Stuart: A Life Backwards Page #4

Synopsis: When Stuart Shorter - a homeless alcoholic with a violent past - meets writer and charity worker Alexander Masters, they strike up an unlikely friendship. As Alexander learns more about Stuart's complicated life and traumatic childhood, he asks if he can write his story and Stuart advises him to tell the story backwards, so that it's "More exciting - like a Tom Clancy murder mystery". As their remarkable alliance develops, Stuart gradually recounts his life story in reverse, his resilient personality and dry sense of humour giving the story an almost tragi-comic edge. Through post office heists, attempts at suicide and spells inside numerous institutions, Alexander is given a glimpse into a totally alien world and begins to understand how Stuart's life spiralled so badly out of control.
Genre: Drama
Director(s): David Attwood
Actors: Benedict Cumberbatch, Tom Hardy, Nicola Duffett, Claire-Louise Cordwell
  6 wins & 1 nomination.
 
IMDB:
7.9
  Stuart: A Life Backwards Movie Quotes »
Collection  Edit  Watch  PDF  Buy   
TV-MA
Year:
2007
92 min
958 Views

the little 'un.

Not bad there, mate.

Not better than Laurel Lane.

Wine always smells like sick.

Here, have a beer.

Fancy something to eat?

So why do you want to be a writer, then?

Oh, I don't know, really. Bit like a

disease, all my family's got it.

Didn't want to be left out, did I?

Nah. I know what you mean, mate.

Me dad is a thief,

and, um, me mum's a barmaid.

What's the colour orange highlighter

in your diary for?

Family stuff.

Yellow?

Social.

Now, uh, this book

that you're writing about me,

is it just to make your name?

And yours.

I've, uh, had an idea for a job, too.

For the foreign businessman what

doesn't have time to waste,

what does he need?

An office... in a van.

It's lateral thinking, isn't it?

Gets off the plane at Stansted,

straight into the back of me van.

That will have everything:

good-looking bird what can do shorthand,

fax, internet, wires all over the

f***ing gaff. It's brilliant.

Red sauce or brown?

Oh, yes please.

I mean, uh, red.

- WhatWhat's

- Oh yeah, that fella upstairs

is gonna make me a bed what folds up against

the wall, like what James Bond has.

- Ooh.

- Yeah. It's got to have, um,

springs and latches on the floor

otherwise it's boing, boing, whoosh!

Boing, boing, whoosh?

You know what I mean, bird's not going

to be too happy if she gets her face

squeezed up against the plaster, is she?

Hey.

Sorry.

Good stuff, that. You can use it with anything.

See that right by the bed? This should be a

huge stain where I overdosed there last week.

And all the spilled cans and vomit. That

cleaned it up really, really well, actually.

But you want to, um, you want to leave it, uh,

for about... about a week before you vacuum.

Here you are, mate.

Careful, yeah? It's a bit hot.

I never asked you why you were in prison.

The last time

Stupid things.

Me mate, Smithy, well bubblegum chap,

I'm not being funny, he's in the

Guinness Book of Records.

1983 edition, as it goes.

Like brothers fighting the world.

Respect, trust, and honour.

Go, go, go, go, go!

Right.

Ow.

- Oh, f***. Did you get menthols?

- Menthols? F*** off.

- She'll f***ing kill me. She asked for menthols.

- Well, give her the vodka.

She don't want vodka, she wants menthols!

Go, go, go, go, go!

Aw, I don't believe it!

These aren't f***ing menthols either!

They're just in a green packet.

I've got ten packets of green cigarettes.

Hurry up.

25 quid, 60!?

Women! They think they can boss you

about in everything, don't they?

And one day, Smithy got a tip-off.

- 20,000 quid?

- Just keeps it under the counter.

Not a cop shop in 20 miles.

F***ing That's f***ing irresponsible.

No pride of ownership.

Go, go, go, go, go!

Rate this script:5.0 / 1 vote

Alexander Masters

Alexander Masters is an author, screenwriter, and worker with the homeless. He lives in Cambridge, United Kingdom. Masters is the son of authors Dexter Masters and Joan Brady. He was educated at Bedales School, and took a first in physics from King's College London. He then went to St Edmund's College, Cambridge for a further degree in maths, and then the beginnings of a PhD in the philosophy of quantum mechanics. He was studying for an MSc degree in mathematics with the Open University, and working as an assistant at a hostel for the homeless in Cambridge, when he wrote his first book. He is the writer and illustrator of Stuart: A Life Backwards (ISBN 0-00-720037-4), the biography of Stuart Shorter. It explores how a young boy, somewhat disabled from birth, became mentally unstable, criminal and violent, living homeless on the streets of Cambridge. As the title suggests, the book starts from Shorter's adult life, tracing it back in time through his troubled childhood, examining the effects his family, schooling and disability had on his eventual state. Masters wrote the book with Shorter's active and enthusiastic help.Alexander Masters won an Arts Council Writers' Award for Stuart and went on to win the Guardian First Book Award and the Hawthornden Prize. The book was also shortlisted (in the biography category) for the Whitbread Book-of-the-Year Award, the Samuel Johnson Prize, and the National Book Critics Circle Award in the United States. He also wrote a screenplay adaptation, filmed in 2006 for the BBC and HBO, and broadcast in September 2007. It won the Royal Television Society Award in the Single Drama category and the Reims International Television award for the Best TV Screenplay. In 2007, he collaborated with photographer Adrian Clarke on the book Gary's Friends, chronicling the lives of drug and alcohol abusers in North East England. Masters is also the author of The Genius In My Basement (ISBN 9780007243389), a biography of mathematician Simon P. Norton. In 2016, Masters published A Life Discarded: 148 Diaries Found in the Trash (ISBN 9780374178185)Alexander Masters has been portrayed by Benedict Cumberbatch in Stuart: A Life Backwards, the 2007 BBC dramatization of his biography of Stuart Shorter. more…

All Alexander Masters scripts | Alexander Masters Scripts

0 fans

Submitted on August 05, 2018

Discuss this script with the community:

0 Comments

    Translation

    Translate and read this script in other languages:

    Select another language:

    • - Select -
    • 简体中文 (Chinese - Simplified)
    • 繁體中文 (Chinese - Traditional)
    • Español (Spanish)
    • Esperanto (Esperanto)
    • 日本語 (Japanese)
    • Português (Portuguese)
    • Deutsch (German)
    • العربية (Arabic)
    • Français (French)
    • Русский (Russian)
    • ಕನ್ನಡ (Kannada)
    • 한국어 (Korean)
    • עברית (Hebrew)
    • Gaeilge (Irish)
    • Українська (Ukrainian)
    • اردو (Urdu)
    • Magyar (Hungarian)
    • मानक हिन्दी (Hindi)
    • Indonesia (Indonesian)
    • Italiano (Italian)
    • தமிழ் (Tamil)
    • Türkçe (Turkish)
    • తెలుగు (Telugu)
    • ภาษาไทย (Thai)
    • Tiếng Việt (Vietnamese)
    • Čeština (Czech)
    • Polski (Polish)
    • Bahasa Indonesia (Indonesian)
    • Românește (Romanian)
    • Nederlands (Dutch)
    • Ελληνικά (Greek)
    • Latinum (Latin)
    • Svenska (Swedish)
    • Dansk (Danish)
    • Suomi (Finnish)
    • فارسی (Persian)
    • ייִדיש (Yiddish)
    • հայերեն (Armenian)
    • Norsk (Norwegian)
    • English (English)

    Citation

    Use the citation below to add this screenplay to your bibliography:

    Style:MLAChicagoAPA

    "Stuart: A Life Backwards" Scripts.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 5 Jun 2024. <https://www.scripts.com/script/stuart:_a_life_backwards_19017>.

    Powered by CITE.ME Cite.Me

    We need you!

    Help us build the largest writers community and scripts collection on the web!

    Browse Scripts.com

    #ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ

    The Studio:

    ScreenWriting Tool

    Write your screenplay and focus on the story with many helpful features.