TITLE: DÉVIANCE
SUMMARY
DÉVIANCE follows a young magician who discovers his master’s greatest secret: a diamond pocket watch capable of allowing its bearer to enter another person’s memories. Through the watch, the user does not merely observe the past, but experiences it from within; feeling what it is like to be another, to inhabit their perceptions and sensations as one’s own.
Drawn by this discovery, the young man begins using the watch alongside the young woman, acting against their master’s wishes. Together, they attempt to replicate and refine the master’s work through increasingly complex acts of stage magic; diving deeper deeper into their own consciousness, until they are ultimately unable to separate their own identities from the memories they are inhabiting.
CONTENTS
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CHAPTER I – DIVERGENCE
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CHAPTER II – DECEPTION
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CHAPTER III – DESCENT
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CHAPTER IV – DÉVIANCE
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CHAPTER V – DÉDOUBLEMENT
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CHAPTER VI – DÉVOILEMENT
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CHAPTER I – DIVERGENCE
EXT. VERSAILLES GARDENS – ORANGERIE – DAY
A lone ray of sun cuts through. The orange tree shivers, its trembling leaves scattering gold.
The YOUNG MAN kneels in the grass, brushing soil from a leather-bound book. He opens it. Its brittle pages crackle in the silence. He traces the words with his finger.
YOUNG MAN (reading)
“Memory is a circuit. A trick of light and nerve.”
The pages are cramped with sketches, strange glyphs threaded between diagrams of the human brain.
He runs a hand over the ink, whispering as he reads aloud:
YOUNG MAN (reading)
“Harness the current, and you may walk where another has walked.”
The YOUNG MAN looks at the POCKETWATCH in his palm. Its fractured diamond face glitters in the sun, throwing shards of rainbow across the soil.
The book’s diagrams show the watch’s inner workings — copper coils wrapped like nerves, a diamond prism at the center.
YOUNG MAN (reading)
“This is no watch. It is a vault.
An engine that runs not on gears or springs…
The faint HUM grows louder in the YOUNG MAN’S hand. Sparks dance along the seams of the brass case, stinging his skin. He grips it tighter, breathes shallowly.
CLOSE ON – THE POCKETWATCH.
Its hands begin to spin wildly, faster and faster.
The buzz deepens into a low roar.
YOUNG MAN (reading)
…but on the same current as the human mind.”
The YOUNG MAN’s reflection splits across the diamond face, each blinking out of sync, each caught in different moments of his own past.
For an instant, a green flash cuts through the light. The CAMERA PUSHES THROUGH the watch face, pulled into a vortex of fractured time.
MATCH CUT TO:
CHAPTER II – DECEPTION
INT. SANS SOUCI THEATRE – NIGHT
New York. Velvet curtains. Flickering gaslight. Shadows coil along gilded walls.
The CAMERA TRACKS through the audience; gentlemen in coats, ladies in silks, until it settles on a YOUNG MAN in the front row, eyes wide, lips parted.
ON STAGE – Beside the potted tree sits a TABLE draped in deep velvet.
THE MASTER, regal and razor sharp, steps forward, positioning himself at the very front of the stage. The air seems to bend around him, his posture commanding, his elegance worn smooth by decades of performance.
One hand slips into his pocket, the other gestures toward the withered orange tree.
THE MASTER
Mesdames et Messieurs…
Allow me to show you the alchemy of perception.
He gestures. The crowd leans forward.
The oranges SHIFT, their skin glowing, rippling, until they shine with a golden sheen.
Not fruit. Not illusion. GOLD.
Gasps ripple through the living room.
A YOUNG LADY in the front row clutches one. It CLINKS in her hand — cold, heavy, solid. She passes it to the YOUNG MAN, who stars in disbelief.
The GOLDEN ORANGES tremble… and SHIFT again. Diamonds bloom from every branch.
Butterflies drift out, crystalline wings refracting light, alighting on jewelled fruit.
The MASTER lifts one hand high, basking in victory.
The other remains in his pocket.
YOUNG MAN (VO)
And I believed in that moment,
Not in God. Not in man.
But in something else entirely.
The crowd sits frozen, stunned.
Not a cheer. Not a breath.
Complete silence
He bows, precise, economical.
CLOSE-UP – THE POCKETWATCH
INT. GRAND GUIGNOL THEATRE – BACKSTAGE
The YOUNG MAN steps into a vast space filled with clocks of every shape and size.
At the centre stands a gigantic mechanical tree, its ticking slow and rhythmic.
At the center of the TREE, a CLOCK —
From the branches hang globes.
The YOUNG MAN takes a step closer. The lights go out.
INT. SANS SOUCI THEATRE – NIGHT
THE MASTER
Ladies and gentlemen…
A magician is not a deceiver of the eye,
but a student of nature’s secrets.
A nervous laugh cuts the silence, sharp and lonely.
It dies instantly.
Scattered applause begins — hesitant, uncertain. Hands clap, then falter, falling into silence again.
He turns toward the YOUNG LADY.
She meets his gaze.
Neither looks away.
YOUNG MAN (VO)
That night, I truly saw. And from that moment on, I knew I could never unsee.
CUT TO: A copper wire snakes under the base of the soil.
The ticking swells, brighter, harsher.
INT. GRAND GUIGNOL THEATRE – BACKSTAGE
The lights RETURN.
The CAMERA drifts slowly upward.
One globe is missing.
An empty hook sways gently.
The chain still warm.
Silence.
The lights go out.
THE MASTER (VO)
La chute ne commence pas avec le fruit.
Elle commence avec une voix,
CHAPTER III – DESCENT
Many Years Earlier…
INT. THEATER OF WONDER – NIGHT
Below, the stage is dim, unreal. Curtains ripple like water. Props dissolve into shadow.
At center stage, the MASTER rehearses. His hands blur with precision.
YOUNG MAN
(whispering)
So simple… so perfect.
Silence.
He freezes.
The MASTER lifts is eyes — finding the YOUNG MAN above.
TICK.
The YOUNG LADY is seated in the front row, notebook in hand.
THE MASTER
You are venturing into shadows that are not yours.
The YOUNG LADY stumbles back.
YOUNG LADY
I only wanted to learn. To see how…
THE MASTER
See? Do you think brilliance can be stolen with a single glance?
YOUNG LADY
I never set out to steal—only to understand.
The YOUNG MAN steps forward, seizing the YOUNG LADY’S wrist with iron force. The POCKETWATCH flares between them. Sparks crawl across the YOUNG LADY’s skin.
THE MASTER
If you want my secret,
you will bear its weight.
Blood. Soul. Time
Such is the price of every illusion.
He forces the YOUNG LADY’s palm closed around the watch. The diamond face splinters, shards searing red-hot into his palms.
THE MASTER
Tu souhaites voir à travers mes yeux ?
YOUNG LADY
Je veux me sentir vivante…
The POCKETWATCH FLARES.
The YOUNG LADY SCREAMS.
Sparks ERUPT — violent, blinding.
Her hand JOLTS. She looks down. It is bleeding. She buries her hand into her pocket.
The ticking swells.
THE MASTER
Voir, c’est mériter la cicatrice
YOUNG LADY
Vous m’offrez votre secret ?
A beat.
THE MASTER
Quelque chose de plus grand.
He leans in.
THE MASTER (CONT’D)
La métamorphose.
The POCKETWATCH FLARES.
INT. GRAND GUIGNOL THEATRE – BACKSTAGE
The blinding light returns.
The CAMERA tracks slowly down the MECHANICAL TREE.
AUTOMATA faces, dozens emerge. Frozen smiles.
Each one fixed in perfect stillness.
The ticking grows louder.
The CAMERA pauses.
One face is missing…
The lights go out.
THE MASTER (VO)
La chute ne commence pas avec le fruit.
Elle commence avec une voix,
qui apprend à l’œil à voir.
CHAPTER IV – DÉVIANCE
INT. THEATER OF WONDER – NIGHT
The gears of the POCKETWATCH grind gently. High in the galleries, the YOUNG MAN watches.
An empty theatre. The stage is littered with PAPERS.
On the ground, a NOTEBOOK.
Handwritten notes. All in FRENCH
Embossed in fading gold: TOUR DE PASSE-PASSE. The cover has a picture of a woman giving a male a coin.
The YOUNG MAN waits above, studying, observing intently.
The YOUNG LADY stands ON STAGE. She is circled by mirrors.
Each one catches a different angle of her hands.
A single COIN rests on the back of her RIGHT HAND.
YOUNG LADY
You will not answer. You will not interrupt.
You will not judge what you are about to see.
Do I make myself clear?
(She lifts her hand. English.)
YOUNG LADY
The eye may see,
but it is the brain that perceives.
(The coin vanishes.)
She lowers her hand.
YOUNG LADY (CONT’D)
(en français, softly)
Regardez.
(The coin CLINKS onto the table — from the other hand.)
She switches hands again. Open. Exposed.
YOUNG LADY (CONT’D)
(back to English)
You followed the sound.
Not the movement.
She meets his eyes.
YOUNG LADY
(smiling)
En revanche.
As she says it, she SWITCHES HANDS AGAIN—
openly this time.
No flourish.
No concealment.
YOUNG LADY (CONT’D)
C’est la correction.
L’instant où le corps comprend
qu’il n’a jamais dirigé.
She lets the moment settle.
YOUNG LADY (CONT’D)
La douleur obéit à la même logique.
Le corps informe.
L’esprit choisit ce qu’il est prêt à accepter en échange.
She studies him now.
YOUNG LADY
Le monde aime la beauté.
A beat.
YOUNG LADY
En revanche…
She SWITCHES HANDS ONCE MORE, deliberately.
Plain. Exposed.
YOUNG LADY (CONT’D)
They fear the pain that comes with it.
She steps back.
Silence.
He freezes.
The YOUNG LADY lifts her eyes — finding the YOUNG MAN above.
YOUNG LADY
You wish to borrow my eyes?
TICK.
The coin now rests in the YOUNG MAN’S PALM.
The COIN WARMS.
The metallic surface tightens.
Colour deepens.
Gold blooms across it. The Young Man stares.
The COIN IS NOW GOLD.
He turns it over.
Beneath it: a GASH. Blood WELLS, dark, gloss, catching the light as it gathers.
The room tilts.
The sound drains out.
CHAPTER V – DÉDOUBLEMENT
INT. THEATRE OF WONDER – BACKSTAGE – NIGHT
Silence.
A faint TICKING beneath it. Footsteps.
A GIANT MECHANICAL CLOCK TREE stands in darkness.
Its trunk is brass.
Its branches are wire and jointed metal.
The ticking persists.
INT. GRAND GUIGNOL THEATRE – NIGHT
THE YOUNG LADY steps forward.
She takes over the stage.
The theatre waits.
THE YOUNG LADY
What you see here is neither magic,
nor a miracle.
A pause.
THE YOUNG LADY
It is neither summoned from the heavens,
nor forged in a scientist’s laboratory.
She gestures gently toward the fruit.
THE YOUNG LADY
There are no gears.
No springs.
She lifts a small, jagged shard of diamond glass.
Her eyes rise to the galleries.
In the shadows above, the YOUNG MAN tightens his fist.
The YOUNG LADY holds the shard briefly between the light and the fruit.
The glow FRACTURES.
The orange splits into gold — then scatters.
Edges sharpen.
Colours shift.
THE YOUNG LADY
It is nothing more than fruit and light.
A final beat.
A hush clings to the hall — breathless, expectant.
The glow spreads across the branches.
The gold hardens.
Fractures.
Light refracts beneath the cracks.
The audience stays muted.
INT. GRAND GUIGNOL THEATRE – NIGHT
The YOUNG LADY’S HAND BURNS.
Blood drips to the floor.
In the front row, the YOUNG MAN sits transfixed.
She forces a smile, lifting the blazing fruit.
Silence.
The YOUNG MAN studies her wrist —
searching for contraptions, padding, escape.
There is none.
Her arms are bare.
In her palm: a shard of crystal, refracting light.
Below, the YOUNG LADY staggers forward.
Her arm is charred.
Blistered.
Darkened.
Blood streaks her skin.
Her breath comes shallow, broken.
She reaches center stage.
The silence presses in.
Slowly, deliberately, she lowers herself into a MAJESTIC BOW.
She straightens.
YOUNG LADY
Ladies and gentlemen—
A pause. She lets the pain settle.
YOUNG LADY (CONT’D)
You imagine there is no cost,
because it has never been yours to carry.
We know better. That is why we persist.
For were the outcome safe,
were the rise certain, were the price escapable
there would be no magic at all.
She lifts the fruit higher.
YOUNG LADY (CONT’D)
The thrill is not in the trick itself,
but in the instant that precedes its success
the moment when you perceive
that it may undo you,
and yet you do not turn away.
She scans the audience.
YOUNG LADY (CONT’D)
Those who search for the secret.
Seldom search for the scars.
For once you truly see, you will learn there is no unseeing…
A beat.
YOUNG LADY (CONT’D)
…For the real truth hides, in The Fall.
She removes her coat to reveal her arms and lower torso.
No contraptions.
No protective devices.
Her arms are branded with burns and bruises,
branching across her skin like roots.
Complete silence.
She CLOSES her eyes.
YOUNG LADY
(a whisper)
en…revanche.
EXT. VERSAILLES GARDENS – ORANGERIE – DAWN
Snow falls.
Sunlight breaks through.
The tree glitters
gold beneath, diamonds above.
The YOUNG LADY watches him.
She passes him the fruit.
He BITES.
INT. GRAND GUIGNOL THEATRE – NIGHT
Sparkling white light POURS IN through the stained-glass windows.
The glow surges upward, racing along every wound.
Her scars burn brightly, the wounds crystallise.
Where the cuts run deepest, shards of DIAMOND stitched tight, pressed through the skin,
catching the fractured light spilling from the chandeliers above.
YOUNG LADY
Un magicien n’est pas un trompeur de l’œil,
mais un maître de la perception.
The YOUNG LADY raises her arms in triumph.
Her burned skin gleaming as the roar of the crowd envelopes her.
She OPENS her EYES.
The Applause ERUPTS, thunderous and uncontrolled. The sound crashes through the theatre.
For an instant, her silhouette stretches across the wall behind her: first the MASTER’s form, then branching wider, until it resembles the TREE itself, shimmering in the glow.
INT. GRAND GUIGNOL THEATRE – BACKSTAGE
The blinding light returns. Workbenches emerge from the glare.
The CAMERA TRACKS upward to an mechanical TREE.
The whole tree is heavy with POCKETWATCHES,
hundreds ticking in merciless unison.
On one branch, a hook hangs empty.
The ticking stops.
The lights go out.
THE MASTER (VO)
La chute ne commence pas avec le fruit.
Elle commence avec une voix,
qui apprend à l’œil à voir.
Quand l’œil croit voir,
l’esprit a déjà choisi.
CHAPTER VI – DÉVOILEMENT
INT. GRAND GUIGNOL THEATRE – NIGHT
The YOUNG LADY wakes in a spray of diamond light.
She is seated in the FRONT ROW.
APPLAUSE crashes through the hall — deafening, unrelenting.
She turns.
The YOUNG MAN sits beside her, motionless.
In his hands: the DIAMOND GLOBE, blazing.
ON STAGE
The MASTER raises ONE HAND in acknowledgement.
The other remains buried in his pocket.
He bows — economical, exact.
APPLAUSE swells.
The YOUNG MAN turns to the YOUNG LADY.
She meets his gaze.
For a brief moment, they recognise each other.
INT. SANS SOUCI THEATRE – NIGHT
The YOUNG MAN STARTLES AWAKE.
FRONT ROW.
The YOUNG LADY sits beside him.
Frozen.
Eyes wide.
Unblinking.
He looks back to the globe.
The gold deepens.
Heats.
The reflection crACKS —
splintering under the light.
The GOLD flares WHITE. He turns sharply.
The seat is empty.
The entire row is empty.
The ENTIRE THEATRE is EMPTY.
He slips his withered hand into his pocket.
The ticking continues.
A WHITE FLASH —
DIAMONDS ERUPT, filling the frame.
EXT. VERSAILLES GARDENS – ORANGERIE – DAWN
The MAJESTIC orange tree stands radiant in the early light. Scorching heat.
Morning sun filters through its branches.
Golden light threads softly through the canopy.
The camera TRACKS down.
Leaves, fruit, shimmering gold.
A single ORANGE loosens. It is tinged in GREEN.
It falls. Oranges all over.
The ground is scattered with fallen fruit.
At the base of the tree,
partially obscured by fallen leaves,
a GRAVE.
Unmarked.
The CAMERA HOLDS.
The soil at the edge of the grave stirs.
A single green shoot breaks through
fragile, pale,
trembling in the light.
For a heartbeat,
the light shifts.
The garden rearranges itself
edges soften, colour drains,
bleaching slowly to white.
THE MASTER (VO)
La chute ne commence pas avec le fruit.
Elle commence avec une voix,
qui apprend à l’œil à voir.
Quand l’œil croit voir,
l’esprit a déjà choisi…Voilà le prix de la conscience.
THE END
BEHIND THE SCENES
*AUTHORS NOTEBOOK – FRAGMENTS*
I was allured by the color orange, not for what it was, but for what it could become. In one light, it was a fruit. In another, gold. Nothing about the color changed. Only my will to believe it did.
I remember the day I saw the tree. At first, nothing moved. Then the light changed. The leaves became charged with color. The orange intensified, hardened, until it seemed to bear a weight. Gold, where, just moments before, there had been only foliage.
At that moment, it seemed to me that the world had loosened its grip, just a little. Not enough to break its rules, but enough to let something through. I then understood that what the eye sees and what the brain perceives are not the same thing. Meaning is formed in the space between the two.
The color remains.
What she becomes depends on where I look…
