Noah Hawley’s ‘To Be Read Backwards’ Sounds Like ‘Memento’ Meets ‘Benjamin Button’
FargoandLegioncreatorNoah Hawleyis headed back to the big screen withTo Be Read Backwards. Based on a short story byMatthew Baker,To Be Read Backwardssounds like a cross betweenMementoandThe Curious Case of Benjamin Button, telling the story of a man moving backwards in time from his death. Hawley will make his feature directorial debut with the upcoming Natalie Portman NASA dramaPale Blue Dot.Deadlineis reporting that Fox has snapped up the rights to Matthew Baker’s short storyTo Be Read Backwards, with the intent of developing it as a project for Noah Hawley to direct. Here’s the logline on this somewhat strange story:
Baker’s work is turning into a hot commodity in Hollywood. Netflix bought the rights to his storyLife Sentence, while Amazon landed the rights toTransition, another Baker short story. His short storyThe Appearancewas sold to Makeready.
To Be Read Backwards' high-concept plot will no doubt prove fruitful for Hawley, who seems to revel in making strange, surreal, overly stylish pieces of entertainment. While Hawley has primarily operated in TV, he has a feature directorial debut coming up –Pale Blue Dot, starring Natalie Portman. He was also supposed to direct the sci-fi filmMan Alive, but now will only produce, with Hiro Murai directing.
A film unfolding backwards isn’t exactly new – Christopher Nolan’sMementois the most prominent example.Irreversibleis another film that moves back in time, andEternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mindbegins at the ending, before doubling back and filling in the gaps. The unique angle here seems to involve the main character starting at his death, and learning more about himself as he moves backwards. That recallsThe Curious Case of Benjamin Button, but is different enough to stand on its own.
While Hawley will produce and likely directTo Be Read Backwards, Fox is going to find someone else to handle the script. That’s probably for the best. While Hawley is a good ideas man, more often than not, I find his TV scripts running out of steam very quickly. More often than not,FargoandLegionwill set up an intriguing concept, and then fail to deliver on it. Letting someone else handle theTo Be Read Backwardsscript will helpfully side-step this issue.
