“Back in 2010 I was at my godfather Larry Hagman’s (the actor from the TV show Dallas) house, there were some boxes on the pool table. I helped him unbox some boxes and somebody had sent him a J.R. cowboy hat. Inside that box was newspaper packing. There was an article in one of the newspapers about a family tragedy. Their child died from a stray bullet from a local gang fight and the traumatized dad felt so guilty that he didn’t speak to a single person for eighteen months,” recalls screenwriter Robert Archer Lynn as being the impetus for his dialogue-free thriller Silent Night.
Lynn’s son was born a year after he read the newspaper article, but the visceral and constant fear of losing a child remained with him. After reading the newspaper article, Lynn began journaling his thoughts on being a father for the next decade. Since his divorce, the absence of his son on a daily basis escalated his sense of loss. During one two-week period when his son was with his ex-wife, Robert revisited his journal and wrote down his thoughts on grief, loss and the death of a child. He wasn’t necessarily wanting to write a screenplay, but he needed to get his thoughts and feelings down on paper.
Basil Iwanyk from Thunder Road Pictures (John Wick) responded positively to the script and sent it to director John Woo (Face Off, Hard Boiled) who promptly signed on. “John Woo and he said he’d been waiting for this script for twenty years,” exclaims Lynn. Woo gave Lynn four feedback notes mainly on simplifying and streamlining the script.
Robert Archer Lynn
Lynn mentions that many of the scenes in Silent Night were based on objects in his house. “You would see all the elephants that I wrote, the trains, and a broken music box based on my interactions with my son. many of these things are still in his room.”
One of John’s additional notes was to build a train set surrounding grieving father Brian Godlock’s (Joel Kinnaman) and mother Saya (Catalina Sandino Moreno) son’s tombstone in the movie.
John Woo has worked on lower budget and high budget films and make them all look like they had a similar budget to Mission Impossible. Silent Night fell on the lower end of the spectrum making it an indie action movie.
A Revenge Thriller
Ostensibly a revenge thriller where Brian avenges his son’ death, Silent Night is really about parents desperately trying to handle their grief. Robert Archer Lynn confirms that he’s more interested in their emotions of guilt and helplessness. “I was constantly having to think about myself and how I would react if I lost my son. I would probably lose my sanity and do something stupid after such a senseless death.”
It’s a family drama, but there’s a lot more action in the script than there is in the movie.
Brian and Saya’s grief is conveyed without dialogue which adds a layer of complexity and uncertainty to the script. “At the very top of the script I basically let the reader know that anything that they see in italics is the inner dialogue of that character.” This was designed to give the actors some direction on how to play a scene. Lynn also adds that this was the hardest script he’s ever written due to its lack of dialogue.
The filmed version of Silent Night includes flashbacks of happier times to tell its story. The screenwriter refers to a scene in their son Taylor’s bedroom which is now a sanctuary. Brian imagines his son in his bed. Brian is wallowing because he couldn’t bring himself to enter his son’s room for many months until then. Early drafts simply had Brian enter an empty room after hearing a noise and he senses his son’s presence. It was John Woo’s idea to add the flashback scene of his son in the bed. “It’s still my favorite scene in the movie,” says Lynn.
Robert Archer Lynn compensated for the lack of dialogue by adding vivid descriptions in his screenplay. “I describe everything you see around you and it was also very staccato in the writing in terms of spreading out the action. I wanted to see if I could get a reader to go to get to the midpoint of the movie without realizing there wasn’t any dialogue.”
Words Without Dialogue
Despite the lack of dialogue from any of the characters, there are some strategically-selected words sprinkled throughout the script, either by text message, posters, newspaper headlines and radio banter to propel the story and highlight the plague of senseless gun violence.
“There was a billboard where it says, Fuck the Police.’ I tried to use it very sparingly, and very specifically, because I wanted the audience to quickly know you were in a gang area.” The original script was set in Watts, CA which once had the dubious honor of having one of the most dangerous roads in America. The Goldlocks bought a house at the end of this gangland territory while Watts was undergoing gentrification. It was an affordable place to raise a family. Things should have been fine.
There was some banal banter on the radio announcing another sunny day in Los Angeles as they were driving home from the hospital after Brian was in a coma for three months following a gang assault.
This exacerbates Saya’s mourning because she has already been grieving during that time and has to relive that trauma until Brian finds out that his son is dead.
Lynn tackles the scourge of gang-related gun violence and the senseless death of innocent victims with care and sensitivity, while aiming straight for the jugular. “I wanted to do something where people would see how it affects a family and how deeply devastating it is. Most couples don’t stay together. Saya was able to work her way through it through painting and other pursuits. Brian could not let it go.” The relationship breakdown between the two is illustrated in the film.
In the film version, Woo wants Saya to know what Brian’s doing in the garage as he plots his revenge. There is a level of complicitness.
“In the script, Brian locks her out completely. He shuts the door, puts paper over the windows, and installs an additional lock because he wouldn’t want his wife to be an accessory to what he’s about to do. They don’t even communicate apart from texting. They never lie down on a couch together. I don’t allow them to get that close,” mentions Lynn.
The original version of the script was far more brutal than what was filmed. Today kids are desensitized to gun violence and accept it as part of their daily lives. “Originally, there was a sixteen year old boy driving a car. He’s a gangbanger and the kid next to him is already dead. He’s being chased by another gang and he’s trying to load his gun while he’s driving. His lips are quivering and he’s scared. He’s just a boy.”
Brian Goldlock (Joel Kinnaman) & Saya Goldlock (Catalina Sandino Moreno). Photo courtesy of Lionsgate Entertainment
Robert Archer Lynn describes “his writing voice as the collective sum of his experiences. I try to approach it like a good country song and try to be honest. It’s a really good song when you write about what you don’t want people to know about you. A country song is basically wearing your heart on your sleeve and airing out all your dirty laundry.”
I write action to write something more personal
What’s Next For Action Films?
“There’s always that one movie that comes in and it changes action. John Wick came in and it took a very stylized, over the top approach to it. John could stop a bullet with his jacket.”
“One of my first films that I wrote and directed was called Adrenaline and I shot it in one take. I like experimenting with different techniques to pull in the audience. I really love it when the audience gets more inside the mind of the of the lead.”
“So next up, I’m working on a contained action film where the actors have practical cameras and film each other. It’s like a Delta Force Unit where they have four cameras on their bodies if they’re going in for a raid. The movie will be blocked, but the actors are filming the movie in real time.”
“I’ve been playing with this idea for a while and seeing how it’ll feel and what that’ll mean when one of the characters is eliminated in the movie and then we lose their feed.”
[More: “Be Undisciplined And Write Your Voice” Says Film Producer Basil Iwanyk]
