
JESSIE BUCKLEY
Wow, I've been brainwashed into seeing a Gregorian Chant music video. I'm sure in a few months some YouTube essays will explain the super profound meaning, but I'd rather parse the meaning of this KNIFE IN RORY'S ARM
(stabs Naked Rory)
NAKED RORY pulls the knife out in a way that SAWS HIS ARM IN HALF and also gives JESSIE the knife back, because it's always scary when an enemy POINTLESSLY CRIPPLES THEMSELVES.
Now all the RORIES have the exact same arm wound!
JESSIE BUCKLEY
Aha, you're a singular shapeshifting entity who I can physically wound. I'd better stop trying to stab you then or this will be over in thirty seconds.
RORY KID-DEAR
(sticks chest against knife)
Let's play a game! It's called "Stab me!"
JESSIE BUCKLEY
Kid, you're making this WAY too easy.
JESSIE does not stab him. KID RORY becomes VICAR RORY.
VICARORY KINNEAR
You have no chance, Jessie! I ate all my evil chapstick and became a kung fu master!
JESSIE BUCKLEY
YOU have no chance, I still have a knife against your chest that I will definitely remember how to move at some point!
VICARORY KINNEAR
You're so mean! You keep bullying me by making my penis rise and making me sexually assault you, OMG you're so INCONSIDERATE!
JESSIE BUCKLEY
(sighs, pissed off)
Do we HAVE to do this? You know Alien was about rape and didn't have any rape in it, maybe we could have a fencing battle with dildos or I could vertically slice your dick in half or-
VICARORY KINNEAR
WHY ARE BOOBIES EXISTING, LOOK WHAT YOUR BOOBIES ARE MAKING MY INNOCENT HANDS DO
(gropes)
JESSIE BUCKLEY
LITERALLY NO ONE WHO WOULD LEARN SOMETHING FROM THIS SCENE WOULD EVER PAY TO WATCH A MOVIE CALLED "MEN" YOU IDIOT
JESSIE somewhat undermines the point by steadfastly REFUSING TO STAB THE RAPIST until way too damn long, which means she LITERALLY COULD HAVE PREVENTED THAT, so empowering. RORY dies.
JESSIE runs through a hallway of JANKY EDITING and drives to freedom!
EXT. ROAD
Since that was too easy, JESSIE runs over HOMEOWNER RORY and stops to help him, because that worked SO WELL in Get Out, and he steals her car and drives off.
JESSIE BUCKLEY
What the... why are there suddenly fifty bajillion stars? Am I dead?
HOMEOWNERORY KINNEAR
(driving at her)
MAYBE IN TEN SECONDS YOU WILL BE
JESSIE runs back to the yard and the car CRASHES. Two hundred more apples fall on them.
NAKED RORY staggers out, his head growing into leaves, having shoved his face into the SHIMMER followed by the WINDSHIELD.
JESSIE BUCKLEY
I give up. You're unkillable, there's no rules, so I'm just going to stand here and do nothing. Maybe you'll jerk off and applesauce will come out. I don't care.
RORY KINNAKED
Ooh, wrong choice! Not caring what I do literally turns me into a shrieking manbaby!
JESSIE BUCKLEY
You mean Figuratively.
NAKED RORY'S stomach inflates four times as large as a pregnant lady's and he shoves his ANUS into the CAMERA and KID RORY out of his ANUS.
RORY KID-DEAR
Waaaaah!
KID RORY sprouts a VAGINA, mistakes the camera for a sex toy and shoves it into his vagina (notice how I still used his preferred pronouns even though he has a vagina now? Not that hard, ROWLING), then his stomach INFLATES AGAIN and he gives birth to VICAR RORY out his VAGINANUS.
JESSIE BUCKLEY
Someone please make a version of this scene with U.S. Supreme Court justices deepfaked in Rory's place.
VICARORY'S stomach swells and HOMEOWNERORY comes out his bellybutton! Then Homeownerory gets pregnant and POLICE RORY comes out his nostril! Then POLICE RORY gets pregnant and BARTENDER RORY comes out of his EAR! And his NEXT OF KIN RORY comes out the other KINNEAR!
RORY KINNEAR
WAAAAAHHHHHHH!
JESSIE BUCKLEY
(covers ears)
I don't like how you're sounding!
RORY KINNEAR
I'm not sounding, nothing's come from my urethra yet. WAAAAHHHHHH!
She gives him a look that clearly says "I'm so over this bullshit" and just walks away.
INT. LIVING ROOM
JESSIE sits on the couch while PAAPA ESSIEDU finally crawls out of the last Rory's MOUTH. He nonchalantly sits next to her, dripping afterbirth on the silk upholstery.
JESSIE BUCKLEY
What do you want from me?
PAAPA ESSIEDU
Sex. Your love!
JESSIE BUCKLEY
My love? Really? I told you, you're wasting your time talking to me.
(pause)
However you would not be wasting your time... if you were DANCING with m-
END.
EXT. YES, REALLY
GAYLE RANKIN
Here I am! Sorry that the credits already started, but - ack, you're cheerfully sitting in a pile of blood.
JESSIE BUCKLEY
"Cheerfully" because I appear to have been worn down by supernatural shit to the point that normal sexism doesn't bother me anymore.
DIRECTOR ALEX GARLAND
Successful blow to the patriarchy, eh lass? I just remembered this movie technically stars a woman so a single shot of her looking alive and happy definitely wraps her up, huh? You're all over your trauma, right Jessie?
JESSIE BUCKLEY
Nope.
(shoves Alex off balcony)
Yep.
END.