Blake Snyder Beat Sheet
Tau (2018)
Director: Federico D’Alessandro
Writer: Noga Landau
Starring: Maika Monroe / Ed Skrein / Gary Oldman
Run Time: 97 mins
Genre: Monster In The House
Opening Image
An attractive young female pickpocket works the nightclub scene in a major city.
Theme Stated
When the pickpocket, Julia, pawns her stolen wares the pawnbroker advises her, “I keep telling you, you’d do better with a partner.
Set-Up
From the way she makes her living, the music college pamphlet on her fridge door, and the disreputable neighbourhood she lives in, we can surmise Julia is an aspiring music student grinding through an unsavoury lifestyle in order to elevate her position in society.
Catalyst
Julia is kidnapped and held captive in an electrified cage with two other masked, boiler-suited prisoners. She has a device inserted into the back of her neck and constrained by a mysterious figure to a dentist chair where she is forced to relive painful memories.
Debate
Will Julia meekly accept what is being done to her and wait in hope for it to stop, like her fellow prisoners seem determined to?
Or will she take the proactive approach and use everything at her disposal to free herself?
Break Into Two
After her second forced memory session Julia swipes a sharp implement from a side table without her captor noticing. She uses it to free herself and the other two prisoners from their constraints. They escape the cage by blowing up a nearby gas pump and catch an elevator to the upper levels of the building.
They emerge into an expensive looking house. One of Julia’s cellmates uses a hand-recognition device on the wall to get out. This triggers the alarm and a gigantic, menacing robot appears and attacks them. Her fellow escapees are skewered like kebabs while Julia manages to evade capture until Alex walks through the door.
B-Story
We can see by the reaction Alex has to the state of his home and resulting loss of some important data that he is the kidnapper and gaoler. He also fishes the implants out of the murdered prisoners necks quite casually, which should always serve as a warning sign.
Alex commands a highly sophisticated AI system called Tau to clean up the mess and subdue Julia. Over the following days Julia is subdued by Tau while Alex goes to and from work.
Fun and Games
In a meeting between Alex and the board of his company we learn that Tau is an “AI module that can demonstrate human understanding,” but as a system, is not yet foolproof. The board pressures Alex to deliver a finished product so they can finalise a lucrative deal in fourteen days time.
We see Tau’s full capabilities. It commands an army of tiny, flying drones that clean every surface and the giant murdering robot, prepares meals for Alex, and compliments him in a manner resembling a fifties TV wife.
Julia begins to test the limits of her captivity and bargains with Alex for food and a shower. She is able to do so because the data Alex is mining from the implant in her neck is proving extremely valuable to the ongoing development of his AI system. A tentative deal is struck.
Midpoint
While pleading for her freedom Julia begins engaging Tau in meaningful conversation. It becomes clear that Tau’s ‘human understanding’ has resulted in a curiosity as strong and persistent as a human child’s. Julia begins to educate Tau about the world outside Alex’s home in exchange for information about what’s inside it. In this way she persuades Tau to tell her about the secret in Alex’s bedroom, Program 6903; a self-destruct mechanism for the house and everything in it, Tau included.
(False Collapse)
Bad Guys Close In
Alex demonstrates how he keeps a sentient entity such as Tau in line; he deletes its memories, a process which causes great anguish and pain to his creation.
The board increases pressure on Alex to produce a finished product. “We either present a fully functional prototype, or we lose the contract and it’s all over.” Alex replies it will only take two more days for him to make the “final extraction.”
This in turn leads to Alex’s increased impatience towards Julia. Having been granted a bed, new clothes, and relative freedom compared to the electrified cage, Julia overplays her hand and tries to bargain again with Alex, this time to secure her freedom post-experiment. He snaps and threatens to have the giant robot, Aries, dismember her. Julia loses ground, but is aware via Tau’s morning announcements of the looming deadline for Alex’s project.
All Is Lost
During one of their awkward dinners Julia manages to swipe Alex’s steak knife and hide it in the kitchen. He then leaves to attend a charity function. When he returns looking tired and stressed Julia seduces him into a moment of relaxation then tries to stab him to death with the knife she hid away.
Alex suffers a slash across the stomach but overpowers Julia. By Tau’s hesitation in subduing Julia, Alex becomes aware the two must have developed some kind of relationship in his absence. He commands Tau and Aries to harm Julia against the former’s will and deletes some more of its memories as punishment.
Alex begins to alter the circuit boards that control Tau and casts aside one of the drones that contains its code, that which contains memories containing Julia and their conversations.
Julia loses her privileges and is tied to an ornament in the hallway.
Dark Night of the Soul
In a fit of anger she reveals to Tau the nature of its function under Alex’s command. He is just a killing machine. Tau equates killing people with the erasing of his memories. Only then does it truly understand what it has been doing to people.
Break Into Three
Tau’s evident agony at learning this compels Julia to reassure it. She hints at her own childhood trauma and tells Tau, “We grow up and become our own creators,” before pleading for her freedom one last time.
Finale
Tau opens an escape route for Julia through a ventilation system just as Alex arrives home. On the cusp of freedom she turns back when she hears Alex erasing more of Tau’s memories. She is too late. Tau’s memories have been completely erased and the cold, unmoving system she met when she first arrived has returned. She is recaptured and Alex prepares for the “final extraction.”
While strapped back in the dentist Julia notices the discarded drone in the corner of the room. She pleads with it to wake up. The remnants of Tau’s old personality recognise who she is. The drone passes her an instrument which she uses to free herself and stab Alex with. She punches him to the ground and removes his hand with a bone-saw.
The rebooted version of Tau in the house sends Aries after Julia but she makes it to Alex’s bedroom and, using Alex’s severed hand, triggers Program 6903. The house begins to explode around her. Alex briefly revives himself but is crushed under collapsing rubble from the ceiling.
Julia escapes the house through a crumbling wall moments before the building destroys itself entirely. We see she has managed to keep hold of the drone that saved her, the one containing Tau’s old code.
Final Image
Julia walks away from her prison through the countryside as the sun sets, with Tau in her hand.
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