The Royal Tenenbaums (Chapter 1)

INSERT:

A first edition copy of The Royal Tenenbaums.

On the dust jacket there is an illustration of a cream-colored note card that looks like a wedding invitation. The title of the book is engraved on the card.

The next page says “Chapter One.”

NARRATOR (V.O.): Royal Tenenbaum bought the house on Archer Avenue in the winter of his thirty-fifth year.

CUT TO:

A five-story limestone townhouse. A forty-three-year-old man in a raincoat rings the front doorbell. He is Royal.

NARRATOR (CONT’D): Over the next decade, he and his wife had three children and then they separated.

INT. DINING ROOM. DAY.

Royal sits at the head of a long table. He is surrounded by his children.

Chas is twelve, with curly hair, dressed in a black suit and
tie. Margot is ten, with a barrette in her hair, wearing a knitted LaCoste dress and penny loafers. Richie is eight, with long hair, parted on the side, dressed in a Bjorn Borg-style tennis outfit with a headband.

Chas wears a blank expression, Margot looks as if she is about to cry, and Richie has tears all over his face.

MARGOT: Are you getting divorced?

ROYAL (gently): At the moment, no. But it doesn’t look good.

RICHIE: Do you still love us?

ROYAL: Of course, I do.

CHAS (pointedly): Do you still love Mom?

ROYAL: Very much. But she asked me to leave, and I had to respect her position on the matter.

MARGOT: Was it our fault?

ROYAL (long pause): No. Obviously, we had to make certain sacrifices as a result of having children, but no. Lord, no.

RICHIE: Why’d she ask you to leave?

ROYAL (sadly): I don’t really know any more. Maybe I wasn’t as true to her as I could’ve been.

CHAS: Well, she says --

ROYAL: Let’s not rehash it, Chassie.

An Indian man with salt-and-pepper hair, dressed in pink pants, a white shirt and a white apron, comes in from the kitchen with a Martini on a tray. He is Pagoda.

NARRATOR (V.O.): They were never legally divorced.

Pagoda hands Royal the Martini.

ROYAL: Thanks, Pagoda.

INT. HALLWAY. DAY.

A gallery of the children’s art, done mostly in crayon, but with beautiful frames and careful lighting. The subject matter includes: spaceships, wild animals, sailboats, motorcycles, and war scenes with tanks and paratroopers. A stuffed and mounted boar’s head with its teeth bared hangs in the stairwell. A label on it says “Wild Javelina, Andes Mountains.” Under the stairs there is a telephone room the size of a closet. Old messages are tacked to the walls, and the children’s heights are marked on the door frame. A thirty-three-year-old woman with a scarf around her neck and sunglasses on top of her head talks on a rotary telephone. She is Etheline.

Richie sits on her lap reading an Atlas of the World. Margot sits on a foot-stool reading The Cherry Orchard. Chas stands in the doorway with a slip of blue paper in his hand.

NARRATOR (V.O.): Etheline Tenenbaum kept the house and raised the children, and their education was her highest priority.

Etheline says into the telephone:

ETHELINE: I’ll hold, thank you.

CHAS: I need $187.

ETHELINE (pause): Write yourself a check.

Chas hands Etheline the slip of blue paper.

INSERT:

A cheque made out in the amount of $187. Etheline signs it.

CUT TO:

Chas taking back the cheque. Etheline says into the telephone:

ETHELINE (CONT’D): Bene. Si. Grazie mille.

Etheline hangs up. There is a schedule of activities -- guitar, ballet, yoga, scuba-diving -- written on a chalkboard behind her and divided into columns labelled Chas, Richie and Margot. She changes an Italian lesson from 4:30 to 5:30.

NARRATOR (V.O.): She wrote a book on the subject.

INSERT:

A copy of Etheline Tenenbaum’s book, Family of Geniuses. On the dust jacket there is a photograph of the three children conducting a press conference in a room crowded with journalists. It appears to have been published in the late seventies.

CUT TO:

The press conference. Chas points to a reporter.

CHAS: The gentleman in the blue cardigan, please.

REPORTER: Thank you. I have a two-part question.

CHAS: Go ahead.

INT. CHAS’ BEDROOM. DAY.

Chas’ room looks like a businessman’s office, except it is very small and has bunk beds. There is a desk with an Apple II computer and an electric coffee pot on it. There is a water cooler in the corner, with a paper cup dispenser.

Chas stands talking on the telephone while Etheline brings in his lunch on a tray.

NARRATOR (V.O.): Chas Tenenbaum had, since elementary school, taken most of his meals in his room, standing up at his desk with a cup of coffee, to save time.

On a shelf in an alcove there are ten cages connected together by plastic tubes. White mice with tiny black spots all over them race around outside the cages. Chas feeds one of them a drop of blue liquid from a test tube.

NARRATOR (CONT’D): In the sixth grade, he went into business, breeding dalmation mice, which he sold to a pet shop in Little Tokyo.

There are twenty-five pinstriped suits in boys’ size twelve and an electric tie rack hanging in the closet. Chas pushes a button on the tie rack and the ties glide along a track.

NARRATOR (CONT’D): He started buying real estate in his early teens and seemed to have an almost preternatural understanding of international finance.

There are a small weightlifting bench and punchbag in the corner. There is a set of exercise charts neatly drawn with felt-tip pen tacked on the wall. Chas bench-presses about fifty pounds on a small barbell.

NARRATOR (CONT’D): He negotiated the purchase of his father’s summer house on Eagle’s Island.

EXT. BACKYARD. DAY.

A house in the country. Chas crouches in the bushes with a BB gun. Across the lawn, he sees two younger boys with BB guns drop down from a tree.

One of the boys is Richie, and the other has nearly-white blond hair. He is Eli. He wears Apache warpaint. Chas gets Richie in his sights.

ROYAL: Hold it, Chassie.

Chas freezes. He looks up and sees Royal watching from the
roof with a BB gun trained on him. Royal is dressed in khaki pants, sunglasses and no shirt.

CHAS: What are you doing? You’re on my team!

ROYAL (hesitates): There are no teams.

Royal fires. Chas screams and fires back as Royal scrambles away, laughing.

NARRATOR (V.O.): The BB was still lodged between two knuckles in Chas’ left hand.

INT. MARGOT’S BEDROOM. DAY.

The walls of Margot’s room are red, with little running zebras painted all over them. There is a collection of African masks hanging in the corner. Margot sits at a small metal stand, typing on an IBM typewriter.

NARRATOR (V.O.): Margot Tenenbaum was adopted at the age of two. Her father had always noted this when introducing her.

CUT TO:

A cocktail party. Royal introduces Margot to a group of elderly men in black tie.

ROYAL: This is my adopted daughter, Margot Tenenbaum.

Margot nods politely.

CUT TO:

A wall filled with bookshelves. There are thousands of books
of plays. Margot takes out a copy of The Iceman Cometh.

NARRATOR (V.O.): She was a playwright and won a Braverman
Grant of fifty-thousand dollars in the ninth grade.

There is a mock-up of a stage set for a play that appears to have taken place in a network of tree houses on a tropical island. Margot places a tiny canoe beneath a palm tree.

NARRATOR (CONT’D): She and her brother Richie ran away from home one winter and camped out in the African Wing of the Public Archives.

EXT. MUSEUM. DAY.

Richie and Margot sit on a bench in front of a large Gothic building. Richie has on a small backpack with a sleeping bag attached to it. Margot carries a small red suitcase. They both look extremely dishevelled and tired. A single-file line of students in Catholic school uniforms goes past them following a museum guide. Eli is at the end of the line. He stops and stares at Margot and Richie.

RICHIE: Hi, Eli.

ELI: You said I could run away, too.

MARGOT: No, I didn’t. And don’t tell anybody you saw us.

CUT TO:

Richie and Margot sharing a Boy Scout sleeping bag on a bench in a gallery of wildlife dioramas in a darkened museum. Margot reads a book about sharks by the light of a flashlight. Richie is asleep.

NARRATOR (V.O.): Four years later, she disappeared alone for almost two weeks and came back with half a finger missing.

INSERT:

A pair of knitted gloves. One finger has been clipped off at
the middle knuckle and is being sewn up.

INT. RICHIE’S BEDROOM. DAY.

Richie’s room is in the attic. There are a chemistry set, a drum set and a long shelf filled with tennis trophies. Richie sits on the edge of his bed.

NARRATOR (V.O.): Richie Tenenbaum had been a champion tennis player since the third grade.

There are thousands of Matchbox cars arranged on every available inch of space on tables, desks and window sills. Richie parks a little Maserati next to a dune buggy.

NARRATOR (CONT’D): He turned pro at seventeen and won the U.S. Nationals three years in a row.

There is a ham radio set in the corner of the room. Richie sits at the console wearing a set of headphones. There is a map of the world on the wall, with colored pins stuck in different cities.

NARRATOR (CONT’D): He kept a studio in the corner of the ballroom but had failed to develop as a painter.

CUT TO:

A ballroom with vaulted ceilings and a giant chandelier on the top floor of the house. One corner is filled with seventeen almost identical portraits of Margot looking over the top of a book with an irritated expression. Etheline helps Richie hang a new portrait among the others.

NARRATOR (CONT’D): On weekends, Royal took him on outings around the city.

EXT. STREET. DAY.

Royal and Richie stand among a group of Puerto Rican men as two large, vicious-looking pit bulls with scars all over them snarl at each other. Royal yells along with the others:

ROYAL: Vamanos! Andale!

Royal throws a fifty-dollar bill into a pile of money on the sidewalk. Richie throws in a dollar.

NARRATOR (V.O.): These invitations were never extended to anyone else.

CUT TO:

The second floor of the Tenenbaum house. Chas sits alone in one window. Margot sits alone in the next. They both watch as Royal and Richie get out of a gypsy cab in front of the house, sharing a bag of peanuts and laughing. There is a slightly run-down thirty-five-story apartment building across the street. Eli sits alone in a window.

INT. APARTMENT. DAY.

A two-room apartment with a crucifix on the wall. Eli finishes making his bed and folds it into the couch. An elderly woman works at a sewing machine in the next room.

NARRATOR (V.O.): Richie’s best friend Eli Cash lived with his aunt in a building across the street.

EXT. STREET. DAY.

Eli walks up the front steps of the Tenenbaum house and rings the doorbell. He wears a set of house keys on a string around his neck. Pagoda opens the door. He is dressed in pajamas, slippers and a bathrobe. He lets Eli inside.

NARRATOR (V.O.): He was a regular fixture at family gatherings, holidays, mornings before school and most afternoons.

CUT TO:

The Tenenbaum house at night. There are strings of colored lights glowing around the front door and white paper bags with candles in them on the steps. Royal rings the front doorbell. He carries a small package wrapped in red-and-pink striped paper with a white ribbon on it.

NARRATOR (CONT’D): The three Tenenbaum children performed
Margot’s first play on the night of her eleventh birthday.

INT. BALLROOM. NIGHT.

There are twenty eleven-year-olds wearing party hats. Margot, Chas and Richie are in costumes. Margot is a zebra, Chas is a bear and Richie is a leopard. Eli is dressed in pajamas. Royal sits at a table with them, drinking a glass of whiskey.

NARRATOR (V.O.): They had agreed to invite their father to the party.

There is a small stage-set across the room for a play that appears to have taken place on a ship.

CHAS: What’d you think, Dad?

ROYAL: It didn’t seem believable to me.

Chas looks at Margot. She is silent. Royal says to Eli:

ROYAL (CONT’D): Why are you wearing pajamas? Do you live here?

RICHIE: He has permission to sleep over.

Royal shakes his head.

CHAS: Did you think the characters were --

ROYAL: What characters? It was just a bunch of little kids dressed in animal costumes.

MARGOT: Goodnight, everyone.

Margot quickly collects her unopened presents from the table. She puts Royal’s aside and sets it in front of him.

ROYAL: Sweetie. Don’t get mad. That’s just one man’s opinion.

The lights go down. Royal looks across the room. Etheline stands in the doorway with a birthday cake on a tray. The candles are lit. She looks furious. Pagoda stands at the light switch. Everyone begins to sing “Happy Birthday.” Margot walks out of the room, and the singing disintegrates.

NARRATOR: He had not been invited to any of their parties since.

Etheline blows out the candles.

EXT. ROOF. DAY.

There is a large antenna for Richie’s ham radio and a wooden coop with a falcon in it. The falcon has a hood over its eyes. Richie opens the coop, carefully removes the falcon’s hood, and feeds him some sardines from a tin.

NARRATOR (V.O.): In fact, virtually all memory of the brilliance of the young Tenenbaums had been erased by two decades of betrayal, failure and disaster.

Richie carries the falcon on his arm to the edge of the roof.

RICHIE: Go, Mordecai.

The falcon spreads its wings and lunges into the sky.

MONTAGE:

(The names of each of our characters and the names of the actors playing them appear over the following shots.) Royal Tenenbaum sits in a chair in his hotel suite with no shirt on and a towel wrapped around his face. A woman in a white apron lifts off the towel, and Royal looks in the mirror. He is now sixty-six, with grey hair, white at the temples, worn very long in the back. He is getting a facial, and there are strips of blue cellophane covering his face. The woman quickly peels them away and begins to massage his temples. Royal lights a cigarette at the end of a three-inch holder.

Etheline Tenenbaum draws eyeliner around her eyes in the dressing mirror. She is fifty-five and has long, black hair with one silver streak that runs through it. She wears a pink slip and a gold locket. The wall behind her is filled with portraits of tribesmen and native warriors from around the world. She holds up a pair of prescription sunglasses and looks at herself. She lowers them and does her lipstick.

Chas Tenenbaum shaves in the locker room of a boxing gym. Steam fills the air. He is thirty-six and in top fighting condition. Ari and Uzi Tenenbaum are on either side of him. They are eight and ten. They are also shaving, but with no blades in their razors. All three have extremely curly black hair.

Margot Tenenbaum is at a hairdresser’s with three people working on her at once. She is thirty-four. Her hair is being dyed, and there are little clamps and bits of foil twisted into it. She is smoking a cigarette, and she blows a puff of smoke as the hair dryer is lowered onto her head. She holds an open copy of a book of plays by George Bernard Shaw. She has one fake finger made of wood.

Eli Cash is in the fitting room of a clothing store having a white buckskin jacket with fringe taken in. A tailor pulls at the hem of the jacket and sticks pins in the sleeves. The tailor’s helper brings Eli a cup of tea and some cucumber sandwiches. Eli picks out a sandwich. A second helper hands him a short-brimmed Stetson cowboy hat. He puts it on at an angle and stares at himself.

Releigh St. Clair brushes his teeth with an electric toothbrush in a very small, white-tiled bathroom. He has a full, gray beard and round glasses, and he is dressed in red silk pajamas with white piping. He stops suddenly, picks up a tape recorder off the edge of the sink, and excitedly dictates something into it. He puts the tape recorder back on the sink and starts brushing his teeth again.

Henry Sherman stands in front of a mirrored wall in a vestibule of his building. He is a tall black man, fifty-six years old, with grey hair and a moustache. He wears a doublebreasted navy blazer. He carefully folds a checkered handkerchief and tucks it into his breast pocket. There is a hand-lettered sign regarding trash and recycling taped to the wall behind him, underneath a row of mailboxes. It is signed H. Sherman, the Landlord, in red ink.

Richie Tenenbaum looks at himself in the mirror in his stateroom on board an ocean liner. He is thirty-two, with long hair, parted on the side, and a beard. He wears a khaki suit, a striped tennis shirt, a headband, and penny loafers. The ocean goes by at a fast clip in the porthole behind him. A towel on the dresser says The Cote d’Ivoire in red stitching. He takes out a little camera. He points it at his reflection, smiles sadly, and takes a picture of himself. He puts the camera back into his pocket and goes out the door.