Script of the Week: Seuss by Eyal Podell and Jonathon Stewart
Seuss tells the story of Ted Geisel, AKA Dr. Seuss, as he struggles to become the writer we all love. The story is divided into two timelines. The first revolves around a young Seuss as he heads off to Dartmouth and meets Helen who he later marries. The second concerns Seuss, now in the middle of his career, as he struggles to deal with Helen’s illness and prepares to write The Cat in the Hat. The stories read as a series of flashbacks and flash forwards that are weaved together by Helen’s constant love and desire to push Seuss to embrace his own eccentricities and become the man he came to be. I walked into this script with high expectations and was moved by some of the storytelling, particularly in the third act. However, I couldn’t help feeling that there is more to this story than is being presented on the page.
This is a Seuss rife with insecurities about his future. Propagated by a father, T.R., whose one desire is to see his son grow to be a responsible man, both young and old Seuss spend the movie in various stages of doubt about their abilities and their futures. Fortunately for them both they have Helen who encourages them forward with blooming affection. In addition, Seuss also has a mother, Henrietta, who from a very early age encourages his fantasies but is helpless to stop T.R.’s assaults on Seuss’ confidence. Both Helen and Henrietta struggle to encourage Seuss to embrace who he is without doubt or remorse. They are interchangeable characters and in this lies the primary problem of the script.
The relationships, as written, are honest and moving but each timeline is just repetition. What happens in the past is still happening in the present. The parallels between the stories are clear but the script fails in using them to complement each other. They are in essence the same story and it never moves forward until the third act. Helen and Henrietta repeat different versions of the same mantra — be yourself, be yourself, be yourself — until it feels like a cliche. Troubling as well is a father figure who never, not even in Seuss’ darkest moments, gets an opportunity to redeem himself. He is too clear an antagonist rather than a man with his own conflicted feelings about his son’s future or his love for Seuss. These three characters are in desperate need of arcs.
It is not just the supporting characters that are problematic however. Seuss himself never feels quite realized. He never expresses desire or need. His eccentricities and talent strike us as just that. He can draw and come up with funny names for ordinary things but his genius is not a burning passion that he simply cannot be without. Why is it important that he see things this way? Not even love makes Seuss act or fight because it comes too easy. Women simply replace each other, fullfil their duty, and in the process perpetuate stasis.
What was most surprising is that by the end of the story we still don’t know how Seuss sees the world. A man such as Seuss must have had a fantasy life incomparable to other men. Yet, only on two occasions in this script do his characters come to life. Those moments are welcome reprieves in what is overwhelmingly a stale script because they give us a sense of how Seuss copes with life, love, disappointment, and death. More of that, please.
Sometimes a Good Notion 