阅读今年奥斯卡提名剧本

Chris wakes up bald. Static snow clicks fills the TV lighting the room. The image clicks to that of...

Jim Hudson, also shaven, sits on a hospital bed. And faces Chris through the television.

Father Leviatch runs auditions - there is something funny and depressed about him. An overweight woman, Miss Patty, accompanies on the piano when needed. 

A boy, Greg, is up. He has a big voice for such a tiny boy:

We float at the bottom of a river. Surrounded by water. 

Fish swim away. Debris floating in the water-

And, then, a lamp floats by-

A coffee pot-

A shoe.

MILDRED HAYES, a woman in her early 50's, driving along a country road, passes an old billboard, roadside. Whatever advert was on it is long since faded and torn. MILDRED drives on, to a second billboard a few hundred feet along the road. 

She notices this one a little more, though its old adverts are equally ramshackle. She slows to a stop. 

After looking up at the billboard a while, she slowly reverses and stops at the first, then at all three, stretching away to the quiet horizon. 

Makes a mental note of "EBBING BILLBOARD ADVERTISING," then drives on again, leaving the three old billboards alone like tombstones on the dusty road. 

The sound of an approaching car. ELIO, 17, barefoot and in his bathing suit, is in the process of moving his clothes from his room to the adjacent room - a wardrobe somehow refurbished into a single bedroom. The two rooms are separated by a ruined wooden door, with cracks all over it. MARZIA, a girl of about his same age, is lying on the bed. It is obvious both have been on it together. 

ELIO goes to the window and looks down. A car pulls up below, blowing up clouds of dust, and stops at the villa's main entrance. A young man steps out of the car, wearing a billowy bright blue shirt with a wide-open collar, sunglasses. This is OLIVER, 25. He is followed by the handy-man and gardener of the house ANCHISE. 

They stand there, together, a long beat.

Isn't that a wild idea... But then his face changes. The wheels turning. Something occurs to him.

A - Tommy draws the curtains for complete darkness.

We hear:

B - Tommy sets up a typewriter on a desk. He places his copy of "Streetcar Named Desire" next to it.

He turns to face a DISHEVELED HISPANIC WOMAN, 35. She stands about twenty paces from THE BATTERED FIAT WITH ONE HEADLIGHT, wipers on. Logan eyes the woman, wild-eyed, dirty raincoat, gets a big whiff of "crazy."

Logan moves past her, heads for his limo in line with others.

Logan looks at her as THE MOURNERS (his clients) come down the hill toward the line of black vehicles. 

A stack of chips gets slapped on the table as an opening bet and in

a --

--we see cards being dealt, bets being raised, hands being folded, Molly making a vodka and Red Bull, the final card being flipped, hands, chips, cards, vodka and Red Bull etc.--

MOLLY's in the corner. She's standing at a small table with her laptop open, watching, listening and Googling. We push in on her slowly, cutting in the action of the game as we go, all the while hearing the thumping of the music from upstairs. 

OVER BLACK we hear the distant rumbling of THUNDER.

TIGHT ON THE FACE OF JAMIE MCALLAN (Caucasian, 20's)

Black eye. Cut lip. He looks like a beaten prize fighter who is dripping in sweat and mud. WIDEN TO REVEAL we are...

The ash colored storm clouds make it look like night. Jamie scrapes the muck off his shovel blade and resumes. The mud is so thick it's like digging into raw meat. 

A distant lightning flash accompanied by THUNDER. Jamie ups his urgency as he chops at the wet earth. An upside down face appears in the hole's opening. It's HENRY MCALLAN (Caucasian, late 40's), Jamie's salt-of-the-earth, older brother. Henry is a man of few words who rarely smiles. They speak with the lilting garble of the Mississippi Delta.