The Truman Show Page #12

TRUMAN:

(unable to contain his news)

I'm going to Australia.

RAQUEL:

Mom's real sick.

Truman's face falls. As he enters the bedroom where his ill

MOTHER lies gazing at the ceiling, we focus on his EXCHANGE

STUDENT APPLICATION that he has inadvertently crushed in his

hands.

THE FLASHBACK SEQUENCE OVER, WE RETURN TO THE PRESENT TIME WITH

THE IMAGE NO LONGER APPEARING ON A TELEVISION SCREEN.

INT. TRUMAN'S CAR. NIGHT

TRUMAN turns into his street but stops several houses short of

his own driveway and kills the car's engine. In the light of a

streetlamp, Truman opens his briefcase and removes the framed

photograph of his wife, MERYL. But he turns his wife's face

away from him and opens the clasps on the back of the frame.

Removing the backing, he exposes the composite picture of SYLVIA

we witnessed in the flashback of his youth, worn and faded by

the years. With the frame on his lap, Truman retrieves a

handful of paper fragments from his jacket. Noses. He tests

the likeness of each one in turn. Unsatisfied that any of the

new noses is an improvement, Truman tosses them out of his car

window. We watch the paper fragments blowing in the breeze as

Truman's car proceeds down the street and into his driveway.

EXT. SYLVIA'S BEACH HOUSE. DAY.

Close up on a nose. We pull back to reveal that the nose

belongs to SYLVIA, seventeen years older than Truman's composite

picture - slimmer in the face, wearing her hair shorter.

She is standing at the water's edge on a long, deserted

windswept beach, several sailing dinghys pulled up beyond the

high-water line. In the background, a solitary, white

beachfront house - an other-worldliness to the idyllic scene.

Looking up into the sky, Sylvia's attention is drawn to a piece

of paper carried on the ocean breeze. The paper catches on the

mast of one of the sailing dinghys. A page from a newspaper,

carrying a photograph of TRUMAN in the street where he

encountered his father. Sylvia retrieves the page. The

article's headline reads, "TRUMAN'S FATE IN DOUBT".

Spying a MAN, late-thirties, kindly face, riding up to the beach

house on an old bicycle, Sylvia secrets the page under her

sweater. The man waves cheerfully as he comes to join her on

the sand. Sylvia waves cheerfully back.

INT. BAR SOMEWHERE. NIGHT.

In a quiet bar, a WAITRESS patiently explains her viewpoint to

the BARMAN. A PATRON on a barstool, eavesdrops.

WAITRESS:

She was willing to lose him if it meant he

could find himself.

(registering the barman's blank look)

Never mind.

EXT. TRAIN STATION PARKING LOT. MORNING.

TRUMAN sits in his car, about to lace his coffee. From inside

the adjacent Elementary School gymnasium, he hears the familiar

excited squeals and shouts of SCHOOL CHILDREN. Truman suddenly

throws aside his miniature of Jack Daniels and sprints across

the parking lot and into the school.

INT. UTOPIA ELEMENTARY SCHOOL. MORNING.

TRUMAN slams through the front doors into the reception area.

It is deserted, no one stationed at the administration desk, the

corridors empty. He runs down a vacant corridor, pushing open

classroom doors as he goes. They are all unoccupied.

Finally, he stands outside the gymnasium. The childrens'

voices can still be heard. Truman takes a deep breath and

bursts through the double doors.

The room is empty save for a large reel-to-reel tape recorder

in the middle of the basketball court playing a continuous tape

of childrens' voices. The recorder is attached to speakers on

tall stands facing the ventilation ducts. Truman stares at the

machine in disbelief.

EXT. LOWER MANHATTAN STREET. MORNING.

TRUMAN exits the subway, still lost in thought. He stops at

the newstand and picks up a copy of Vanity Fair to resume his

ritual search but his heart is not in it.

He starts his trek to work, pausing to stare at his reflection

in the mirrored building, hoping that the Homeless Man will

appear at his side once again. But no one joins him.

However, as Truman continues to stare, it is the building itself

that takes his interest. An imposing forty-story office

building, a black, sheer mirrored box clad in the kind of

reflective glass that shields its occupants from the world, a

building Truman passes every day.

As usual, a steady stream of EMPLOYEES and VISITORS enter and

exit the building's high-ceilinged lobby past an intimidating

security desk manned by two UNIFORMED GUARDS. Beyond security

are banks of elevators, ferrying executives, clerical staff and

delivery personnel to and from their floors of business.

Truman abruptly enters the building. He strides confidently

past the security desk trying to look as if he belongs.

SECURITY GUARD 1

(to Truman)

Can I help?

TRUMAN:

(sneaking a glance at the

building directory)

I have an appointment at, er...Diamond

Enterprises.

SECURITY GUARD 1

They went bust.

The second Security Guard is rising from his seat to block

Truman's path to the elevators but Truman reads his mind

and makes a dash for it.

He slips into an elevator just as the doors are closing,

defeating the flailing arm of the pursuing guard. A WOMAN

EXECUTIVE in the elevator looks in horror at Truman. The cause

of her concern becomes all too apparent. Looking beyond the

woman, Truman discovers that there is no back to the elevator

car.

The elevator is simply an opening into the body of the building.

Truman pushes past the Woman to be confronted with the fact that

the entire office block is nothing but a giant, empty shell with

no floors above the ground floor.

The PEOPLE Truman has just witnessed entering the other

elevators are milling around a refreshment table, sitting on

folding chairs, changing their clothes behind temporary

curtained cubicles or lining up to re-enter the bogus elevator

cars. Gradually, they all turn to gape at Truman, who in turn

stares back, appalled.

The Security Guards suddenly appear at Truman's side and take

him by the arm.

SECURITY GUARD 1

You gotta leave.

TRUMAN:

(riveted by the equally-stunned

building occupants)

What're they doing?

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