Script Analysis: ‘Palm Springs’ — Part 1: Scene-By-Scene Breakdown
Read the script for this indie comedy starring Andy Samberg, Cristin Milioti, and J.K. Simmons.
Reading scripts. Absolutely critical to learn the craft of screenwriting. The focus of this bi-weekly series is a deep structural and thematic analysis of each script we read. Our daily schedule:
Monday: Scene-By-Scene Breakdown
Tuesday: Plot
Wednesday: Characters
Thursday: Themes
Friday: Dialogue
Saturday: Takeaways
Today: Scene-By-Scene Breakdown. Here is my take on this exercise from a previous series of posts — How To Read A Screenplay:
After a first pass, it’s time to crack open the script for a deeper analysis and you can do that by creating a scene-by-scene breakdown. It is precisely what it sounds like: A list of all the scenes in the script accompanied by a brief description of the events that transpire.
For purposes of this exercise, I have a slightly different take on scene. Here I am looking not just for individual scenes per se, but a scene or set of scenes that comprise one event or a continuous piece of action. Admittedly this is subjective and there is no right or wrong, the point is simply to break down the script into a series of parts which you then can use dig into the script’s structure and themes.
The value of this exercise:
- We pare down the story to its most constituent parts: Scenes.
- By doing this, we consciously explore the structure of the narrative.
- A scene-by-scene breakdown creates a foundation for even deeper analysis of the story.
This week: Palm Springs. You may download the screenplay here.
Screenplay by Andy Siara, story by Andy Siara.
Plot summary: When carefree Nyles and reluctant maid of honor Sarah have a chance encounter at a Palm Springs wedding, things get complicated as they are unable to escape the venue, themselves, or each other.
Palm Springs
Scene-By-Scene Breakdown
Michael Korican
GoIntoTheStory.comP. 1–13: We see a large tortoise with three scars in a desert; the ground rumbles and an earthquake splits it, revealing orange beams from below. [Note that in the movie, the tortoise is a goat.] [In the movie, NYLES wakes up and attempts to make love to his girlfriend MISTY. She’s in a rush and can’t find her grandmother’s ring. He asks her, “Will you kill me?” She asks him not to bring their drama to Tala and Abe’s wedding.] Under a full moon NYLES walks down a desert road to a resort with a sign reading, “Tala and Abe’s Wedding, November 9.” [In the movie, we see the sign in the daytime. Nyles floats in a swimming pool and says, “Today, tomorrow, yesterday, it’s all the same,” to JERRY. CUT to a short MONTAGE of Tala and Abe’s daytime marriage ceremony, which Nyles attends in a Hawaiian shirt.] MISTY speaks at the nighttime wedding reception for TALA and ABE. SARAH, Tala’s sister, watches from the bar. After Misty finishes, Sarah is asked to say something by her parents HOWARD and PIA but Nyles takes over: “We’re all just lost, am I right?” He reveals little-known family secrets and closes with, “You are not alone…. Everyone her is your family…. (and speaking directly to Sarah) We may be born lost. But you have been found.” Dance party. Nyles anticipates everyone’s moves but Sarah declines to dance with him. Nyles and Sarah chat at the bar. Nyles asks her to run off with him. Sarah asks what would Misty think? CUT TO Misty’s ex-boyfriend going down on her in a bathroom. Outside the bathroom window, Nyles and Sarah converse; they begin to share a connection as Misty climaxes. Nyles and Sarah are making out in the desert when an ARROW (wtf???) hits him in the shoulder. She freaks out and Nyles runs away. ROY, the archer, can’t find Nyles, walks into a cave and disappears into the orange light. Nyles crawls into the cave as well, followed by Sarah. He shouts at her to not come in before being sucked deeper into the cave.
P. 13–20: Nyles wakes up and attempts to make love to Misty. [In the movie, the preceding is the same as the beginning of the movie — shades of “Groundhog Day?”] She’s in a rush and can’t find her grandmother’s ring. He tells her, “I meant kill me.” She asks him not to bring their drama to Tala and Abe’s wedding. Howard takes a sign reading “Tala and Abe’s Wedding, November 9” to the resort gate. Nyles floats in a swimming pool and says, “Today, tomorrow, yesterday, it’s all the same,” to Jerry. Sarah appears and confronts Nyles, demanding to know what he did to her. Tala runs out, slips on some water and her face smacks the ground. FLASHBACK as Sarah remembers last night’s ambush of Nyles by Roy. We see her follow after Nyles into the cave and then into the orange orb. Sarah wakes up in someone’s room, sees that it’s November 9, sneaks out into full wedding preparations. She tells her father this day already happened and her mom asks if she’s on drugs again. Sarah sees Nyles in the pool. FLASHBACK over.
P. 20–23: REPEAT of Sarah confronting Nyles, demanding to know what he did to her, Tala running out, slipping on some water and her smacking the ground. Tala wails in the bridal suite as her Dad telephones a dentist about her three broken teeth. He tells everyone what to do and leaves with Tala. Sarah wanders out and asks Nyles to explain. He says it’s “one of those infinite loop situations” and points Sarah to the cave.
P. 24–28: Sarah searches for the cave in the desert, passing an empty tortoise shell with three scars. As the sun begins to set, Nyles appears. She demands to know where it is and he snaps his fingers and an earthquake shakes, revealing the cave. Nyles explains that going into the cave or just falling asleep will restart this day. Sarah goes into the cave and Nyles can’t decide what to do. MONTAGE: Sarah wakes up in her room and recognizes in panic it’s this morning, again. Nyles wakes up in his bedroom and curls into a ball. Sarah speeds down a highway. Nyles at the pool wonders where Sarah is. Sarah gulps energy shots as she gasses up her car. Nyles blends his Breakfast of Champions and tells her parents that Sarah will be back. Sarah has driven half-way across the country. The wedding reception goes on without Sarah. Sarah still driving. Nyles stumbles into bed as Misty has her tryst with her ex in the bathroom. Sarah makes it to her apartment and flops on the bed. She shuts her eyes…
P. 28–31: …and wakes up at the resort yesterday. Sarah barges into Nyles’s bedroom and orders him to get dressed. Sarah drives them, trying to make sense of it all. Nyles says, “The only way to actually live in this world is to embrace the fact that nothing matters.” She speeds up and crashes the car into an oncoming truck. [In the movie, both Sarah and Nyles wake up in their respective beds.]
P. 31–40: In a biker bar, Nyles and Sarah discuss their predicament. Nyles plays darts with a patron. This jogs Sarah to ask about the Archer in the desert. Nyles explains through a FLASHBACK that he met Roy at the reception bar and did drugs together and danced together and watched the night stars together. When Roy says, “Man, I wish I could just live out here forever,” Nyles takes him to the cave and Roy walks into the never-ending day. BACK to the bar: Nyles concludes explaining about Roy that he wakes up in another city and only comes around sporadically for revenge. He adds that he vowed to never bring anyone else into “this life.”
P. 40–50: At a taco stand, Nyles buys some chocolate off of a Mexican boy and discusses his life with Sarah. She asks him about his relationship with Misty, her constant betrayal of him and whether she and him have had sex. He admits to being with the barkeep and the darts player. To (unsuccessfully) tempting Tala. And Jerry. And Sarah’s dad, but he retracts that. He asks about her sex life. She says she wouldn’t sleep with him. He says they should join the reception, to bask in the love. This triggers Sarah and she claims weddings are “an industry designed to turn you against the one you love.” Discussing their life again, she wonders if it’s a karma thing and the only way out is a true act of selflessness. At the reception, Sarah goes up to speak to the audience but whispers into her sister’s ear instead. Back in the bar, Nyles asks her what she whispered, but Sarah just says that, “Selflessness is fantastic.”
P. 50–56: Nyles wakes up and Sarah busts in: “Didn’t work. Life is meaningless.” Misty asks Myles if he’s cheating on her and he copies what she says as she says it, and then leaves to follow Sarah. Nyles and Sarah crash a desert house and soak in their pool. MONTAGE of gun shooting at SPUD’s range, Sarah waking up, Nyles waking up, them driving and Sarah falling off the roof of the car, Sarah waking up, back in the pool, them flying a single-engine plane and then crashing, their choreographed dance sequence at the biker bar, Sarah asking a guy to meet her in the bathroom wearing a blindfold, the guy interrupting Misty and her ex as Nyles and Sarah watch, Sarah waking up, Nyles waking up, [in the movie Sarah tattoos a dick on Nyles’s back, she snuggles on his chest on top of a bed,] Sarah hosting a ‘Happy Millionth Birthday, Dipshit’ party for Nyles in the biker bar, at the wedding reception Nyles pulling a brick of C4 out of the wedding cake and shooting it on an arrow into the sky where it explodes into a fireworks display, [in the movie Nyles tattoos a dick on Sarah’s back and the birthday party scene is here,] Nyles and Sarah partying in a hotel room with five desert hipsters, Nyles waking up. DISSOLVE TO:
P. 56–61: In the desert at night Nyles and Sarah sit at a campfire. Nyles explains, using a chocolate bar as a prop, that he’s not interested in the past, only the present. Sarah says you need to know the whole package and tells him about her two-year marriage. She says, “Ignoring all of that would make me destined to repeat it.” Nyles says these mushrooms are good, they talk more metaphysics and then see dinosaurs in the distance. They end up in a tent and make love.
P. 61–68: Sarah wakes up with a smile on her face. She realizes the man in her room is Abe, her sister’s fiancé. Uh oh! Sarah drives Nyles and her away. He wants to talk about last night and she wants to flee a chasing police car. She drives faster, wanting to get arrested, but Nyles thinks it might be Roy. The siren goes on and Sarah pulls over. She runs to the police car as the officer approaches Nyles. It is Roy! Sarah drives the cruiser into the back of her car, sandwiching Roy. A motorcycle cop drives up and tases Sarah, hitting Nyles instead. Sarah and Nyles have a heated argument sitting on the side of the road while the cop waits for back-up. Nyles is mad that she killed Roy and she blames him for getting her into this mess. She regrets sleeping with him and he reveals they’ve screwed a thousand times. Sarah staggers purposely into the road and is hit by a transport truck.
P. 68–75: Nyles wakes up. He looks for Sarah but she can’t be found at the pool. She’s not at the wedding reception. She’s not in the desert. Nyles resignedly walks into the cave. He wakes up again. Later that night he’s lying distractedly on a bed while the wedding guys do coke. Nyles smells the bed and asks who slept here last night and learns it was Abe. Nyles confronts Abe at the reception and accuses him of cheating on his bride-to-be with her own sister on the night before their wedding. They fight and Nyles stabs him in the cheek with a fork.
P. 76–79: Abe (with an unscathed face) moves in to kiss Tala as Nyles slouches at another table. The parents sing a love duet and Nyles begins to blubber. Jerry takes him to his room. Nyles confesses he loves Sarah and misses her.
P. 79–85: Nyles wakes up and drives. CUT to Roy’s house where he’s preparing dinner. Nyles appears and Roy has a chat with him in his suburban back yard. He likes his perfect family day and tells Nyles at least he has Sarah to go through the day with. Only now he doesn’t. :-[ Roy won’t let him stay for dinner and Nyles asks him to kill him one last time, so he can beat the traffic. Standing in a recycling bin, Roy shoots an arrow into Nyles’s heart. BLACK.
P. 85–88: Back on the highway, Sarah says, “I’m getting the fuck out of this day,” and walks out in front of the truck. MONTAGE of Sarah walking up and confronting Abe, driving, Sarah in a diner studying Quantum Physics, waking up, driving, getting smarter, waking up, driving, now an expert: “Hintz argued that a Reissner-Nordstrom-de Sitter black hole would allow an observer access to the indeterministic universe on the other side of the Cauchy horizon,” Sarah scientifically measuring the cave, Sarah wiring up a goat with C4, putting it in the cave and pushing a button. Whoa — journey through the Universe and a Wormhole.
P. 88–95: Nyles wakes up and Sarah is sitting on the edge of the bed. He apologizes to her and she says she thinks she has a way out. Sarah explains her “time tube” theory and how a 3.2 second explosion in the cave will get them out of the loop. Nyles is not convinced but Sarah says she tested her theory with a goat that’s now gone. Nyles says he won’t leave but confesses her loves her and asks her to stay. Sarah says she must get out of here.
P. 95–105: Nyles breaks up with Misty and drives out of the resort. MONTAGE of Sarah getting photographed with everyone at the wedding, Nyles walking down the center of a road, Sarah standing near Tala as she exchanges vows with Abe, Nyles walking in the desert as the earthquake hits. Sarah gives a heartfelt speech to Tala at the wedding reception. After the speech the grandmother has an earnest chat with Sarah. Nyles mopes in the biker bar, telling a patron he’ll never feel again. He sees a vision of Sarah giving him his millionth birthday party, realize she loves him and hatches a plan. He gives the barkeep the finger and gets thrown out of the place, but not before he can grab his truck keys. He drives but the pickup hits a pothole, blowing out a tire. Nyles abandons the truck and runs on. Sarah treks through the night desert with a duffel bag over her shoulder. Nyles convinces Spud he’s his long-lost son and needs help. At the cave, Sarah puts on a vest full of C4 just as Nyles on the back of Spud’s motorcycle shows up. He jumps off, admits he was scared and makes a long speech of his love and commitment to her, concluding with, “Sarah Isabel Wilder, I’d rather die with you than live in this world without you.” She says okay and they enter the cave. They get close to the orange orb, kiss and Sarah presses the detonator button. WHITE. BLACK.
P. 105–106: Nyles and Sarah are floating in the desert house pool and she suddenly wonders, “How did you find the cave in the first place?” He waffles and then points out a scarred tortoise walking by. [In the movie, the family that owns the house shows up and asks them what they’re doing in their pool, clarifying for us that this is November the tenth, indeed a new day.] As the pools diminishes in size, the horizon appears, along with dinosaurs, and then only clouds. BLACK. (The End.)
Here is a trailer for the movie:
Writing Exercise: I encourage you to read the script, but short of that, if you’ve seen the movie, go through this scene-by-scene breakdown. What stands out to you about it from a structural standpoint?
Major kudos to Michael Korican for doing this week’s scene-by-scene breakdown.
To download a PDF of the breakdown for Palm Springs, go here.
I am looking for volunteers to read a script and provide a scene-by-scene breakdown for it to be used as part of our weekly series. What do you get out from it? Beyond your name being noted here, my personal thanks, and some creative juju sent your way, hopefully you will learn something about story structure and develop another skill set which is super helpful in learning and practicing the craft.
The latest volunteers [BOLD signifies we have already run the weekly analysis series on that script]:
Antebellum / Rose Banks
I’m Thinking of Ending Things / Jennifer Messineo
I’m Your Woman / Priya Gopal
The King of Staten Island / Halil Akgündüz
Palm Springs / Michael Korican
Sound of Metal / Laura Bolton
The Trial of the Chicago 7 / Karen Liu
Here are the other 2020 movie scripts available for you to read and break down:
Borat: Subsequent Movie Film
The Climb
Da 5 Bloods
Emma
The Father
First Cow
French Exit
Herself
I Carry You With Me
Judah and the Black Messiah
Kajillionaire
The Little Things
Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom
Malcolm & Marie
The Mauritanian
Never Rarely Sometimes Always
News of the World
Nomadland
On the Rocks
One Night In Miami
Onward
Palmer
The Personal History of David Copperfield
Prom
Promising Young Woman
Saint Frances
Shirley
Soul
Tenet
The White Tiger
Do I have to beg? Promising Young Woman? Soul? Onward? One Night in Miami? Judas and the Black Messiah? Nomadland? First Cow? These are all notable movies and the scripts are just waiting to be analyzed.
Thanks to the folks who have already sent me their breakdowns. This will enable us to begin our 2020 bi-weekly script read and analysis series.
Now is YOUR chance to contribute to this most worthy cause and provide an additional resource for the online screenwriting community.
Even if you do not participate in the analysis, discussion, or write up a scene-by-scene breakdown, I strongly encourage you to read these scripts.
So seize this opportunity and join in the conversation!
I hope to see you in the RESPONSE section about this week’s script: Palm Springs.
