Synopsis

On board a yacht, "The Star Bird," Mara Guerdon is woken by a mysterious white light that washes over her. She's frozen in place and gasps for air, as if the light exerts some kind of psychic force. Pulling free of it, she darts to the bathroom, retching. Shining a penlight into her eye, she's horrified to see a light still slowly receding in her pupil like some tide. Shaken, Mara skypes with Ty Bushnell, her rehab sponsor. He's guiding her through the final stages of OxyContin withdrawal. She's confined herself to the boat, taking meds to mitigate her addiction, and she assumes the nightmare she just experienced was a side effect.

Mara is traveling to the Virgin Islands to meet her fiance, Riley Johns. They're planning to dive to explore a shipwreck. As she makes landfall to rendezvous with him, we learn she's a sharpshooter who survived the horrors of Fallujah. She was discharged from the military for stealing oxy from a base.

Sailing on The Star Bird, Mara shows Riley photos of The Advena, the Civil War era wreck which was carrying silver when it sank. She's wearing a necklace with a doubloon she and Riley found from the ship. They estimate there are millions in undiscovered treasure, but there's a ticking time clock on their efforts - an approaching tropical storm. That night, she wakes, bewitched by noises she's hearing where they've set anchor. Her pupil appears to dilate again and she's assaulted by someone or some thing that smashes her face into the mirror!

Mara comes to - Riley's banging on the bathroom door. They're both shocked to see she has shards of glass from the mirror embedded in her cheek. After they treat her wounds, she relates the incident to Ty (via Skype again), and there's some suspicion that side effects from her withdrawal have her acting against her own self-interest. She insists that she didn't, but Riley and Ty argue she must have locked herself in the bathroom. Ty instructs Riley to do a search on his fiancee for her own good, and he discovers a pinprick between her toes (though he keeps this a secret from Ty). Ty relates that if she's using, a telltale sign is the shrinkage of her pupils. Her eyes are small in the light, but not "pinpricks" as Ty has described. While Riley administers a drug test, which she passes, Mara notices a flesh wound on his hand, building some of her own suspicion toward him, though he tells her that it's from digging the glass out of her face.

The couple sails to San Juan to have the dosage on Mara's meds changed. Dr. Stans explains that it's unlikely she'd be having any hallucinations from the meds, but it's a possibility. Riley is dismayed to discover that Mara didn't tell him she had ovarian cancer before she met him; trust seems to be eroding between them.

Resuming course toward the wreck, the storm is about a hundred miles off and Mara sees a ghostly figure displacing the rainfall. When she runs out to the deck to confront the apparition, it's dissipated. Riley assures her there are no stowaways and nothing to fear. But later, Mara sees a specter behind her in the mirror that actually reaches out to touch her arm.

Characters

MARA GUERDON

Constance Wu

Taraji P. Henson

Jennifer Lopez

Scarlett Johansson

Honorably discharged from the Marines, struggling with PTSD, she has an addiction to OxyContin due to her suffering an IUD blast in Fallujah. She's on a boat trip to the Caribbean with her fiancé, Riley Johns, to salvage Civil War silver they discovered on another trip. But she's also using the trip to rehab: confined on the boat, she has only Riley and her rehab sponsor, Ty Bushnell, to talk to (the latter via Skype). She's become very closed off, refusing to talk about the action she saw in Fallujah. As she begins to experience paranormal events on the boat, Riley begins to question whether he can trust her (and at times we will too). She's also in remission for ovarian cancer. By script's end, we'll come to learn that Riley has been dosing her in order to cloud her judgment, that he has designs on taking all the silver for himself, and that she'll have to take lethal measures against him to survive.

RILEY JOHNS

Idris Elba

Jake Gyllenhaal

Benicio Del Toro

Henry Golding

Tall, built but lean, with deep-set dark eyes. He's engaged to Mara and he's a military vet like she is. Most recently he's been working as a drone controller. He's joining Mara on a quest to salvage Civil War treasure. He appears, at first, to be understanding regarding her drug problem, struggling in earnest to fathom what she's going through. But in reality, he's been dosing her and using her in a scheme that involves both the silver (which he intends to steal) and heroin. It becomes clear he has murderous intentions.

TY BUSHNELL

Chiwetel Ejiofor

John Leguizamo

Omar Epps

Anthony Mackie

Shaved head, faded tattoos snaking up his neck. Mara's rehab sponsor, he interacts with her via Skype, serving as moral support while she's going through withdrawal confined to Riley's boat. He cares about her - to an extent that becomes very clear when he tells her she's basically the most important person in his life. Though he may be crossing a professional line with his feelings for her, at heart he proves to be the moral sort of man Mara will come to realize Riley never was.

MERCURY

Post Malone

Daniel Kaluuya

Shia LaBeouf

Shameik Moore

Half-dreads, gold-capped teeth, sneering. A drug dealer in Key West, he sees how badly Mara needs the drugs and he tries to intimidate her. But when Mara stands up to him, revealing she's a marine, he quickly is cowed. Basically, his tough guy attitude is mostly facade - this is a kid trying to survive. Mara tells him more than she tells most people.

DR. STANS

Danny Glover

Giancarlo Esposito

With a beard and a Caribbean accent. He treats Mara in San Juan, Puerto Rico. His medical acumen is met by the right amount of bedside manner. You can tell he cares and is trying to make sense of Mara's episodes.

LACEY

Zazie Beetz

Tessa Thompson

Short, in khaki pants, wearing a baseball cap pulled down to make her look like a man. She's a small time drug dealer in Key West, but she's basically Mercury's boss. She's got an edge, honed by what we sense has been a jagged life, but she's spooked when Mara asks about Thomas Guillon, a drug dealer who recently disappeared.

STARBOARD

Written by
Peter Hanrahan

1.

INT. THE STAR BIRD (YACHT) - NIGHT

The tide lisps against the hull.

MARA GUERDON (33) sleeps on a fold-out bed, sheets a tangle.

A CAT curls against her, deep into a contented purr...

The darkness -- heavy, womb-like, devoid of ambient light -- is punctuated only by the LED rainbow of various devices:

Orange glowing surge protectors, a cool blue digital alarm clock, the green eyelets of a computer console

But then -- THEY BLINK OUT, one by one, and --

Another LIGHT, faint at first --

Bleeds through the yacht's eye-like portals and blooms within the space, almost as if alive...

A WHITE LIGHT that slithers down the walls, across the floor, filling the space. As if the ship's taking on water.

The cat stops purring and -- HISSES...

Mara's eyes explode open. But it's too bright --

Her pupils CONSTRICT and she --

TRIES TO SIT UP --

But she can't move. Her arms, legs, torso, as if bound.

She fights it. The cat HISSES again, its pupils crescent moon slits in the light...

Then MARA GASPS -- gulps the air, bites at the air, gnashes her teeth, like she's starving for it --

And then the LIGHT starts to recede...slithering again, like the flailing tendrils of a sea creature...receding...

Receding...until there's nothing but a halo of diodes dancing at the eye-like portal.

And then they, too, blink out, and --

Mara BOLTS UPRIGHT, in control of her body once more.

But her PUPILS ARE IMPOSSIBLY SMALL, unable to adjust, and --

She stumbles as she tries to stand, staggers to her feet, tries to catch her breath, COLLAPSING --

2.

INT. THE STAR BIRD (YACHT) - NIGHT

-- into the cramped bathroom space. Flips on the light and
faucet in a singular motion...

She splashes her face --

-- considers herself in the mirror. Her face, slick with a
sheen of sweat, almost aglow...

Suddenly, she launches herself to the toilet and --

RETCHES, heaving...settles herself and returns to the mirror.

She tugs at one eyelid, examining the white, the iris and
pupil of the eye.

She opens a drawer, rifles through toiletries, finds a
grooming kit and inside it -- a PEN LIGHT.

Mara shines the pen light into her eye, watches in the mirror
as her PUPIL CONTRACTS...

But deep within the black hole of the pupil, for a fraction
of a second, slithering light recedes...

EXT. THE STAR BIRD - FORE DECK - PRE-DAWN

The first lick of sunlight on the horizon. The sea's surface
placid, like a vast and perfect plain of glass.

Mara clutches a ceramic mug emblazoned with: "Keep Calm and
Carry On." The cat mews, curls around her legs...


EXT. THE STAR BIRD - FORE DECK - MORNING

THE STAR BIRD courses through crystalline water. Mara's at
the fore deck, a LAPTOP splayed open.

ONSCREEN -- TY BUSHNELL (40), black, shaved head, faded gang
tats snaking up his neck.

TY

-- I wouldn't lie to you, Mara.
It's not easy. The stats, the
rates of relapse. You know these
things...And I don't want to sound
defeatist. But odds are you will
relapse. It's just facts.
(pause)
How's the nausea -- ?

84.

EXT. CROW'S NEST - CONTINUOUS

Finds safe perch at the CROW'S NEST.

The rain knifes into her, and she tries to clear her eyes. When she does, she looks down --

Thirty feet to the black churning water below, but now --

There's no sign of Riley.

She looks in front, behind, port, starboard...

Then -- HE'S ON TOP OF HER, clinging to her neck, weighing her down --

THUNDER BELLOWS...

This time, Mara can't count, but we can...One-thousand one. One-thousand two.

And THE LIGHTNING.

In the flash of light, Mara sees Whit the Cat's EYES ILLUMINATE. She WHISTLES and --

The cat launches himself forward, slashing Riley's face and left eye with its back claws --

Riley instinctively clutches his face -- long enough for Mara to free herself and see -- the cat clamber down --

Then THUNDER again, and she counts --

MARA

One-thousand one.

She breathes once, twice, three times and -- Mara leaps from the CROW'S NEST

-- a high dive in the middle of a hurricane -- And PLUNGES INTO THE BLACK WATER just as --

LIGHTNING STRIKES THE CROW'S NEST

-- sending ten-thousand volts of electricity coursing through Riley's body. In the flash of light, Mara sees Tomas Guillen and his "Fly's Eyes"”" there on deck, and she --

-- slips beneath the surface of the water, looks up through the surface as LIGHTNING STRIKES again.