The Beaver

As part of the ScriptShadow challenge this week, I read "the Beaver" by Kyle Killen. Carson lists it as a dark comedy, and while it definitely dips into dark on many occasions, I had a hard time finding the comedy, which is strange in a script about a man who speaks through a hand puppet for the majority of the story.

I have to admit, I never really felt engaged by "the Beaver." A big part of that is that I never really connected with the main character Walter Black. The script starts with a montage of Walter and his family's life narrated by the Beaver's voice. Now I'm not one of those people that flat out says that voice over is lazy. Though I do admit that a lot of lazy writers use it. It can end up being completely pointless and shitty. Want an example? Go watch Heroes. That voice over at best is redundant and poorly written and sometimes even takes the moral ambiguity out of the story.

The opening voice over/montage in "the Beaver" is actually pretty well written. It catches us up to the situation of the Black family really quickly, but there in lies the problem. By page 4, Walter's packed, kicked out of his home, and I can't really see that as a bad thing. The Beaver even says that Walter's depression "is an ink that stains all who touch him. A black hole that swallows all who get near."

So, yeah, we see that Walter's clinically depressed, but we never see him when life was going well. We never see him as a good father, a loving husband, or a happy employee. We never know what was lost as Walter sunk into his depression, so I never felt like I was rooting for him to get better. All I did see was how Walter ruined the lives of those around him, so why should I want him back with his family?

Another thing we don't see is how his family fares while he's gone. Basically he moves out on page 4 and is back with his furry mouthpiece by page 12. Would their lives improve once his cloudy presence had gone? Worsened? Who knows.

For a script with such an unusual hook, everything from that point on feels so cliche. Everyone's lives improve, the company turns around, Walter becomes a self-help guru. I kept waiting for something else. Something besides the obvious straight line the script ran, but it never came. The only two things that really stuck out to me were 1) how Walter's oldest Porter dealt with his stress by pounding his head into the wall and 2) how Walter finally separated himself from the Beaver. Though both of those elements were really interesting but also totally out of tone with the rest of the script.

Far more interesting to me than Walter and his Beaver, was the B-story of his son Porter. The kid is desperately trying not to be his father. That story, too, swings the way of cliche as it focuses more on him selling papers and speeches and falling for the hot head cheerleader who has tons of emotional baggage.

The Final Say: while well written with a bunch of intriguing concepts, "the Beaver" gets drown out by obvious choices. It took one big chance and then went the easy route for rest of the ride.