The Beaver (Lost #4 of 5)

Genre: Absurdity with a Kauffmanesque structure

Premise: A depressed man picks up a Beaver puppet. The puppet starts talking to the man in a British accent and completely changes the man's life in a positive way.

Writer: Kyle Killern (only known script)

About: This made the blacklist and since then has had both Steve Carrell and Jim Carrey attached to star as Walter.

Like most magic potion/genie stories, this isn't a comedy. Okay, maybe it is. But it's not completely ridiculous like Kazam!, rather it's a black comedy that takes an honest approach at how depression messes up families and how sooner or later in order to repair one's life, they'll have to approach the real issues. The Beaver puppet helps depressed Walter take charge at work (a toy company) in restructuring the main toy line and even repairs Walter's relationship with his family. Nobody bothers to buck Walter or all him crazy for answering to the beaver, because for one in Walter's life he's actually happy and starting to fix things. And that's why this story works, it makes us buy into the crazy logic. I mean of course there's the question of how much Walter is actually controlling the puppet, or whether it's a force with a mind of its own. But, perhaps this is purposefully an unanswered question.

This isn't an amazing script, but it's gotten a ton of visibility and it's a very strong effort from last year's Black List. And in terms of genre, congratulations to Killern. Rather than treat the material as a ridiculously broad Jim Carrey comedy, the story becomes a much darker piece about a man and his talking British beaver puppet. You could completely hate this thing, but it's been remembered because it's such a strong and original take on the material.

Scooby Doo (Complete Crap)
Atilla (Poor, Few Redeeming Qualities)
Wedding Crashers (Mediocre)
[X] Hot Rod (Good)
Definitely Maybe (Pretty Darn Good)

Isla Roles: The only main female character in this thing is the wife and she is much older than Isla.

Tip: This script has gone very far for one reason: it's so weird. And that alone is it's selling point, Everything else about the story is mediocre, but because we've never seen a story about a guy with a talking beaver puppet The Beaver becomes a compelling read.