​By SHANE CARRUTH (2009)

Here we have what has fast become one of the most fabled unfilmed screenplays: a 245 page science fiction themed oddity from Shane Carruth, of PRIMER (2004) and UPSTREAM COLOR (2013). A TOPIARY was intended to be filmed between those two pictures, and had it made it to production would doubtlessly have emerged as the most monumental and ambitious film of the lot. Unfortunately that never happened, with Carruth (and his producers Steven Soderbergh and David Fincher) unable to raise the desired $14 million budget, and later writing the whole project off as “the thing I basically wasted my whole life on.”

After reading through this epic I can fully understand why investors weren’t eager to reach for their wallets, as it’s profoundly weird, enigmatic and overlong (Carruth writes at the outset that the script “does not adhere to the one-page/minute convention,” with the first portion timing out at, he claims, 30 minutes and the second at two hours). Beyond that A TOPIARY suffers from an overly plot-driven aesthetic that results in highly sketchy characterizations, and also the type of deliberately enigmatic storytelling that’s a hallmark of Carruth’s brand of cinema. Those unfamiliar with his films probably won’t appreciate Carruth’s penchant for leaving out the connective tissue of his descriptions, which are often explained away with dialogue like “We…fed them…wrong…I think…and I promise…and I’m sorry…we won’t do…it anymore…I promise.”

Offsetting those things is the amazing fecundity of Carruth’s imagination, which is given quite a workout in these pages. Described are a number of mind-tugging contraptions, each with its own name and properties, contained in a two part narrative with a construction and overall structure that’s unique to itself, and concludes on a note of cosmic awe worthy of 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY. This script, for all its flaws, would make for quite a movie.

The first of A TOPIARY’S two parts, set in the early 1980s, concerns the 30 year old Acre Stowe, a land surveyor who grows obsessed with a recurring starburst pattern he sees reflected in various places. This leads Acre into the orbit of a group of similarly obsessed folk, and a trek that takes him literally to the ends of the Earth and (it’s implied) leads to the creation of a contraption that comes to dominate the second and much lengthier part of the script.

This portion of A TOPIARY is centered on a group of inquisitive young boys (who appear to have been patterned after the headliners of eighties kid films like THE GOONIES and EXPLORERS). They find the contraption birthed by the first portion of the script, an object whose primary function is to emit discs that transform into strange funnel-like objects with unique scientific properties. The kids find all sorts of neat things to do with these objects, using them to create robotic monstrosities and vast alien structures that apparently hail from an extraterrestrial source seeking to enslave the universe.

Sound wiggy? It is, with an imaginative verve that continually tops itself in audacity and invention. One can only hope that, should A TOPIARY ever be filmed, Carruth will fix the many problems with which his script is riddled. Characterization, as previously mentioned, is a major issue, particularly in regards to the children of the script’s second part, none of whom ever emerge as distinct individuals. Carruth’s attention is, perhaps understandably, focused on all the near-indescribable bizarrie, and I must admit this element by itself was more than enough to sustain my interest.