PALINDROME
Script Bible
© 2007 Ken and Ann Kopelson
Contact: kenbkop@gmail.com
LOG LINE
A man discovers the eternal effects of truth.
© 2007 Ken and Ann Kopelson
2
Contact: kenbkop@gmail.com
TREATMENT
Thirty-five-year-old Dennis Laerton, a once-successful Auckland real estate developer, receives notice that
he is to be evicted from his large upper-middle-class home. He attempts suicide by inhaling carbon
monoxide from his garaged red Saker. In a flashback of the day, recalling two unsuccessful real estate
showings despite repeated proclamations of the “amazing views”, he is interrupted by a phone call from his
brother Bobby inviting him to an All Blacks match in Wellington. Because Wellington Airport is closed due
to inclement weather, he decides to drive his Saker. Leaving the airport, he meets a middle-aged Maori
woman named Mohio who tells him, “We’ll be watching you carefully, Mr. Laerton.”
In a flashback, Dennis’ wife Denise admits that she has been having an affair and wants a divorce. In
another flashback, Dennis recalls his ex-wife’s refusal to allow him further visitation rights to the children,
due to his excessive drinking.
On the way to Wellington he encounters a severe thunder storm, and is directed by a police officer to take a
detour. Because one of the detour signs has been blown over, he turns on a wrong street, and after narrowly
escaping having his car struck by a massive lightning bolt he winds up in the mysterious and remote town of
Palindrome. As he drives through the town, he discovers that he cannot escape it, always finding himself reentering the town after he has attempted to leave. Thinking he must be dreaming, he sleeps in his car and in
the morning meets some of the locals who look identical to the real estate customers and others he had just
met the day before: Burt, the balding tough guy; Ming the cook; Tommy the old codger; Robbie the fireman;
Bonnie, the gum-chewing diva; Bob the constable; and Otto the British bulldog.
At the urging of Burt, Dennis attempts to prevent a collision but his efforts result in the injury of a young girl
named Denise. Dennis then accidentally runs over Constable Bob and is appointed to the position in his
place. The law book which he is told to enforce is blank. He is given a “wee bach” storage shed to live in,
and after confronting the townspeople who employ Otto to lick their plates clean, he learns that there is no
water in Palindrome. He strikes up a friendship with Hannah, the only adult in Palindrome he does not
recognize and to whom he is attracted, and adopts Otto who saves him when there is a fire in his wee bach.
A guilt-ridden Dennis arrives at the Palindrome hospital to visit to the injured girl and to bring her a gift of
Galaxy astronomy magazines. He meets another young patient there, a boy named Bernie. After a failed
attempt to leave Palindrome, Dennis angrily confronts the locals, demanding to know where he is. They
attack him with knives and a hatchet. He runs away and ignores their warnings by crossing a narrow swingbridge into the forest. He advances further and reaches a dam, where Mohio, wearing a hooded cape,
addresses him.
Mohio explains that the dam contains his memories, the water is the love he has not yet released, and the
forest is his soul. Dennis can restore the flow of water to Palindrome if he changes his mind about the
resentment he feels. Mohio challenges Dennis to consider if his wife was really to blame for the break-up of
his marriage, explaining that he never truly loved her since he could not be faithful to himself or anyone else
after he gave up on his dream of becoming an astronomer.
In a flashback, twelve-year-old Dennis has an argument with his father Bernie, who accuses him of
neglecting his studies and wasting his time reading Galaxy magazines and staring at the stars with his
Celestron telescope. In a drunken stupor, Bernie accidentally breaks his son’s prized telescope. A brokenhearted Dennis throws his Galaxy magazines into the trash. Mohio accuses Dennis of giving up on his dream
on that day. As he remembers the amazing view through his telescope such as the craters of the moon and
the rings of Saturn, Dennis finally confesses that, as a child, astronomy represented the hope of “infinite
possibilities” for his life.
© 2007 Ken and Ann Kopelson
3
Contact: kenbkop@gmail.com
In another flashback, 20-year-old Dennis drops out of university and joins a friend to sell real estate, enticed
by the prospect of financial success. Dennis explains to Mohio that he had a successful career, made lots of
money, and had a wife and children. She tells him that the boy in the hospital, who Dennis recognizes as
looking like himself, desperately needs his help.
When Dennis returns to town, the locals are grateful to him for restoring their water. Dennis visits Bernie in
the hospital. The girl Denise has now been discharged. Bernie tells Dennis that he needs a kidney
transplant; otherwise, he will have to give up on his dream of becoming an All Blacks rugby player. Dennis
volunteers to become the organ donor. He finds that Hannah, who reciprocates his feelings for her, is
Bernie’s mother – his own grandmother. Dennis donates a kidney to Bernie – who Mohio had explained to
him is his father – in a high tech operation.
After Dennis, the townspeople, and Bernie become increasingly ill, Dennis revisits Mohio in the Palindrome
forest dam. Mohio explains that Bernie is dying, and that Dennis must find the Clerk under the red rocket.
First thinking she meant his car, Dennis discovers that what is meant is a church with a red steeple. Inside
the church he finds James T. Clerk, an Irishman dressed like a star-ship Enterprise captain, sitting in front of
a large LCD video display with spinning galaxies. He explains that Dennis is responsible for a Category-3
Inter-generational cyclonic anomaly, or a rift in the fabric of the family-line continuum, and that he must
leave Palindrome immediately. If he fails, young Bernie will stay in Palindrome with Hannah and because
he will not be able to play rugby, the flow-on effects for Dennis because of his father’s resentment will
exceed what had already proved out in his life to date. The Clerk then gives Dennis specific instructions on
how to leave Palindrome.
Dennis goes to the hospital and sees Hannah. There is an emergency with Bernie, whose transplanted kidney
is rapidly failing. Hannah helps Dennis get petrol for his car, and despite her pleading, he hurriedly leaves
Palindrome after destroying the “Drive to the Conditions” sign at Palindrome’s border, amidst pelting rain
and a strike of lightning not unlike that which hit near him when he entered Palindrome.
Dennis awakes to find himself a road accident victim. He is taken to a hospital, where Denise, Bobby and
his children Trevor, 10, and Sheila, 4, visit him. After performing an MRI to rule-out an internal
haemorrhage, the doctor tells him that he appears to have been born with only one kidney. The rugby player
Bernie Fraser also visits, bringing Dennis a rugby ball signed by the All Blacks.
At a planetarium with his family in attendance, Dr. Dennis Laerton is introduced as a pioneer in the in the
fields of geometrical physics, antigravity, and zero-point energy. Dr. Denise Laerton and her two children
watch with obvious pride. Dr. Laerton stands before a room of starry-eyed guests at the planetarium and
says, "Alright, if we can have the lights turned down please...I'd like to now show you something truly life
changing...it's what dreams are made of." (The lights go off and the planetarium comes to life.) "Feast your
eyes on that amazing view!!" Hubble imagery and 3D-animations of astronomical events are displayed.
Mohio leaves the planetarium with a satisfied look on her face. Dennis and his son ride into the night sky in
the red-rocket car -- a symbol of infinite possibilities and how the universe is there for the discovery if one
has the opportunity to follow his dream.
© 2007 Ken and Ann Kopelson
4
Contact: kenbkop@gmail.com
Undressed Locations
Name
Panel
Dennis’ Car
(NZ-made Saker “Red Rocket”)
Palindrome
Swing Bridge
© 2007 Ken and Ann Kopelson
5
Contact: kenbkop@gmail.com
Palindrome Woods
Palindrome Dam
(Wall of Memory)
Palindrome Dam
(Mohio’s Platform)
© 2007 Ken and Ann Kopelson
6
Contact: kenbkop@gmail.com
Clerk’s Office
Exterior
(Under the Red Rocket)
Clerk’s Office
Interior
© 2007 Ken and Ann Kopelson
7
Contact: kenbkop@gmail.com