by Wes Anderson
Your companion was very kind to me when I was a lonely little boy. (To both M. Gustave and Zero.) My men and I apologize for disturbing you.
Henckels turns coldly to the first soldier. He looks sheepish. He says, robotic, to M. Gustave:
SOLDIER 1
I beg your pardon, sir.
Henckels and the soldiers immediately leave the compartment, march down the corridor, and exit the coach. Silence.
M. GUSTAVE
You see? There are still faint glimmers of civilization left in this barbaric slaughterhouse that was once known as humanity. Indeed, that’s what we provide in our own modest, humble, insignificant – (Sighs deeply.) Oh, fuck it.
M. Gustave looks out the window as the train begins to move again. Zero appears to be in a state of numb shock.
Montage:
The cosmopolitan city of Lutz in the dead of night. A rickety Daimler taxi sputters along a winding cobblestone road at top speed. It squeezes up a narrow lane lined with shops. All are closed and shuttered. It dips into a tunnel through a brick building. It crosses a stone bridge high over a river. It drives through an iron gate, circles around a garden, and skids to a stop next to Madame D.’s limousine.
Up a short path, there is an enormous mansion.
INT. FOYER. DAY
A bell rings. Feet clack and echo on the wide marble floor. A maid in black hurries to open the front door. She is Clotilde. M. Gustave and Zero enter the vestibule while the taxi waits outside. M. Gustave kisses Clotilde on both cheeks and says immediately:
M. GUSTAVE
Where is she, Clotilde? Take me to her.
Clotilde leads M. Gustave with Zero in tow through a series of doors, enfilade, until they arrive at a dimly candlelit drawing room.
Murals of cherubs cover the walls. There is a harpsichord in one corner and a loudly ticking grandfather clock in another. The feet of the corpse, in silver pumps, jut out, toes up, from inside the casket on top of a gold-leaf table.
M. Gustave stops and gasps. He turns to Clotilde and nods. She tugs Zero by the sleeve, and they withdraw. M. Gustave picks up a chair, carries it to the body, sets it down, and sits. Silence. He speaks in a normal, conversational voice:
M. GUSTAVE
You’re looking so well, darling. You really are. They’ve done a marvelous job. I don’t know what sort of cream they’ve put on you down at the morgue, but I want some. Honestly, you look better than you have in years. You look like you’re alive!
M. Gustave shakes his head in admiration. He leans down and kisses Madame D. on the lips. Zero and Clotilde, watching discreetly from the shadows in the next room, look slightly revolted.
M. Gustave takes the corpse’s hand. He notices something and hesitates.
Insert:
Madame D.’s fingernails. They are now lacquered in a rich plum. M. Gustave says, deeply moved:
M. GUSTAVE
You changed it, after all. It’s perfect. (Calling to the next room.) Clotilde?
Clotilde advances into view. She says respectfully:
MAID
Oui, M. Gustave?
M. GUSTAVE
A glass of chilled water with no ice, please.
CLOTIDE
Oui, M. Gustave – et aussi: M. Serge a démandé un mot avec vous en privé dans son office, s’il vous plaît.
M. GUSTAVE
(slightly irritated)
Oh. Well, all right. (Distracted, to the body.) I shan’t be long, darling.
M. Gustave stands up and follows Clotilde through the row of doors. Zero looks back at the casket as he trails behind them.
MR. MOUSTAFA
(voice-over)
We were escorted through a green baize door, down a narrow service corridor, and into the butler’s pantry.
INT. OFFICE. NIGHT
A small chamber separated from the kitchen by a glass-paneled wall. M. Gustave checks his watch. There is a cup of water in his hand. Zero drinks a sip of milk. In the background, a sous-chef chops while the cook stirs a bubbling broth. Kitchen and scullery maids dart back and forth clanking pots and pans.
MR. MOUSTAFA
(voice-over)
A moment later, the kitchen passage swung open, and a small servant dressed in white jolted into the room.
An extremely anxious, petite butler enters with an ice bucket. He is Serge. He hacks chips off a frozen block in the sink and fills the container briskly. He turns to go – then spots M. Gustave looking out at him from inside the pantry.
MR. MOUSTAFA
(voice-over)
I’ve never forgotten the look on that man’s face.
Serge is: deeply distraught, physically exhausted, and, above all, terrified. He swallows, holds up a quick finger for M. Gustave to wait, then disappears back out the door. M. Gustave frowns. He says to himself:
M. GUSTAVE
What the devil is going on?
M. Gustave looks to Zero. Zero is perplexed.
MR. MOUSTAFA
(voice-over)
I, myself, had never set foot inside a house of this kind in my life.
M. Gustave dumps his glass of water into a potted cactus and strides through the chaotic kitchen while Clotilde watches him with a feather duster in her hand. She makes a reluctant move to advise him to stop – but he flies past her, bangs out the swinging door after Serge, and marches into a dark corridor.
MR. MOUSTAFA
(voice-over)
I understood very little about the events that were to follow – but, eventually, I came to recognize:
INT. TROPHY ROOM. NIGHT
A door opens. M. Gustave comes inside and stops short. He hesitates. Zero sidles in next to him. They both stare, mouths open.
MR. MOUSTAFA
(voice-over)
When the destiny of a great fortune is at stake, men’s greed spreads like a poison in the bloodstream.
Cut to:
A dark, woody parlor with mounted heads everywhere – lions, tigers, buffaloes, antelopes, etc. A murmuring audience of fifty men in business suits is gathering and taking its seats in rows before a dais. Every age, build, and variety of facial hair is accounted for. Some carry briefcases and canes. Most have strong drinks in their hands. There are also several young dandies; a few little old ladies; and a pair of country farmers.
MR. MOUSTAFA
(voice-over)
Uncles, nephews, cousins – in-laws of increasingly tenuous connection. The old woman’s most distant relations had come foraging out of the woodwork.
Serge drops an ice cube into a glass of whiskey with tongs. He does a double-take as he sees that M. Gustave has followed him into the room.
MR. MOUSTAFA
(voice-over)
At the head of this congregation (it was a disorienting coincidence), we discovered our own Deputy Kovacs (himself an important attorney, of course). He was the executor of the dead widow’s estate.
Deputy Kovacs, standing behind a desk on a platform at the front of the room, squints at M. Gustave, puzzled. M. Gustave and Zero look back at him, equally confused. Deputy Kovacs turns his attention back to the seated audience. He clears his throat, sets a large, cardboard box down in front of him, and addresses the room:
DEPUTY KOVACS
This is Madame D.’s Last Will and Testament. It consists of a general tontine drawn up before the event of her husband’s death forty-six years ago –
Deputy Kovacs lifts a faded, fragile slip of paper out of the box. He places it delicately on the table.
– in combination with 635 amendments, notations, corrections, and letters of wishes executed during the subsequent decades.
Deputy Kovacs reaches into the box with two hands and pulls out an enormous pile of scraps, slips, shreds, slivers, forms, files, postcards, and various bits of lint and loose thread. He plants it all down with a thud.
The ultimate legality of this accumulation requires further analysis; but, in the opinion of this office, it was Madame D.’s intention that con
trol of the vast bulk of her estate should be transferred, forthwith, to her son, Dmitri –
Cut to:
A spindly, thirty-five-year-old man with a thick head of spiky, black hair which sticks up straight into the air. He has black eyes and a black moustache. He wears a black suit cut close to his skinny body. He is Dmitri. A thug in a leather coat with close-shaven head and high-heeled boots sits slightly behind and beside him. He wears brass knuckles on both hands. He is Jopling.
– with special allowances for his sisters Marguerite, Laetizia, and Carolina –
Cut to:
Madame D.’s spinster daughters. They range in age from forty to fifty. They are sturdy and fierce.
– and minor gifts for various members of the extended family as shown in the List of Recipients, which I will elucidate in due course.
There is a mumbling of general approval around the room and throughout the gallery of distant relations. A few take notes. Deputy Kovacs interjects:
However.
Voices hush. Pause.
An additional codicil, delivered into my possession by post only this morning, and, by all indications, sent by Madame D. during the last hours of her life, contains an amendment to the original certificate, which, as prescribed by law, I will read to you now. The authenticity of this document has not yet been confirmed by the presiding magistrate, so I ask that all parties be patient and refrain from comment until such time as our investigations can be completed.
Dmitri and Jopling confer in a tense whisper. The sisters grumble, dismayed. The group as a whole sits up to attention. Deputy Kovacs slides a handwritten letter on pale-pink paper out of an envelope and reads:
DEPUTY KOVACS
‘To my esteemed friend who comforted me in my later years and brought sunshine into the life of an old woman who thought she would never be happy again – M. Gustave H. – I bequeath, bestow, and devise, free of all taxation and with full and absolute fiduciary entitlement, the painting known as “Boy with Apple” –’
M. GUSTAVE
(floored)
Wow!
DEPUTY KOVACS
‘– by Johannes van Hoytl –’
M. Gustave grips Zero by the shoulder like a vise. Zero grimaces.
M. GUSTAVE
I can’t believe it.
DEPUTY KOVACS
‘– the younger –’
Dmitri drops a tumbler on the floor. He blurts angrily:
DMITRI
What?
DEPUTY KOVACS
‘– which gave us both so much pleasure.’
Deputy Kovacs looks up. The three sisters talk loudly over each other simultaneously:
MARGEURITE
The van Hoytl?
LAETIZIA
Tax-free?
CAROLINA
Can she do that?
A hunched, ancient, grizzled, old man in the middle of the room throws up his hands. He asks loudly:
OLD MAN
Who’s Gustave H.?
M. GUSTAVE
(inevitably)
I’m afraid that’s me, darling.
Every face in the entire assembly now turns around fully and stares at M. Gustave and Zero. Silence.
The room erupts. All the distant relations start talking at once. Dmitri is on his feet, advancing toward the back of the room, flanked by Jopling, as he explodes, pointing at M. Gustave.
DMITRI
That fucking faggot! He’s a concierge. What are you doing here?
M. GUSTAVE
(stiffening)
I’ve come to pay my respects to a great woman whom I loved.
DMITRI
(turning to the room)
This man is an intruder in my home!
M. GUSTAVE
(making a point of it)
It’s not yours yet, Dmitri. Only when probate is granted, and the Deed of Entitlement –
DMITRI
You’re not getting ‘Boy with Apple’, you goddamn little fruit!
M. GUSTAVE
(genuinely offended)
How’s that supposed to make me feel?
The three sisters join Dmitri as the veins in his neck begin to bulge. He continues loudly, for the record:
DMITRI
Call the police. We’re pressing charges. This criminal has plagued my family for nearly twenty years. He’s a ruthless adventurer and a con artist who preys on mentally feeble, sick old ladies – and he probably fucks them, too!
The three sisters look horrified. One of the little old ladies gasps. Shocked faces look to M. Gustave. He shrugs and says tentatively:
M. GUSTAVE
I go to bed with all my friends.
Dmitri cold-cocks M. Gustave an upper-cut to the jaw and drops him with one punch. Less than a second later, Zero slams his own fist squarely right into the middle of Dmitri’s face and knocks him over backward with blood spurting out of his nose. Less than a second after that, Jopling pounds Zero in the side of the head, sending him flying with a smack against the wall and melting instantly into the floor. The room breaks into complete pandemonium.
In the midst of the chaos, the hunched old man says, aside, to a younger one:
OLD MAN
Where’s Céline?
YOUNG MAN
(hesitates)
She’s dead. We’re reading her will.
OLD MAN
(slightly embarrassed)
Oh, quite right, of course. How silly of me.
Another younger man, eavesdropping, starts coughing and spits red wine into his glass.
In the meantime: Serge helps M. Gustave and Zero to their feet as Jopling restrains Dmitri, and various of the distant relations attempt to intervene in the fray. Dmitri, behind an almost certainly broken nose, shouts furiously at M. Gustave as he strains to clamber over his henchman’s shoulder:
DMITRI
If I learn you ever once laid a finger on my mother’s body, living or dead, I swear to God, I’ll cut your throat! (Screaming.) You hear me?
M. GUSTAVE
(clever though dizzy)
I thought I was supposed to be a fucking faggot.
DMITRI
(hesitates)
You are, but you’re bisexual!
M. GUSTAVE
(pause)
Let’s change the subject. I’m leaving.
M. Gustave turns and, assisted by Serge and a staggering Zero, exits the room.
INT. KITCHEN. NIGHT
Clotilde rushes to M. Gustave’s assistance as Serge brings him through the door. She brushes his shoulders and smooths his hair. Serge shouts frantically in French and guides them all back into his butler’s pantry. Zero holds his glass of milk against his ear like an ice -pack. Serge and Clotilde yell at each other while the other servants race in and out of the kitchen, panicking. They disappear again into the next room.
M. Gustave and Zero, alone for a moment, catch their breath. M. Gustave pants:
M. GUSTAVE
That picture – ‘Boy with Apple’ – is priceless. Understand?
ZERO
(hopeful)
Congratulations, M. Gustave!
M. GUSTAVE
They’re going to fight me for the son of a bitch.
ZERO
Is it very beautiful?
M. GUSTAVE
(swooning)
Beyond description. (Reciting.) ‘E’en the most gifted bard’s rhyme can only sing but to the lack of her and all she isn’t! His tongue doth trip –’
ZERO
Can I see it?
M. Gustave looks surprised. Pause.
M. GUSTAVE
I don’t see why not.
M. Gustave zooms out through the scullery and into a little stairwell. Zero follows. They spiral up a steep flight.
Cut to:
A wide landing overlooking the foyer. The voices of the bickering assembly echo from the rear of the house. M. Gustave looks quickly left and right, then darts down the hallway and through a set of double doors.
INT. LIBRARY. NIGHT
A long, narrow gallery lined from floor to ceiling with books and paintings. M. Gustave leads Zero straight through to the far end where ‘Boy with Apple’ hangs above a fireplace. He stands beside it facing Zero and assumes the role of a museum docent:
M. GUSTAVE
This is van Hoytl’s exquisite portrayal of a beautiful boy on the cusp of manhood. Blond, smooth. Skin as white as that milk. (Pointing to Zero’s glass.) Of impeccable provenance. One of the last in private hands – and, unquestionably, the best. It’s a masterpiece. The rest of this shit is worthless junk.
M. Gustave and Zero stand side by side and admire the picture for a long minute – then Zero looks strangely to M. Gustave. M. Gustave looks back at him, curious. Zero’s eyes flicker. M. Gustave frowns.
Zero goes to the corner, picks up a footstool, and places it on the hearth.
M. Gustave hesitates. He steps up onto the footstool. He lifts the painting off its hooks. He comes back down to the floor. There is a dark rectangle in the wallpaper marking the absent picture. He turns to Zero again, uncertain.
Behind the fire-irons, leaning against a stack of etchings, Zero spots a woodcut print of two lesbians masturbating. He grabs it and hangs it in the painting’s place.
INT. FOYER. NIGHT
M. Gustave and Zero circle rapidly down the wide staircase. Serge comes into the room at the same time and meets them as they arrive at the front door. He says breathlessly:
SERGE
M. Gustave! Pardonnez-moi. Ce n’est pas –
Serge sees the painting tucked under M. Gustave’s arm. He stares at it. He says reluctantly:
SERGE
