Words on Bathroom Walls (2020), BBC 3, BBC iPlayer, Screenwriter Nick Naveda, based on novel of the same name by Julia Walton, Director Thor Freudenthal.

Posted by celticman on Sat, 09 Dec 2023

Words on Bathroom Walls was a 2020 release and mainstream movie. It had a budget of over $9 million. Yet it only took around a third of that at the Box Office. If it looks like a turkey and sounds like a turkey… But it’d be a mistake to think that. Some movies like Pretty in Pink come out at the right time and get caught up in a wave of similar Brat-Pack movies and help create a zeitgeist. They don’t need to be particularly good. Words on Bathroom Walls came out during Covid-19. No one went on cruises or to the cinema. Orders for cruise ships were scrapped. When the movie is made you might as well move on. Big themes, hoping for a big impact. But it’s bums on seat that count. Bummer.

Setup:

Adam Petrazelli (Charlie Plummer) is your normal kid at school. Perhaps handsomer than most. Doing normal dorky things with other normal dorky kids.

The Unexpected Change:

Whisper it, Adam is ill. He hears things and sees things. He’s schizophrenic. The voices in his head have faces and names.

Once they showed up. They never went away. There’s Rebecca. She’s sort of Dalia Lama and Marcella. Then there’s the bodyguard. He’s temperamental but loyal. Lastly, Joaquin. He’s like the porny best friend from a 90’s movie. Following you around. Saying all of your unfiltered thoughts.

The Bodyguard (Lobo Sebastian) Adam explains is self-explanatory. Black and bald he wields a baseball bat to protect Adam. Rebecca (AnnaSophia Robb) is a hippy-dippy pretty young girl and offers a female, protective, vibe. Joaquin (Devon Bostick) is ego unbound and teenage sleaze in one body.

The Rejection. ‘I Don’t Want’.

Adam doesn’t want to be ill. His way of quieting the voices in his head is to cook for his mum, (Molly Parker) Beth Petrazelli and later his stepfather, (Walton Goggins) Paul.

Now my mum is on this hopeless quest for a cure. Just like all the other delusional mums. Sitting in the same waiting rooms. With the same doctors. Quietly waiting for the same thing.

Yet, somehow my mum hasn’t given up hope. That makes one of us.

I’m part of an elite club called ‘Treatment Resistant’. You’re not going to have that ‘It’s not your fault’ moment from Good Will Hunting.

The Commitment:

Adam accepts that his schizophrenia isn’t going away. But his monomania with food in the kitchen allows him respite. It also gives him a goal in life. To become a top chef.

The Reversal:

Adam has another voice. The voice of doom. Oozing blackness. It cancels out all the other largely benevolent voices. It’s fight/flight. It happens in the school lab, when they’re mucking about doing a stupid experiment. Todd’s rambling on about girls.

First psychotic break. Never goes away. Never normal.

Todd’s burn was so bad, they had to take skin grafts from his ass.

The Embrace ‘I Do Want’:

Adam’s given another chance to be normal. It’s in a top Catholic school. But what the hell. They’ve run out of chances. Sister Catherine (Beth Grant) explains to Adam and his mum, he’s on probation. They’re on probation. He needs to achieve top marks. Any slip ups and he walks.

Maya Arnez (Taylor Russell McKenzie) a teenage prodigy is top girl in the school. Their meet-cute happens in the male toilet. His weirdness doesn’t unsettle but attracts her. She becomes his tutor. He’s smitten. She’s smitten.

The Return of the Main Opponent:

Adam stops taking medication that controls his condition.

Adam: What are you talking about?

Adam: Side effects. Just cross most of those off my list. I can’t cook anymore because my taste comes and goes.

Barely piss straight because my hand has a mind of its own.

But I swear if anything leaks out of my ass. Please, just kill me.

The Escalation:

Pseudo Parkinsonism.

Mum pregnant. What a human baby?

Sure hope so.

Adam look at me. I promise nothing is going to change.

Half way. Stop. Leave me alone. Don’t follow me.

Having a kid with my mum, doesn’t make you my dad.

Yeh, clearly!

Got me thinking. When you’re a cancer kid, people can’t wait to flock to your aid. They’re so eager to grant any wish you have before you die. But when you have schizophrenia people can’t wait to make you someone else’s problem. That’s why we end up on the streets, screaming at nothing. Waiting to die. No one wants to grant our wishes.

My mum said you lose your secrets when you let someone get too close. It can be painful to let someone into the dark and twisted things inside. But you have to hope they do. Cause that’s the beginning of everything. But letting Mya love me the way I am, would be like letting her catch a disease. She doesn’t deserve to be loved by someone that can’t see the world the way it is.

The Final Battle:

I am looking at you. I saw a son, whom I love more than anything.

Paul> the hug> ‘I’m sorry!’

It’s OK.

Am I going to sit and tell you that love and honesty can cure crazy? No. But they sure can help. It can be the beginning of everything if you let it.

The Twist:

Rock Bottom:

The Final Choice:

The Sacrifice, ‘I Reluctantly Give Up.’:

The Reward:

Notes

Moved to a new school, Adam wants to keep his schizophrenia diagnosis secret, especially from attractive, outspoken Maya. A trial drug subdues the voices and hallucinations, but side effects take their toll

Then Paul hid all the knives.

Paul: Maybe we should send him somewhere where they can take care of him.

You’re ruinng your mother’s life. You’re not the son she wanted.

In the first time in forever I woke up to complete silence.

MUM. You want to explain this?... I want you to tell me you’ve not been not taking your medication behind our back…Do you realise how much we have on the line with this school? With your medical expenses?

What about me?

What about what I need?

What are you talking about?

It’s all about you. All the time. All of it. The books. And the articles. And the staying up all night, reading forum after forum. Do you think you’re the only one in this house going through this?

So that’s what this is? Did they tell you this in parenting books?

Oh, my god! You are not the only one in this house affected by this. Do you think this is the life I wanted for you? For myself?

OK, I’m sorry for getting in the way of you and Paul. And the new baby. And your perfect new life that doesn’t include a crazy stepson, who hears voices.

There’s nothing you can do. Those pills made me feel I want to die. I can’t see. I can’t think. And I can’t cook. And what’s the point if I can’t cook? [dream]?

Share that with me. We’re supposed to be in this together. Remember?

We’re not on the same team. And we haven’t been since Paul moved in.

[Whose Life is it Anyway?]

Not fixable.

What is the whole purpose of this thing?

Whoever conceals their sins does not prosper.

Is this a fortune cookie prediction? Have you a list? Do you alternate?

Maybe?

It doesn’t make you profound. It makes you full of shit.

[Holden Caulfield]

Here’s something profound: Why don’t you kill yourself/

What?

Why don’t you excuse yourself? Take a day off?

I’m trapped.

Then it’s the pills makes me feel like shit.

Then Paul convinces you to send me somewhere cause nothing else works.

Nothing was designed to work. That was the plan. I was right. I was right the whole time.

That wasn’t the plan.

Shut up Paul. You poisoned my brain. You know he did that Mum. Can’t you see that?

[Bringing Adam down]

Listen to me. Listen to my voice. Adam! I’m telling you, you are my entire world.

Adam: I don’t believe you.

[three=quarters]

Voice? How are you going to survive the night? Take all the pills. Do it.

Priest: Telling someone our sins, admitting our flaws gives us the opportunity and strength to face them. And that’s why we confess.

Adam. No diploma. No culinary school. My life is over.

Mum: That’s not true.

Adam. You used to tell me I should see myself as a person dealing with an illness. But not become the illness itself. Mum, look at me.

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