Hey folks, Harry here. Now... all of you good folks should realize that this is the same draft of UNBREAKABLE that Moriarty reviewed... that IGN's folks have reviewed... that... Well, It's made the rounds. However, I refuse to read this script. After SIXTH SENSE... I try to keep M Night's films as secret to myself as possible. This has minor spoilers, and merely pokes at the ending, without giving it away. You should also know, that this draft is NOT necessarily the shooting draft, and that M. Night may very well of changed the ending... or perhaps has done something even weirder... I don't know, Scrubbing Bubble doesn't know, IGN don't know, Corona don't know... Nobody but Shyamalan and his editors and post folks know for sure. And... we're working on em. Muhahahahaha Just kidding. I don't want to know.
THE SCRUBBING BUBBLE REVIEWS THE SCREENPLAY M. NIGHT SHYAMALAN'S "UNBREAKABLE"
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It starts quitely and builds with power until I almost can't take it and then-
And then M. Night Shyamalan, who wrote and directed last year's sensational "The Sixth Sense", tries to give his new script "Unbreakable" a twist ending. It happens in the last four pages and everything suddenly falls flat. Maybe he didn't feel an audience would embrace it the way they did "Sixth" without some mind blowing final twist. Maybe he planned it all along and on screen it will work briliantly. But for what its worth, on the page, it doesn't.
Night's October 8th 1999 draft of UNBREAKABLE runs 128 pages. The film, which has already finished principal photography, stars Bruce Willis as David Dunne, a security guard at a football stadium. After being involved in a massive subway car crash in which 131 people die and he survives without a scratch, he starts to show signs that he's...invincible. Neat, huh?
Then there is Elijah, a man who was born with Osteogenesis Imperfecta, a rare disorder that makes his bones less dense. That basically means that if you bumped into this guy the wrong way, you'd hear the sickening crack of his arms and legs breaking. Samuel L. Jackson should bring major power to this role. Since his mother gave him his first comic book as a child, he's been obsessed with these gods who stop crime and have superhuman strength. He runs a comic book shop called "Limited Edition" and claims to be one of the world's most knowledgable comic book experts.
Night sets up these two men's lives beautifully. Within just a few pages I was there, totally sucked in. In a lot of ways, this is a better story than "The Sixth Sense". It is so original and challenging. That's why I got a little pissed over the ending.
Basically, Elijah seeks out David. He's been tracking the city's worst disasters and looking for survivors like David. He's convinced that out there somewhere exists a man who is his polar opposite. While he jokingly refers to himself as Mr. Glass, he believes out there is a man who can't be hurt. And he finds him in David.
These two men, the relationship that develops between them, and how it effects their lives is wonderful. You sense this profound feeling of hope welling up while you read. In this dark drab world, we get this slight hint of hope that there is a man similar to those in comic books. A man who could protect people who are fragile, like Elijah. Like the rest of us. This feeling pervades the whole film and finally, when David dones a costume that isn't really a costume, but at the same time is, we feel this burst of joy. You're so happy that someone out there who can help us. And you love Elijah for making him accept what he has to do.
And then Night gives us this really sucky, Usual Suspects ending that boggled my mind. Sure, it's clever. Sure it might work in the movie. It might. But this ending totally ruins the emotion and morality of what he set up. It undermines everything we invested in Elijah and in his philosophy. And it hurts. It's strange how only a few pages can turn a whole script around and just ruin that feeling of joy you had at reading something so great.
Kudos to the script. I loved it. But the ending really let me down
The Scrubbing Bubble
