Do We Have the Right to Exist?: The Survivalist Script Analysis

With the winner of Kinolime’s debut screenplay competition, The Waif, now in production under the direction of BAFTA-nominated director Stephen Fingleton, we thought it’d be fun to revisit Fingleton’s debut feature, The Survivalist. A post-apocalyptic story about a man who lives alone in the woods and has to fight against an abundance of unknown dangers to survive, the film paints a fascinating portrait of what it means to exist in an unprotected world. When two mysterious women arrive on his doorstep one day, demanding the right to food and shelter, The Survivalist then proposes a new, much darker question: who has the right to exist? Let’s dive in.

OPENING IMAGE

The film opens with an image of two abstract lines moving across a black screen…

The reveal that these lines are actually on a graph, representing the world’s rapid decline as a result of oil loss, is an incredibly clever and effective route to take when informing the audience everything they need to know before the film begins. The world is in despair, there are very few people left, and whichever characters we’re about to meet are going to have to deal with these problems. Let’s continue.

SET UP

NOTE: The script contains many scenes that have been changed or completely removed from the final film. To save time, I’m going to primarily analyze only written scenes that ended up in the movie, although I’ll still try to point out the changes as we go along.

The film begins by showing our protagonist, a young man who we will refer to as the titular Survivalist, dragging a naked, dead body through the woods. The body’s left ankle is horribly mangled and bloody. The Survivalist, without showing any emotion, digs a hole, tosses the body in, and buries it. As he leaves, he reaches down to reset a bear trap, letting the audience know how the mysterious person’s ankle was destroyed. Intruders have no right to exist. 

Right away, we know the protagonist is well-equipped, ready to kill, and will do anything to protect the home he has created for himself, which is revealed to be a small, rustic cabin in the middle of nowhere.

NOTE: The script actually starts us off with an eight-page sequence showing the intruder sneaking onto the Survivalist’s property and getting caught in the bear trap, which is why I begin on page 9.

We still don’t quite know just how bad things are in this universe, but the context clues tell us it isn’t good. The Survivalist has set traps all around his home, is desperate to keep his garden growing at all costs (so much so that he has to piss on his seeds to get them going), and would rather be alone than risk any danger to himself.

INCITING INCIDENT

After days of extreme loneliness and paranoia, the Survivalist is awakened by the sound of jangling cans: somebody’s on his property. He grabs his gun and quickly hops out of bed.

The woman introduces herself as Kathryn and her daughter as Milja, and they ask for some of his crop. When he declines, Kathryn offers him a handful of gold jewelry to trade. He declines; those things no longer have value. Finally, they just ask to spend the night. Loneliness gets the better of the Survivalist. After just one look at the beautiful Milja, he agrees.

DEBATE

The Survivalist brings them into his home and feeds them some dinner, where some awkward small talk is made between the trio.

Through only a couple of sentences, we’re able to learn a little bit more about this man whom we’ve been following. Obviously, he’s alone, but it didn’t used to be that way. His brother used to live with him, but now he’s gone. Dead? Maybe. We’re not sure, but it’s safe to assume that whatever did happen to the brother is what made the Survivalist so reserved and protective in the first place. In fact, he won’t even provide his company with his name.

As the three of them eat their meal, it’s clear there’s only one thing on this man’s mind: can he trust these people?

BREAK INTO TWO

After the meal, the Survivalist escorts Kathryn into another room while Milja waits on his bed. Kathryn turns to him and pleads with him to be careful with Milja, but she never quite explains what she’s talking about. The audience at this point realizes what the women traded for shelter: Milja’s body. The deal on the table? He can sleep with her, but he had better not get her pregnant. There’s not enough supplies in this world for another person. New lives do not have the right to exist.

FUN AND GAMES

Milja and the Survivalist finally have sex with each other, somehow managing to overcome the Survivalist’s extreme paranoia. They finish, and Milja requests to go to sleep with her mother. Like him, she also has trust issues. A natural effect of the world they live in.

The next morning, Kathryn finds the Survivalist to have a private conversation with him.

Clearly, the pair of women are trying to manipulate their way into the Survivalist’s life. He’s lonely, and they’re trying their best to take advantage of that in any way they can. 

MIDPOINT

It works. By the midpoint of the script, we’ve found the two women fully integrated in the Survivalist’s life. He teaches them how to farm, chop wood, cook, and even differentiate between the poisonous and edible plants growing around the property. Every morning starts with them waking up and going to work, and every night ends with Milja and the Survivalist having sex with each other before she goes to sleep in her mom’s room. One night, however, Milja falls asleep in the Survivalist’s arms, hinting at the audience that their relationship may not just be quid pro quo – they might actually be developing feelings for one another; something potentially as dangerous as the world around them.

BAD TO WORSE

When Milja and Kathryn are alone, they reveal that they’re planning on killing the Survivalist. Kathryn had stolen a couple of shotgun shells from him, and Milja is tasked with stealing his gun while they sleep. In their conversation, Milja agrees to do as she’s told, but you can sense her hesitancy.

When the plan to shoot him during the night fails (Milja never had a good opportunity), they wake up and begin their chores. As Kathryn and the Survivalist work on the garden, Milja heads down to the creek, making sure to slyly hand over the stolen shells back to Kathryn.

Milja gets to the creek and washes out a piece of bloody cloth she’s been using as a pad in the water.

Back at the cabin, Kathryn stands over the Survivalist as he works, waiting for an opportunity to grab his gun from him (in the film, this never happens, and instead Kathryn debates hitting him with a shovel). Just before Kathryn can snatch the gun, the Survivalist looks up, worried. 

As the Survivalist scans the area for Milja, the intruder (referred to as The Snatcher) hides within a patch of foliage, holding Milja down at gunpoint. And just when the Survivalist gets close enough, the Snatcher jumps up, aims his gun, and shoots him right in the chest.

When the Snatcher finally gets to the Survivalist’s presumably dead body, he stands over him, evaluating his kill. Then, just as he got a little too close…

The two women drag the Survivalist’s body back to the cabin and begin their attempts at saving him: first removing the bullet and cauterizing the wound.

Days go by, and the Survivalist’s wound is badly infected. They decide there’s only one way to save him and begin a strange, sexual healing ceremony. As they do so, the Survivalist falls into a dream state where we find out just exactly what happened to his brother…

BREAK INTO THREE

When the Survivalist awakens, he discovers that his wound is healing, he’s been unconscious for a while, and that Kathryn and Milja have been running the farm quite smoothly without him.

Although now there’s one problem: Kathryn believes that the Survivalist owes them for saving his life.

FINALE

In the third act, more and more things continue to go wrong. While out foraging, the group notices a gang of looters stealing from their cabin. They take a good chunk of supplies before running away.

Then, when Milja once again visits the creek to wash out her pad, she discovers it’s clean. Uh oh, she’s pregnant. In a panic, she secretly attempts to give herself an abortion with a hot wire, but can’t muster up the courage to go through with it. Maybe this life does deserve to exist…

Later, when Kathryn and Milja are alone, Kathryn once again presents the idea of killing the Survivalist. She doesn’t want to do it violently, though. Poison is the much more humane option. Still, now that there’s a baby on the way, maybe it isn’t such a good idea.

Milja forages the poisonous mushrooms and makes the meal, but after everyone eats their plates, Kathryn realizes the wrong person got poisoned…

Kathryn was right when she said there wasn’t enough food for all of them, but Milja chose to spend her life with the Survivalist, not her mother. Knowing death is already near, Kathryn goes out back and requests that the Survivalist kill her. With a knife, though, not a gun. Might as well save the shells…

The Survivalist and Milja decide that they can no longer stay here. The looters will be back soon, and if not them, someone else dangerous will. He says there’s a protected encampment at the edge of the forest and suggests that maybe they’ll take them in. 

CLOSING IMAGE

Later, while foraging, the duo discovers that the looters are back (referred to as The Raiders). A tense series of avoiding capture and fighting against various Raiders one by one ensues. It’s difficult to outline step-by-step here, but it's definitely worth the read or watch as the final product is phenomenally exciting (starting on page 99).

It all ends with a final standoff between one of the Raiders and the Survivalist:

As Milja runs for the encampment, she hears gunfire behind her, unsure if the Survivalist is the one getting shot or the one pulling the trigger. Finally, she arrives just as the Survivalist comes to terms with his own death across the forest. One life ends, another begins. Finally, someone deserves to live…

WHY IT’S GREAT

To me, the most impressive part of this already well-written screenplay was Fingleton’s ability to create an entire world within a singular location. We rarely leave the confines of the cabin and only meet three characters for the first half of the film, yet we’re able to take away everything we need to know about this universe: the world is grim, people are desperate, and as a result, nobody is to be trusted. This is only helped by the depth Fingleton gave each of the primary three characters and the amazing performances each actor ends up giving. As we watch the Survivalist go about his days, we feel like we’re struggling to survive right beside him. When the women arrive on his doorstep, we feel the anxiety that comes with their presence. And when he’s fighting the Raiders at the end, we feel like we’re fighting right there beside him. What could have been a missed swing on a typical “survival flick” ended up being an amazing existential tale about what it means to live with your back against the wall. Who deserves to live? Who deserves to die? And how does all of this change based on circumstances? All in all, this is about as good as a low-budget post-apocalyptic film can get, aside from the classics, of course (such as the first Mad Max). Many filmmakers have tried and failed to do what Fingleton did here, and with The Waif taking place in a similar setting, there’s no doubt he’s going to knock that one out of the park, too.