Now Showing: Batman: Duality

 

Batman: Duality

Genre: Action/Superhero

Director: Joseph Kosinski

Writer: APJ

Based on DC Comics characters

Cast: Jake Gyllenhaal, Chris Rock, Al Pacino, Jessica Alba, Lili Simmons, Melissa Leo, Orlando Jones, Hamish Linklater, Barry Sloane, Michael Rispoli, Kevin Dunn, Adele Exarchopoulos (cameo), Douglas Booth (cameo)

Plot: In the Park Row neighborhood of Gotham, a temporary stage stands before a crowd of Gotham citizens. Construction cranes and scaffolding line the skyline. Bruce Wayne (Jake Gyllenhaal) joins Mayor Marion Grange (Melissa Leo) and Councilman Lincoln March (Hamish Linklater) to unveil the Gotham Renewal Project, promising reconstruction after the devastation Bane left behind. Bruce speaks as a philanthropist, stressing that Gotham can heal through shared responsibility. As Grange approaches the podium, Bruce catches a faint reflection from a rooftop opposite the square. His expression tightens. He shifts his stance. A sniper’s shot cracks through the air. Bruce reacts instantly, lunging forward and tackling Grange to the ground as the bullet shatters the podium. Panic erupts in the crowd. Security scrambles to shield the mayor. Bruce looks back up toward the rooftop but the shooter is already gone. On the roof, a single shell casing lies abandoned, engraved with the faint outline of an owl. 

That night, Batman crouches on the rooftop where the sniper fired. He recovers the casing, examining the mark under the Batcowl’s lenses. The shot was clean, professional, and the insignia is deliberate. As he searches the area, the trail ends abruptly - ropes cut and footprints vanish into alley shadows. He peers over the edge, scanning the maze of fire escapes and wet concrete. Batman stores the casing and notes that whoever pulled the trigger wanted their message left behind. Bruce returns to the cave and loads the data. The Batcomputer hums as files process. The owl emblem enlarges on-screen beside ballistic trajectories and material readings. Lucius Fox (Orlando Jones) is in the cave combing through the evidence. He confirms the owl insignia doesn’t match any known criminal group but cross-references the alloy in the casing with old WayneTech contracts. The records show the alloy was used in limited-production prototypes from decades ago, mostly sold to defense contractors. Bruce makes a note to dig deeper. Before he leaves, he asks Lucius for any progress on Jason Todd’s body. Lucius shakes his head - the body was never recovered after Bane's devastation, which the city now calls "Knightfall". Bruce absorbs the news quietly before suiting up again.

On Gotham’s waterfront, Carmine Falcone (Michael Rispoli) supervises a late-night exchange of stolen WayneTech drone parts. Armed men load crates marked with WayneTech logos onto unmarked trucks. Falcone watches from the edge of the pier, cigar glowing in the night. His crew moves crates onto trucks under the cover of dockside shadows. Suddenly, a masked woman (Lili Simmons) in a crimson-lined cape drops from the girders above, tearing through the smugglers with ruthless efficiency. She moves fast — disarms one man with a wrist twist, drives her boot into another’s chest, and sends him crashing through a stack of crates. She uses heavy strikes, showing no hesitation to break bones. Falcone slips into the night as chaos erupts. He curses under his breath, motioning for his driver to get the car running. The Batmobile’s engine growls to a stop nearby as Batman arrives on scene just as she dismantles the last thug. For a moment, he mistakes her silhouette and agility for Selina Kyle. When she turns, he realizes it’s someone new - armored, efficient, and unwilling to explain herself. She warns him to stay out of her way and vanishes into the night, leaving him staring after her, unsettled by both her skill and her methods.

Inside Gotham City Police Department headquarters, district attorney and interim police commissioner Harvey Dent (Chris Rock) addresses the rank and file. His grief over his wife Gilda's death is sharpened into fury, and he reopens the Batman Task Force, declaring the vigilante a threat to Gotham’s stability. He blames unchecked vigilantism for letting chaos grow under Gotham’s nose. He promotes Detective Renee Montoya (Jessica Alba) to lead the unit. Montoya listens carefully, but makes it clear she will not lead a witch hunt - she will investigate Batman by the book, no more and no less. Dent doesn’t argue. Later, in his office, Dent flips a coin between his fingers while staring at photos of the upcoming Maroni trial. Outside the office window, Gotham’s skyline glows with reconstruction lights. Dent stares out for a long moment, the city reflected in the glass beside his own face - half in light, half in shadow.

At the Gotham courthouse, the trial of mob boss Lou Maroni (Al Pacino) begins. Cameras flash as officers escort Maroni through the crowd. He smirks for the cameras, cuffed but unbothered, calling it all a simple misunderstanding. Gotham’s press crowds the courthouse steps, eager to see the man who has dodged conviction for decades. Inside, Judge Clay (Kevin Dunn) presides with a steady gavel, but his bias is clear. Dent prosecutes aggressively, presenting wiretaps and ledgers, yet Maroni sits smugly, whispering to his lawyers. Montoya observes from the gallery. Dent’s voice cracks with anger when Clay sustains yet another objection against him. The courtroom goes quiet for a moment. Dent catches himself, straightens his tie, and forces composure. Across the room, Maroni grins, leaning back in his chair like he’s already won.

Later that day, Bruce meets with Mayor Grange and Lincoln March at a Renewal Board meeting. March  speaks about his desire to modernize Gotham’s leadership. March turns to Bruce, thanking him for the Wayne Foundation’s continued partnership. He adds that Gotham needs new voices in charge. Bruce answers evenly that Gotham also needs integrity. The press swarm him outside, praising March's civic dedication. Reporters shout his name, asking if he’s considering a run for mayor. March doesn’t answer - he simply smiles and shakes hands. Grange exchanges tense words with March, reminding him she intends to run for reelection. March smiles but his eyes linger on Bruce, appraising. As Bruce departs, he catches sight of a subtle lapel pin on March’s suit - an owl.

That night, Batman follows a lead from the sniper casing to a derelict apartment block. Files scattered in the room connect shell companies to historic Gotham families - old money hiding behind modern fronts. As he scans a ledger, the windows shatter. William Cobb (Barry Sloane), dressed in Talon armor, bursts through with blades flashing. Batman spins, barely ducking a blade that splits a beam beside his head. Their fight rages across the narrow apartment, Batman blocking strikes with gauntlets while Cobb’s strength drives him back. Batman manages to force Cobb through a wall and into the street, both landing hard on the cracked pavement below. Before Batman can close in, Cobb rises smoothly, seemingly unhurt. 

In a darkened parking garage, Batwoman interrogates a captured arms dealer. She holds him by the throat, demanding names tied to the Court. He stammers out Falcone’s connection to the old Gotham families. Before she can finish him, Batman arrives, stopping her from dealing a killing blow. She turns on Batman, accusing him of protecting the very system that allows the Court to thrive. She leaves in fury, warning that she will dismantle the Court her way.

At GCPD headquarters, Montoya meets with Dent to report on the Batman Task Force. She notes that Batman intervened in stopping Falcone’s smuggling operation. Dent insists Batman is part of Gotham’s sickness. Dent cuts her off sharply, reminding her who’s giving the orders now. He tells her to tighten the Task Force’s net - pull Batman’s contacts, informants, and sympathizers. Montoya says she’ll follow the law, not his grudge. Montoya later confides in a fellow detective that Dent is pushing the Task Force past its purpose - and his obsession with Batman is clouding his judgment. She quietly begins digging into Judge Clay’s connections, suspecting him of being in the mob's employ after what she witnessed in court earlier in the day.

Dent opens the next day of the trial with fire, recounting years of racketeering and witness intimidation from the Maroni crime family. Maroni listens, bored, polishing his gold ring. During cross-examination, Maroni is called to the stand. He plays the part of an honest businessman, denying every accusation Dent has charged him with. Dent paces angrily as Maroni stonewalls him. Judge Clay warns Dent to stay in line. Dent ignores him and slams down evidence photos. Maroni smirks, then asks the judge for a glass of water. Clay waves to a bailiff, who brings one over from the defense table. Maroni then offers it to Dent. Dent reaches to push it away, but Maroni splashes it across Dent's face. The liquid sizzles instantly. Dent collapses, screaming, clutching the burning flesh of the left side of his face. The courtroom erupts as officers rush in. Maroni, feigning innocence, shouts that Dent attacked him. Clay bangs his gavel and calls for medics to take Dent out of the courtroom. As Dent is carried out, half his face has already blistered raw. The medics cover him with gauze as he reaches out, grabbing his coin off the floor.

Night falls over Gotham General Hospital. Police stand guard outside Dent’s room, but by morning, the bed is empty. Montoya finds Dent’s office ransacked, files missing. She stares at the cracked glass frame holding a photo of Dent and his late wife. Outside, the city’s news screens replay the acid attack endlessly, painting it as another failure of Gotham’s justice system. Montoya visits the roof of GCPD and stares at the Bat-Signal, debating whether to turn it on. She doesn't.

At the courthouse, Batman examines the remnants of the water glass. The room is sealed off with police tape. The liquid burned straight through the evidence table. His scan confirms the acid was concentrated sulfuric compound, disguised in a tempered-glass decanter. He knows Maroni couldn’t have done that without help from within the courthouse.

The Wayne Foundation sponsors a gala fundraiser for the re-election campaign of Mayor Grange. The elite of Gotham fill the ballroom, dancing and sipping champagne as a jazz trio plays. Bruce circulates the room in a tuxedo. At the edge of the crowd, Kathy Kane (Lili Simmons) enters in a striking crimson evening gown. Bruce notices her immediately. Their eyes meet across the room. She crosses the floor toward him. Bruce excuses himself from a conversation and crosses the room. Kathy meets him halfway. Their exchange begins like any polite donor chat. They step aside, near the tall windows overlooking Gotham’s skyline. Kathy tells him she isn’t here to support anyone’s campaign. Her family’s name is built on old money, old power - and her father was one of the men who used that power for the Court. She explains that the things she discovered after his death - what he financed, what he helped bury - won't let her sleep. That's why she recently started wearing a mask just like he did. Bruce listens intently. She says that she doesn't want to save Gotham - she just wants to undo her family's part in its corruption by killing them. Bruce tells her that killing them won’t save her father’s soul, or hers. Kathy tells Bruce that she has something to show him.

Batwoman leads Batman to an abandoned Kane Biotech facility. She leads him through the debris to a lab filled with old cryo pods. She tells him that her father used to own this lab before the Court took it over. Batman studies the tanks, wiping frost from the glass to reveal deep claw marks. She explains that her father's technology allowed the Court to freeze assassins between missions and reviving them years, even decades later. Batman scans the metal tags, some dating back to the 1930s - one reads Cobb. Batwoman says Cobb was the first of the them. She says she wanted him to see the truth for himself.

That night, Dent uses his keycard to enter the Gotham City Detention Center. He wears a large overcoat with the collar hiding most of his ruined face. He stops outside a private cell. Inside, Lou Maroni sits on his bunk reading a newspaper. Dent opens the cell door. Maroni sets the paper aside. Dent tells Maroni he's there to deliver justice. Maroni smirks as he notices the burned half of Dent's face. He begins laughing that Dent is a real "Two-Face" now. Dent freezes. He flips his coin. It lands scarred side up. Dent pulls out a gun and fires two shots. Maroni drops. Dent slips out of the facility before the overnight guards arrive to the wing.

Lucius Fox scrolls through the detention center security logs - pointing out that Harvey Dent's keycard was used to gain access to Maroni before his murder. The camera footage is un-usable. The assassin clearly knew where the cameras were in order to avoid them. Lucius asks Bruce if he thinks Dent could have done it. Bruce isn't sure. 

Montoya enters the detention center to investigate Maroni's murder. The other detectives try to stop her, but she says she is on official Task Force business. Police on the scene mutter that it must have been Falcone taking out his competition. Montoya tells them that Falcone didn't need to kill Maroni while he's behind bars. Montoya then looks at the placement of the cameras, instantly knowing that there won't be any good footage of who did this. She leaves the cell. 

At City Hall, Mayor Grange spars verbally with Lincoln March over her re-election campaign. March presents himself as Gotham’s future, but Grange says that she sees him for what he really is - a puppet. Grange then steps out to the steps outside to give a speech to address the city's progress on the Renewal Project. Suddenly a bullet pierces her chest. Police scramble. Batman gives chase across rooftops, tracking the muzzle flash through infrared. He corners the shooter in a half-finished skyscraper - Cobb. Cobb escapes into a descending construction lift and vanishes into the night. Grange survives long enough to be loaded into an ambulance, but dies en route. 

Lincoln March delivers a televised statement from City Hall, calling Grange’s death a tragedy that must not break the city's spirit. Within hours, he’s declared an emergency mayoral candidate. Bruce watches from the Batcave, disappointed in himself that he wasn't there to save Grange again. Bruce calls Lucius and asks if he saw the speech and if anything sounded familiar. Lucius says that he's already ahead of Bruce, and informs him that March accessed archived Wayne Foundation plans years ago.

That night, Falcone meets masked representatives of the Court of Owls in a private penthouse. They promise his organization protection in exchange for loyalty and silence. Falcone agrees. The deal is sealed with a silent toast. 

Every television in Gotham flickers. A single live feed replaces regular programming. Judge Clay, bound and gagged, sits under a hanging light in a dark warehouse. Across from him stands Harvey Dent, his face split between light and shadow. Dent announces that he's holding a trial for crime of corruption and betrayal. He calls it “an appeal,” claiming that Gotham’s courts have failed, and this proceeding will set things right. He circles Clay slowly, reciting the judge’s record - the bribes, the dropped cases, the rulings in favor of killers and gangsters. Clay pleads through the gag. Dent ignores him. a and flips his coin. It lands scarred side up. Dent calls it fate. He pronounces the sentence: death. A gunshot ends the broadcast. Montoya, watching from GCPD, stares in horror. 

Batman traces the broadcast’s origin through Wayne satellite logs to a condemned industrial zone. Inside the warehouse, Batman finds Clay’s dead body hanging upside down, the coin pinned to his chest. Dent steps from the shadows. His once-polished voice now fractured, oscillating between two tones - half calm, half venom. He blames Batman for letting Bane’s chaos destroy Gotham, for letting his wife die, for believing order could be restored. Dent pulls out a gun and opens fire on Batman, who deflects the shot. Batman advances under the fire instead of retreating. Dent then charges Batman, hitting him with the butt of the gun. Batman disarms him and takes hit after hit from Dent, refusing to strike back. When Dent raises the coin again, Batman snatches it midair and crushes it in his fist, stopping Dent cold. Batman tells Dent that justice isn’t luck - it’s choice. Dent hesitates. Montoya arrives with the Task Force and cuffs Dent. Batman disappears into the night. 

Batman's investigation leads to a facility beneath March's private estate - a hidden network of cryogenic pods filled with dormant soldiers - all clad in Talon armor. Cobb waits among them. Batwoman appears, having tracked the Court separately. She and Batman clash over their approach. He wants to expose the conspiracy, she wants to erase it. The pods begin to activate, Talons stirring awake. The temperature gauges spike. Frost melts. The first Talon’s eyes flicker open. Cobb then attacks. Batman blocks with his forearm guard as Batwoman moves to intercept a second Talon crawling from its pod. Batman and Batwoman fight side by side. Each covers the other’s blind spot as more Talons break free. Batman disables life support conduits while Batwoman detonates small charges to slow the awakening process. During the chaos, Cobb corners Batman and taunts him for protecting a city founded on corruption. He calls Batman the Court’s greatest success — proof that Gotham will always need its monsters. Batwoman impales Cobb through the chest with his own blade, but he pulls himself free, still alive. She then triggers a series of explosives she planted before Batman arrived. Warning klaxons echo through the chamber as flame ripples along the walls. The cryo pods rupture one by one, releasing plumes of steam and fire. She orders Batman to leave as she detonates the explosives. He tries to drag her out, but she breaks free. She tells him Gotham needs someone to remember what was buried here — and that it can’t be her. She tackles Cobb to the ground to keep him from fleeing. Batman barely escapes as the lab is engulfed in flames. The blast sends him through a collapsing tunnel, landing hard as the shockwave rolls over the estate.

Morning breaks over the ruins. Fire crews swarm the March estate. Lincoln March appears on every news channel, condemning the terrorist attack that destroyed his home.

At GCPD headquarters, Dent sits in a holding cell behind bulletproof glass. He no longer hides the scarred side of his face. Montoya signs a transfer order. Officers secure Dent's wrists and ankles. Montoya seals Dent's coin in an evidence bag. Dent is led into a GCPD transport van. Montoya rides up front beside the driver. The driver mentions that they could have sent Dent to Blackgate. Montoya says quietly that Blackgate holds criminals - Dent has gone insane. The van pulls into Arkham Asylum.

In the Batcave, Bruce watches archived footage from the destroyed lab. Among the wreckage, Cobb’s body is never recovered. Bruce places Batwoman’s damaged mask beside the talon knife on his desk. Lucius informs him that March has secured emergency powers to fast-track Renewal projects citywide. Bruce turns toward the monitor as March’s press conference plays.

Far from Gotham, deep in the mountains of Eth Alth'eban, Talia al Ghul (Adele Exarchopoulos)stands before the bubbling green waters of the Lazarus Pit. She lowers a broken, bloodied body into the pool - the face obscured by bandages, but the red armor unmistakable. The liquid glows as the body begins to stir. Beside her stands a young boy, silent, watching curiously. Talia kneels and whispers to her son, Damian, that he's witnessing a rebirth. She tells him that Gotham belongs to his blood, and one day he’ll understand why it must be cleansed. Damian nods slowly as the figure in red armor rises gasping from the Pit - Jason Todd (Douglas Booth).

In Development

 

Batman: Duality: Rounding out the expansive cast of LRF's 6th Batman film will be Barry Sloane (Queen Margot, "The Bay") as a mysterious assassin, Michael Rispoli (The Alto Knights, Nonnas) as mobster Carmine Falcone, Kevin Dunn (King Richard, "God's Favorite Idiot") as a corrupt Gotham jusdge, and even Adele Exarchopoulos (Offside, Mr. Happy) is going to find the time around the production of Eidolon - the latest Bond film - to film a cameo appearance in this one as Talia al Ghul. Joseph Kosinski is directing from a script by APJ.

Unkempt Garden: Taron Egerton (Batman: Knightfall, The Hunchback of Notre Dame) and Sung Kang (Amnesiac, The Hammer of Thor) have joined the samurai drama Unkempt Garden to complete its cast process. Egerton will play a foreign tutor working with Lady Tomoko, played by Rinko Kikuchi. Kang, meanwhile, will be featured in an undisclosed villainous role. Cary Joji Fukunaga is directing the film based off a script by Dawson Edwards.

The Dam: The legendary octogenarian Dick Van Dyke (Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb, Mary Poppins Returns), at 100 years of age, has signed on to a supporting role in the children's book adaptation The Dam as a legendary piper. Jerome Flynn (Macbeth, "1923) and English singer Joss Stone are also set to join the project. Andrew Haigh is directing from an adaptation by Jimmy Ellis and Georgia Watts.

Eidolon: It wouldn't be a James Bond film without 007's support network. Richard E. Grant (Shatterhand, The Ballad of Dwight Frye) is back as M, Kelly Macdonald (Territory, Shatterhand) is back as Jane Moneypenny, Himesh Patel (Shatterhand, Carte Blanche) is back as Q, and Shea Whigham (The Punisher: Purgatory, An Irish Rendezvous) is back as Felix Leiter. Danny Boyle is directing this fourth entry in LRF's James Bond series, which is once again penned by John Malone.

Boba Fett: The debut project of Season 36 is set to be a solo film based on fan-favorite Star Wars character, bounty hunter Boba Fett. Jason Momoa (Tarzan, The Fall Guy) is set for the title role. The first additions to the supporting cast will be Tom Hopper (Crimson, L.A. Rex) as Jodo Kast, a bounty hunter sullying Fett's reputation, and Morena Baccarin as Sintas Vel, Fett's ex-wife. James Wan (DOOM, Tarzan) has been tasked with directing the film, which has been written by Nic Suzuki (Robopocalypse, Sniper).

Three Rounds: Director Jeff Nichols (Superman: Doomsday, Judas Iscariot) is taking a break from big-budget spectacle to direct Three Rounds, a drama about three brothers raised in a boxing household. Lucas Hedges (Mises, Cedar Ridge), Nick Robinson (Amityville, Survive the Night), and Boyd Holbrook (Last Days of the American Cowboy, Black Widow x Hawkeye) have been cast as the three brothers. Holden Abbott (Behind Closed Doors, Dust Saint) penned the script.

From the Desk of Alfie Ellison, VP of International Development: Curtain Call

 

"Last Resort Films has set Curtain Call, an original story developed by Daniel Day-Lewis and his son, Ronan Day-Lewis, who will direct.

The project follows on the heels of their much-anticipated collaboration Anemone, which is set to debut later this year and has already generated early awards buzz. Curtain Call will be the pair’s second feature together and represents the only project Day-Lewis has agreed to make with Last Resort Films.

The story centers on an aging Broadway star, played by Day-Lewis, who is pushed to the brink as he struggles with dementia. Cast in what may be his final role, he finds his grip on reality blurring as the play dredges up past regrets, lost loves, and flashes of brilliance. The result is a haunting and deeply theatrical meditation on memory, art, and legacy, culminating in an unforgettable finale.

Curtain Call further solidifies the Day-Lewis collaboration as one of the most anticipated in contemporary cinema.

“Working with my son has been the most rewarding creative partnership of my life,” Day-Lewis said in a statement. For Ronan Day-Lewis, the project expands on the intimate, formally daring style he first showcased with Anemone. “This isn’t just a story about theatre or decline,” he noted. “It’s about the beauty and fragility of holding on to what defines you, of what defined my father, and how performance itself can become both sanctuary and reckoning.”

Executives at Last Resort Films emphasized the significance of the collaboration. “Daniel has made it clear that this is the only way he will partner with Last Resort Films — by building films directly with Ronan,” said a spokesperson. “That trust is something we don’t take lightly, and it’s why Curtain Call has been given absolute priority on our slate.”

For any inquiries please contact LRF VP for International Development Alfie Ellison

Curtain Call
Project Details
An original story developed by Daniel Day-Lewis and his son Ronan Day-Lewis. An aging Broadway star is pushed to the brink as he struggles with dementia. His final role in a groundbreaking play brings him face-to-face with his past regrets, lost loves, and moments of brilliance. As his grip on reality loosens, the lines between the stage and his life blur, culminating in an unforgettable finale.
Attached Talent
Star Daniel Day-Lewis
Director Ronan Day-Lewis

Release: The Woman Who Walked on Red Snow

 

The Woman Who Walked on Red Snow

Genre: Drama/Historical

Director: Meirad Tako

Writer: Meirad Tako

Producer: Andrey Zvyagintsev

Cast: Yuliya Snigir, Yevgeny Tsyganov, Konstantin Khabensky, Irina Starshenbaum, Mikhail Gorevoy

Budget: $18,000,000

Domestic Box Office: $6,090,667

Foreign Box Office: $14,395,949

Total Profit: -$16,169,226

Reaction: With its all-Russian cast and subject matter, there probably wasn't much hope of profits as the very concept of the film limits global accessibility. That said, at least it wasn't a complete disaster - just a tough commercial sell.

"The Woman Who Walked on Red Snow is a visually arresting and atmospherically rich historical drama, but its poetic density often overwhelms the emotional core of the story. The film’s imagery is unforgettable, yet the narrative drifts, leaving its characters feeling more like symbols than flesh-and-blood people. Despite its ambition and undeniable craft, the pacing and heavy-handed metaphor dilute what could have been a truly devastating experience." - Elena Kostova, The Moscow Times

"The Woman Who Walked on Red Snow is a bleak, haunting portrait of revolution stripped of romance, anchored by Yuliya Snigir’s quietly devastating performance. The film probably could have used a director known for epic gravitas, but the story from Tako is pretty solid, culminating in a final act that is both shocking and tragically inevitable." - Dave Manning, Ridgefield Press 

"While undeniably atmospheric and thematically rich, The Woman Who Walked on Red Snow can feel weighed down by its own severity. Tako’s pacing is deliberately slow, but at times borders on repetitive, with the film circling the same emotional beats of paranoia and despair without enough variation. The supporting cast delivers solid work, though several characters feel more symbolic than fully realized." - Thomas Kline, The International Review Ledger

Rated R for violence, disturbing images, and thematic material.

Lasr Resort Films Jukebox: The Woman Who Walked on Red Snow

 

Now Showing: The Woman Who Walked on Red Snow

 

The Woman Who Walked on Red Snow

Genre: Drama/Historical

Director: Meirad Tako

Writer: Meirad Tako

Producer: Andrey Zvyagintsev

Cast: Yuliya Snigir, Yevgeny Tsyganov, Konstantin Khabensky, Irina Starshenbaum, Mikhail Gorevoy

Plot: The sky was an ocean of gray, thick with the ghosts of the past century, the ones who had worked themselves to death in factories, starved in the fields, or vanished beneath the boots of tsars. And now, beneath that sky, in the streets of Petrograd, a woman was walking, her boots sinking into the red slush of revolution’s afterbirth.

Ekaterina Alexeyevna (Yuliya Snigir) had once been a governess in the house of a nobleman, her fingers ink-stained from correcting the spoiled child’s arithmetic. Now, she was no longer a governess, no longer anything, just another woman with nowhere to go in a world that had suddenly been rewritten.

She walked past walls plastered with torn posters of Lenin, slogans peeling like dead skin. Every street had its own wreckage: abandoned mansions with broken chandeliers, kiosks selling bread at prices higher than a month’s wage, soldiers wrapped in thin coats as if warmth itself had been executed.

But she was not here to mourn. She was here to become something.

At a street corner, a voice slithered from the shadows:

“You are looking for work?”

She turned. A man, thin as a cigarette and just as burnt-out, watched her with eyes like dull rubies.

“Yes,” she said. “Anything.”

“Then come.”

His name was Mikhail Petrovich (Yevgeny Tsyganov), and he led her through alleyways as if he were guiding her through a labyrinth designed by hunger itself.

Mikhail was a man of contradictions—one foot in the new world, the other buried in the grave of the old. He had fought for the Red Army, his hands stained with the blood of men he barely remembered, yet he smuggled books banned by the very leaders he had killed for. He could recite Marx in the same breath as Pushkin, and his smile, though full of broken teeth, was sharper than an executioner’s axe.

He led Ekaterina through the city's labyrinthine veins, where alleyways narrowed like choked throats and doorways gaped open like mouths that had long since stopped screaming. Snow fell in soft whispers, covering the filth, but beneath it, Petrograd still bled.

They arrived at an abandoned theater, its grand entrance marred by time and war. The doors groaned open under Mikhail’s push, revealing the skeletal remains of chandeliers hanging like corpses above a stage that would never again know applause. The velvet seats were tattered, the once-gilded balconies draped in cobwebs. It smelled of dust, candle wax, and the faint metallic tang of ink and sweat.

Inside, gathered around a single flickering lantern, were those who had refused to let the world make them silent.

A woman with a shaved head sat at a wooden desk, scratching furiously in a ledger, her quill darting across the pages like a knife slashing at the past. She did not look up.

A man in a worn officer’s cap lounged in the corner, exhaling smoke in slow, deliberate spirals. A revolver sat at his hip, but the way he carried it suggested weariness rather than authority.

And in the farthest corner, a girl—no older than sixteen—knelt before a torn canvas, dipping her brush into a tin of red ink. The ink dripped, thick and slow, onto the wooden floor. It smelled wrong, too metallic, too rich.

Mikhail spread his arms wide, his shadow stretching across the ruined stage.

“Welcome to our little factory of dreams.”

Ekaterina did not hesitate.

She learned quickly, her hands growing calloused with ink, paper cuts, and the weight of dangerous knowledge. By the dim candlelight, she fed the old printing press, watching as forbidden words emerged on cheap paper, their letters sharp enough to cut. The ink stained her fingers like fresh bruises.

She bound books that had been condemned by both the tsar and the revolution—theories that questioned power, poems that mourned the dead, manifestos that whispered of a freedom neither capitalism nor the Bolsheviks could provide. She memorized the words she printed, carried them in her bones like a prayer.

She learned to move unnoticed, her footsteps a whisper on the city's frozen streets, carrying messages between men who dreamed of justice but always spoke in hushed voices, their eyes darting over their shoulders.

And she met them—those who would shape her fate.

Vasili Antonovich (Konstantin Khabensky), the man in the officer’s cap, had once been a soldier of the revolution. The Red Star still gleamed on his coat, but he wore it the way one wears an old wound. His eyes, hooded and dark, had seen too much. He still called himself a believer, but when he drank, he whispered that all stars eventually fell.

Anya Vasilevna (Irina Starshenbaum), the girl with the paintbrush, dreamed of a world where no one would have to whisper. Her hands were always stained red, and not all of it was ink. She painted posters with trembling fingers, her slogans bold and desperate—Bread for All! No More Czars, No More Tyrants! Revolution Belongs to the People!—even as the revolution devoured the people it had promised to save.

Sergei Dmitriev (Mikhail Gorevoy), the ghost of an economist, sat hunched over his ledger, scribbling figures that never added up. He spoke in numbers—wheat quotas, factory outputs, human bodies. He calculated the cost of freedom as though it could be balanced like an equation, but the answer was always the same: too much.

They worked together, a handful of nameless figures in the city’s wreckage, believing they were building something—something better than capitalism, something fairer than the tsar, something that would not devour its own children.

But revolutions do not care what people believe.

And the walls of the abandoned theater listened, their silence thick with the weight of something unseen, something inevitable.

The first betrayal came in the form of a single bullet.

It was a quiet night, the kind of night that had learned to hold its breath. Snow fell in brittle flakes, melting into the cobblestones, vanishing like whispers. Inside the abandoned theater, the lantern’s glow was low, flickering with exhaustion. Ekaterina had fallen asleep over a stack of pamphlets, her cheek pressed against ink-stained paper, when a gunshot shattered the silence.

Vasili was found slumped over his desk, his officer’s cap tumbled to the floor, his body unnaturally still. A single bullet hole, neat and unceremonious, had torn through his forehead. Blood pooled beneath him, thick and sluggish, creeping into the crevices of banned books and half-written manifestos. The ink and blood mingled, indistinguishable in the dim light. His revolver lay untouched, his cigarette still smoldering in the ashtray, curling smoke into the stagnant air.

Anya’s breath hitched, her shoulders shaking as she pressed her hands to her mouth. Mikhail cursed under his breath, gripping the edge of the table so hard his knuckles turned white. Sergei, however, merely exhaled through his nose and tapped a thin finger against his ledger.

“They are watching us,” he said, as if he had always known this would happen.

Paranoia seeped into their bones like winter cold. Footsteps in the night were no longer just footsteps. Shadows stretched too long in the gaslight. Conversations cut off the moment they entered a room. The walls had ears, the streets had eyes, and the revolution, which had once felt like a promise, now felt like a tightening noose.

And then, Anya disappeared.

One moment, she was beside Ekaterina, sketching a new banner, the words Workers of the World, Unite! still wet on the canvas. The next, her chair was empty, the paintbrush rolling across the floor, leaving streaks of red that looked far too much like blood.

She had not packed her things. She had left no note. Just absence, heavy and suffocating.

Had she been taken? Had she fled? Had she been dragged into the night by men who knew how to make a person vanish?

No one spoke of her. To name her was to invite the same fate.

Ekaterina wanted to stop. She wanted to run. But where could she go? She had no home, no family, no country that wanted her. The world had been burned down, and she had chosen to walk through the fire. To turn back now would mean admitting that it had all been for nothing.

One evening, Mikhail called her into a candlelit room. His face was drawn, gaunt from sleepless nights and meals skipped out of caution. The flame flickered between them, casting their shadows long and trembling against the peeling wallpaper.

“We have a job,” he said. “A real one.”

Ekaterina did not ask what he meant. She already knew.

The state printing house—the heart of the revolution’s voice. A fortress of ink and paper, where words were pressed into existence, where reality was rewritten daily. They would not go there for words, though. They would go there for the tools that created them.

Paper. Ink. Names.

Names that should not be known.

It was madness. It was suicide.

It was the only choice left.

Ekaterina nodded. “When?”

“Tomorrow.”

And so they went, slipping through the frozen streets like ghosts who had not yet accepted their deaths.

The printing house loomed before them, its windows glowing faintly, its doors locked tight. They moved quickly, cracking the entrance open just wide enough to slip inside. The machines hummed in the dark, great steel beasts churning out the words of the new world, their gears slick with oil, their mouths spitting propaganda onto crisp, government-sanctioned paper.

The air smelled of ink, thick and bitter, as if the revolution itself was bleeding through the walls.

They worked fast. Mikhail and Sergei tore through cabinets, stuffing reams of blank paper into sacks, snatching up canisters of ink. Ekaterina rifled through drawers, searching for something she did not have a name for—documents, orders, names that should not exist.

Somewhere in the distance, a clock tower struck once.

Then, the alarm rang.

A scream of metal, shrill and urgent, a sound that ripped through the silence like a blade.

A door burst open.

Men. Boots. Rifles.

Gunfire.

Ekaterina ran.

She did not think. She did not breathe. She moved as if her body had always known this moment was coming.

Behind her, Mikhail stumbled.

She heard him curse, heard the sharp intake of breath as bullets shredded the air.

Then, a sound like a body hitting the floor.

She did not look back.

She did not stop.

The next morning, the newspapers screamed their verdict in thick, black ink.

COUNTER-REVOLUTIONARY SABOTAGE ATTEMPTED IN STATE PRINTING HOUSE!

TRAITORS TO THE WORKERS’ CAUSE STILL AT LARGE—THE STATE WILL FIND THEM.

THE STATE ALWAYS DOES.

Ekaterina read the headlines through a cracked shop window, her breath fogging the glass. Beneath them, smaller words ran like veins of rot through the text: Agents of disorder. Enemies of the people. Saboteurs in the shadows.

She turned away. If she looked too long, it would feel real.

She hid in the attic of an abandoned factory on the outskirts of the city. The air was thick with the scent of old oil and rust, of metal that had forgotten its purpose. Dust clung to her skin. The silence was restless, broken only by the occasional scuttle of rats gnawing on forgotten leather boots.

She curled into herself, knees drawn to her chest, listening to the city breathe beneath her.

Mikhail was dead.

Anya was gone.

Vasili had been betrayed before he even had a chance to run.

And Sergei—

Sergei was still alive.

She waited for him as dusk bled across the sky, staining it the color of old wounds. When he arrived, he did not knock, did not speak at first. He simply stepped inside, closing the attic door behind him.

His coat was heavier than before, sagging under the weight of secrets. The ledger he always carried was gone. His face, always so composed, was drawn tight, shadows settling in the hollows beneath his eyes.

“You have to leave,” he said, his voice quieter than she had ever heard it.

She swallowed. Her throat was dry, lined with dust and unshed words.

“Where?”

“To the East,” he said. “The trains still run there. You have friends in Kazan. They’ll hide you.”

Kazan. A name from another life. A place where the revolution had arrived slower, where whispers still had room to breathe before they turned into confessions.

She nodded. There was nothing else to say.

But something gnawed at her, something that had been coiling in the back of her mind since the night Vasili’s body slumped over his desk. Since the moment the printing house doors burst open, too quickly, too precisely, as if the enemy already knew they were coming.

Her voice, when it came, was almost steady.

“Who betrayed us?”

Sergei did not answer immediately. He stood there, the last of the daylight slipping through the cracks in the ceiling, striping his face in bands of pale gold and shadow.

His hands trembled.

Not from cold. Not from exhaustion.

And she knew.

The silence between them was suffocating. A moment stretched too long, too fragile.

She had always known Sergei was pragmatic. He was the one who calculated their risks, who measured survival like an equation. He had spent his life translating ideals into numbers, freedom into bodies, resistance into percentages of failure.

But she had not thought—

She had not wanted to believe—

He looked at her then, truly looked at her, and there was no apology in his eyes. No guilt. Only resignation.

“I did what I had to do,” he said.

The words landed with the weight of a final breath.

The train exhaled steam into the freezing night, its iron lungs heaving under the weight of time and motion. Ekaterina stepped onto the platform with careful, measured steps, her boots slick with the ice of a world that had no place for hesitation.

She was no longer Ekaterina Alexeyevna. Not officially. The false passport in her pocket bore another name, a borrowed identity meant to slip between the cracks of a system that did not forgive.

Her coat was too thin for the journey, barely more than a shield against the wind that howled like the ghosts of all those who had run before her.

She found her seat and settled into it, pressing her fingers against the frayed edges of the wooden bench, willing herself to breathe.

The train lurched forward, metal grinding against metal, wheels catching fire against the frozen tracks.

The rhythm of the rails rocked her into a restless sleep, a lullaby sung by the dead—by Mikhail, who had fallen in the dark; by Anya, who had vanished between one moment and the next; by the revolution itself, which devoured its own children as if it had never wanted them to begin with.

She dreamed of running through Petrograd’s streets, but the cobblestones turned to paper beneath her feet, ink spreading like blood, and Sergei’s ledger snapped shut around her like a coffin lid.

Then—

She woke.

Not to Kazan.

Not to safety.

But to the sight of a ghost.

At the end of the train car, framed by the flickering gaslight, stood Vasili Antonovich.

Alive.

Ekaterina’s breath caught in her throat, her pulse a wild, stuttering thing. Her mind refused to make sense of what her eyes were seeing.

He had been dead. Shot clean through the skull. Slumped over his desk, his blood soaking into banned pamphlets like hungry ink.

But no.

No.

He had never been dead.

The world twisted, folded in on itself.

The betrayer had not been Sergei.

It had been Vasili all along.

He stepped forward, his officer’s cap still cocked at the same lazy angle, his boots polished to a shine that mocked everything they once stood for. There was no shame in his face. No regret. Only inevitability.

And then the others moved.

Two men in leather jackets, the kind that did not belong to workers but to those who hunted them, stepped toward her, their movements slow, deliberate, drowning in the certainty of their power.

One of them spoke, his voice smooth as iron chains locking into place.

“Ekaterina Alexeyevna,” he said, as if reading her obituary. “You are under arrest for counter-revolutionary activities.”

The train rumbled on, indifferent.

Ekaterina did not scream.

She did not fight.

There was no point.

The revolution had not saved her.

The revolution had swallowed her whole.

She closed her eyes, and outside the window, the snow was falling.

White as innocence.

Red as history.

No one knows where they took her.

The train pulled into a nameless station, swallowed by the dawn’s pale light, and from there, she vanished.

Some say she was dragged from the train car in the dead of night, her feet barely touching the frost-covered ground before a bullet found the back of her skull. They say she collapsed onto the ice, her blood seeping into the cracks, steaming in the winter air, and by morning, the snow had buried her as if history itself had decided she was not worth remembering.

Others say she was put on another train, this one bound for the edge of the world, to the camps where names lost meaning, where time dissolved into an endless cycle of labor and cold. They say she lived for years, her body bent over the frozen earth, cutting ice with fingers that no longer felt pain, her breath a fragile mist that disappeared before it could even reach the sky.

And yet, there are those who whisper something different.

That she never died.

That she never stopped moving.

That somewhere, in the endless expanse of snow-covered fields, beyond the factories that churned smoke into the sky, beyond the towns where posters peeled from the walls like dead skin, she still walks.

A shadow against the storm.

A woman wrapped in a coat too thin for the cold, her boots sinking into the red-stained snow, her eyes fixed on the horizon.

Searching.

Not for redemption. Not for vengeance.

But for the world that had been promised, the world that had never come to be.

Writer Commentary: Carpenter

 

Carpenter

Genre: Drama/Mystery

Director: Richard Kelly

Writer: Roy Horne

Cast: Nicolas Cage, Melissa George, Zackary Arthur, Ever Anderson, Matthew Lillard, Mary McDonnell, Holmes Osborne

Plot: Spring. Joel Carpenter (Nicolas Cage) wakes up in a sweat from a nightmare where he and his entire family was drowning. He looks over to his wife, Zelda (Melissa George), but she is still fast asleep. He tosses and turns, trying to fall back asleep, to no avail. Finally, Joel gets out of bed and walks out to the garage as if in a trance. He begins collecting every piece of lumber he has and setting it all in the middle of the garage. He hammers two pieces of wood together, calming his mind for a moment. He continues working away in the garage building - something - until the sun starts to rise over the house. The alarm clock in the bedroom begins going off. Zelda wakes up to find the bed empty next to her. She gets out of bed and wakes their two teenage children, Elena (Ever Anderson) and Josh (Zackary Arthur). Joel comes in from the garage, covered in dust and dirt, to join his family at the breakfast table. Zelda asks what he's been up to out in the garage, but Joel is silent. Josh starts talking about a project he's been working on at school about the atomic bomb, but the topic appears to anger Joel. He throws down his fork, pushes back his chair and stands up. He chugs his glass of orange juice and heads back out to the garage. The kids ask Zelda why their father is so bothered. She says she isn't sure, although perhaps the topic of bombs and wars may have triggered some thoughts about his time in the war.

[1] Carpenter probably sticks out compared to most of my filmography. Most of my writing projects can be easily defined in terms of genre, but this one was a bit different and less decipherable. It comes from a much wider array of influences than most of my work. Carpenter started out as a weird recurring dream I had where I was building a boat but didn't know why. I'm not a boat person, so it wasn't about a love of boats. Another major influence was the film Take Shelter where Michael Shannon who begins building a storm shelter when he has apocalyptic visions - but he might be crazy. And finally I was inspired by an old Philip K. Dick story with a similar story thread, but it was less moody and apocalyptic than what I was picturing.

Joel walks through the yard to the garage when he sees a strange white glow near the garage door. He stands there gazing at it until it slowly vanishes. Joel then enters the garage. Zelda knocks on the garage door to tell Joel he is late for work. Joel doesn't open the door, but yells through it that he took a personal day. Zelda is confused because Joel never misses work. Zelda watches as Joel drives away in his pickup truck around lunch time. He returns after the kids have come home and dinner is about ready with a truck loaded with lumber. Over dinner, the family all wants to know what Joel is building out in the garage. Joel finally confesses that he has decided to build a boat. They are all confused since Joel has never once mentioned any affinity for water or boating and they live hours away from a suitable body of water. Joel quietly eats before finally saying that he knew they wouldn't understand what he's doing. [2]

[2] I wanted to write something for Nicolas Cage ever since I started writing in LRF, but he never felt quite right for the types of projects I tend to write and had written by this point. Writing the end of writing the afirst few scenes, I knew Cage was the only man for the role and starting tailoring the writing towards some of his acting strengths.

The boat begins to be too big for the garage, so Joel uses his truck to drag the base of the boat out into the driveway so he can continue building. He takes more and more time off of work to continue working on it. Zelda has her mother Edith (Mary McDonnell) over for tea. The very idea that Joel is neglecting work and family in order to build some gargantuan boat seems appalling to Edith. She volunteers to go out and have a talk with him about it. Zelda doesn't think that's a very good idea, but Edith ignores Zelda and marches out to the driveway where Joel is hard at work. Edith demands to know why the boat is so important to Joel. He isn't able to answer her question though. Edith is frustrated with the lack of response and tells Zelda that she should do something about her crazy husband. After the outburst, Edith leaves and Zelda goes back inside. Joel sits next to the large boat, which is progressing nicely, taking a break. [3]

[3] Speaking of talent decisions, arguably the biggest decision other than Cage as Carpenter was figuring out what director could bring my vision to life. In the end, it came down to Richard Kelly and Panos Cosmatos. Panos helped deliver one of Cage's best roles and films in years with Mandy, but in the end I felt like the story wasn't nearly "metal" enough to make good enough use of Panos' sensibilities. This made Kelly the frontrunner, despite not having released a film since 2009.

Summer. The next door neighbor Nick Mullen (Matthew Lillard) walks over with a couple of beers and tells Joel the boat is looking good. Nick hands Joel one of the beers. Nick asks Joel what kind of boat he's building. Joel says he isn't sure exactly. Nick laughs and wishes him luck on the project. [4]

[4] Matthew Lillard is one of those actors that I have wanted to use and had considered for multiple other projects prior to this one.

Zelda is excited to see that Joel is dressed for work. She tells him that she is proud of him. The compliment makes him uneasy though. Joel drives to work and sits at his desk processing claims for the insurance company he works for. Once lunch hour hits, all of his co-workers are chatty but he feels disconnected from them. He looks at the clock but begins sweating when he notices that he still has four more hours to work. His phone starts to ring. Joel begins to panic as he looks at the phone. He begins hyperventilating, eventually passing out and falling from his office chair. He hits his head on the corner of his cubicle on his way down. Blood begins to drip from his head. Zelda receives a call from the office that Joel was taken to the hospital. She asks her mother to watch the kids and she rushes to the hospital. There she talks to Dr. Randolph (Holmes Osborne). [5] He tells her that there doesn't appear to be anything seriously wrong with her husband. Joel apparently had a fainting spell of some sort and fell, nothing serious. He suggests that Zelda take him home and help him take it easy for a while.

[5] Speaking of Kelly, once he was hired to direct I knew I had to give Holmes Osborne a role considering he'd already had major roles in Kelly's previous three films.

Joel informs the family that he has officially taken leave from work. Zelda is stunned not only that Joel would request it but that his bosses would allow it as well. Joel says that he thinks they are worried about a lawsuit from his fall so they said he can have as much time as he needs. Elena and Josh ask what he is going to do with his extra time. Joel says he is going to finish the boat before winter. Zelda is upset by this and excuses herself from the dinner table. She heads to the bedroom and begins crying. [6]

[6] I wanted to take a moment to talk about the soundtrack to Carpenter for a moment. All of the music are songs from German electronic band Tangerine Dream. This was decided upon at the very start of the writing process and I wrote the entire story while listening to a massive Tangerine Dream playlist I had compiled. I then whittled that playlist down to the soundtrack that was released.

Fall. Joel goes into the garage and begins dragging lumber and tools out onto the lawn next to the boat on the driveway. He gazes up at it. It is big and square, like an enormous crate. Twice the height of the one-story house - at least. There is a covered cabin with a big window. He uses a huge ladder to reach the top of the boat and begins tarring it. As he works, Zelda comes out of the house and silently crosses the yard. Joel comes down from the boat and begins looking through his tools for some large nails. Zelda folds her arms and finally asks the question that has been troubling her for months: Why? She asks what the boat is for, why he spends his entire days working on it. Joel murmurs that it's almost done. She demands to know what he plans on doing with it once it is done. She promises to try to understand if he will just try to answer why he's building it. Joel becomes frustrated and begins hammering random nails into the side of the boat. Joel tells Zelda that he can't answer her question because he doesn't know the answer - maybe he's building the boat for no reason at all. Zelda asks Joel to come inside. He refuses, saying he wants to finish the boat. Zelda gives Joel an ultimatum: he needs to give up on the boat and come inside with her or she's going to lock him out of the house from now on. Zelda walks back toward the house, expecting Joel to be following her. As soon as she hears Joel back at work on the boat, Zelda goes inside, locking the door behind her. [7]

[7] Zelda's ultimatum is where the tension starts to really build as Joel - for reasons even he does not understand - has chosen to continue building. I like the idea of uncertain characters making decisions for uncertain reasons and this kind of covers that concept to the nth degree.

Joel is sleeping in the garage now as he comes close to finishing the boat. Josh comes home from school one day and asks his father if he needs any help. Joel smiles at the question and asks Josh to climb aboard and look for any boards on the deck of the boat that aren't nailed down all the way. When it starts getting dark, Zelda calls for Josh to come inside for dinner. Joel gives his son and hug and thanks him for the help. The next day after school, Josh goes right back to checking on the boards. Elena decides to join in by asking her father what color the cabin should be painted. Joel tells her that there are some cans of outdoor paint in the garage, she can pick from the colors that are there. A while later Elena comes back with a can of blue paint. Joel says that you can never go wrong with blue and helps Elena board the boat to paint the cabin. Over dinner, Zelda asks Josh and Elena why they have decided to help their father with the boat now after all these months. Josh tells his mother that they just want to help finish the boat so that their family can go back to normal. [8]

[8] I was honestly having trouble coming up with stuff for the kids to do to remain active in the story by this point, and thought: what if they wanted to help their father? That question I posed to myself was a bit of a game changer for the story. The mysterious boat has gone from a point of conflict between husband and wife to a bonding element between father and children.

Nick comes over again with beers and starts chatting Joel up about the boat again. Nick asks how the boat will run. Joel seems confused by the question. Nick then points out that there is no motor or a logical place to put one. There are no sails or boilers or turbines. It's impressive in size, but more of a giant wooden box than a real boat. Joel bites his lip, admitting that he never thought of that part. Joel asks Nick to excuse him. Joel goes into the garage and begins tearing the place apart in frustration. [9]

[9] It was important for me that it was clear that Joel was acting on pure instinct with his boat construction rather than from an actual "carpenter" standpoint. A major crux in the story is that Joel doesn't know why or even what he's doing other than that it is of the utmost importance to his psyche and soul.

Winter. The boat, or whatever it is, sits in front of the house, complete. Joel is allowed back in the house now, but things are still a little tense between him and Zelda. Joel is uneasy because he still doesn't know why he built the boat or what he is supposed to do with it now. Zelda is just happy that he is done working on it though. Joel gets ready for work as all has more or less returned to normal in the Carpenter household. [10]

[10] I consider this scene the calm before the storm. Almost a false ending where things have mellowed and gone back to (mostly) normal.

A massive storm rolls into town, resulting in a torrential downpour. After several days, the rain has still not let up, resulting in all the roads in the neighborhood being flooded. [11] Joel realizes what the boat was all about now. He tells Zelda about a nightmare he had in the spring - right before he started building the boat - where they all drowned. [12] Zelda rolls her eyes at Joel's claim, but one look in his eyes and she can tell that he is being absolutely serious. She asks him what they need to do. He says they need to begin gathering supplies for the trip. Zelda and the kids walk to the store in water higher than their knees while Joel begins inspecting the boat to make sure there are no leaks from the water on the interior. When Zelda and the kids arrive at the local grocery store, they find it flooded with police on hand to start evacuating citizens to higher ground. Zelda tells Josh and Elena that they need to quickly grab as many canned goods. While they are filling baskets with canned food, Zelda goes to the garden section and begins grabbing packages of seeds. When they three get to the register, they are told they need to leave the store and cannot buy the items. Zelda tells the kids to run home as fast as they can. The family runs through the deepening water. The store manager calls out for the police that they stole the items. [13]

[11] I wanted the storm as it starts here to be threatening enough for the family to believe Joel at least a bit, but not so suddenly giant that it is completely clear Joel's vision was true. 

[12] Joel connecting the dream to the flooding is the closest thing the story has to an explanation. Even then, it’s not framed as certainty—just realization. I still wanted there to be some element of uncertainty for the audience and Joel's family still.

[13] This grocery store scene with the family is where I wanted things to escalate a little more quickly and become more intense. The grocery store scene shows how quickly normal systems stop functioning - and it is what pushed Zelda to belief. Zelda collecting soil and seeds specifically marks her transition from skepticism to belief. It’s the moment she fully commits to Joel’s perspective and starts thinking about survival.

Zelda and the kids arrive back at the house. Joel tells them to climb aboard the boat. Zelda has never been on the boat before and is immediately impressed by the cabin, which Joel has designed to resemble the family's living room. Zelda gives Joel a hug and apologizes for not believing in him earlier. Zelda then remembers that she has to grab one thing. She climbs down from the boat and begins filling buckets with soil from potted plants that are floating in front of the house. Elena asks what she is doing. Zelda says that she got seeds at the store, but if they are going to be able to grow food wherever they end up they will need soil. Joel and Josh help Zelda bring aboard the buckets of soil. Once they have everything aboard, Zelda asks Joel what the plan is. He says that they will stay on the boat. The water will continue to rise, but they will be safe. The family huddles together in the cabin to sleep. [14]

[14] Like I said earlier, one of the instigating ideas or kernels for this film was the Jeff Nichols film Take Shelter, but pushing it drastically past its ending point into the apocalyptic storms.

In the morning, Joel wakes up and goes out to the deck of the boat. The rain is somehow coming down even stronger than before. He looks out and sees that the entire neighborhood is now flooded under over 20 feet of water. Only the tops of the taller houses and buildings stick out from the surface of the brown waters. Joel also realizes that the boat is now floating in the water. Zelda joins her husband on the deck and puts her arms around him. [15]

[15] And we end the film with the Carpenter family floating above their entire neighborhood - and the world beyond it - who do not have their own ark to survive on. Thanks for re-watching Carpenter with me. I know it's not one of my most talked about projects, but I think it fits in a unique little corner on my resume.