The Root in the Concrete
The floor was supposed to be seamless grey concrete, a tabula rasa for a life Deven hadn't started yet. But overnight, the house had decided to grow a lung.
# The Root in the Concrete - Project Treatment
## Project Overview
**Format:** Feature film, 90–105 minutes
**Genre:** Psychological Drama / Magical Realism
**Tone References:** *A Monster Calls* (for its manifestation of grief as a powerful, natural entity), *The Father* (for its use of a single location as a shifting reflection of the protagonist's internal state), *I'm Thinking of Ending Things* (for its surreal, dreamlike logic and exploration of memory), and *Aftersun* (for its quiet, melancholic tone and focus on unspoken family history).
**Target Audience:** The A24 prestige drama audience; viewers who appreciate emotionally intelligent, visually inventive storytelling and character-driven films that blur the line between the psychological and the supernatural.
**Logline:** Paralyzed by grief in his late grandfather's sterile, minimalist house, a young man must confront a supernatural root that breaks through the concrete floor, forcing him to unearth the messy family history buried beneath.
## Visual Language & Cinematic Style
The film's visual identity is built on a foundation of stark contrast. The house is a character in itself, shot with the cold precision of architectural photography. We will employ static, wide frames, long takes, and a desaturated palette of greys, blues, and sterile whites to emphasize its brutalist perfection and oppressive emptiness. The camera will feel locked down, mirroring Deven’s paralysis. This clean, controlled aesthetic will be violently interrupted by the root. The camera will become handheld and intimate when focused on the root, pushing in on the texture of the bark, the wet soil, and the pulsing veins beneath. The lighting will shift from cool, ambient daylight to warm, focused pools of light emanating from the root itself, as if it generates its own life force. The space functions as a psychological battleground where the rigid lines of modern denial are fractured by the chaotic, organic, and unstoppable intrusion of the past.
## Tone & Mood
The film operates as a slow-burn symphony of stillness, building a powerful sense of claustrophobia and psychological dread within the vast, empty spaces of the house. The tone is deeply melancholic and meditative, treating Deven's depression not as a plot device but as a tangible, atmospheric presence. The silence is as important as the sound, punctuated by the unsettling, organic noises of the root—a wet pop, a grinding shudder, the whisper of unfurling leaves. This quiet horror gives way to moments of startling, surreal beauty and, ultimately, a profound and cathartic emotional release. It is a tragicomic journey through the landscape of grief, finding the absurdity and even the hope in being haunted. The mood is one of being stuck in a memory, waiting for a thaw that seems like it will never come, until it finally, violently, does.
## Themes & Cinematic Expression
The central theme is the destructive nature of suppressed grief and the necessity of embracing life's messiness. This is expressed cinematically through the primary conflict between the house and the root. The concrete floor represents a legacy of denial—a hard, seamless surface built to pave over the pain of the past. The root is the irrepressible truth of that pain, a force of nature that cannot be contained. Sound design will amplify this theme; the house will be unnaturally quiet, filled only with sterile echoes, while the root will introduce organic sounds of growth, decay, and life. Generational trauma is explored through sensory memory—the smell of cherry tobacco isn't just a scent, it's a ghost, a remnant of a man who tried to hide his own sorrows. The film argues that healing isn't about erasure or demolition; it's about integration. Deven's final acceptance is visualized not by the root disappearing, but by him learning to live with it, transforming the tomb-like house into a strange and beautiful terrarium where past and present can coexist.
## Character Arcs
### Deven
*Profile:* A man in his late twenties, trapped in a state of profound depressive paralysis following his grandfather's death. He is sensitive, introspective, and overwhelmed by the expectation to "move on." His flaw is his inheritance of his family's tendency to suppress emotion, turning his grief inward until it manifests physically and supernaturally.
*Arc:* Deven begins in a state of complete stasis, a prisoner in a house designed to prevent feeling. He sees the root as a horrifying intrusion, a flaw in the perfect prison he has accepted. His external journey is to pack up the house, but his internal journey is to confront the source of the root and, by extension, his family's buried sorrow. By being forced to physically interact with this manifestation of his pain—touching it, bleeding on it, following it—he slowly breaks out of his paralysis. He ends not by conquering his grief, but by accepting it as a living, breathing part of him and his home, choosing to cultivate the messy new growth rather than pave it over again.
### Bea
*Profile:* Deven's older sister, a pragmatic and energetic healthcare worker. She is grounded, direct, and often impatient with what she perceives as Deven's wallowing. Her flaw is her inability to understand illnesses that aren't easily diagnosed or fixed, leading to a loving but sometimes counterproductive "tough love" approach.
*Arc:* Bea starts as the voice of the outside world, representing the pressure of schedules, responsibilities, and forward motion. She initially dismisses Deven's struggles as self-pity and can't see the root, a metaphor for her blindness to the depth of his internal crisis. Her arc is one of dawning awareness. As Deven's condition worsens and the house begins to physically reflect his state (in ways she can perceive, like dampness or strange smells), she is forced to confront the limits of her pragmatism. She moves from a problem-solver to a witness, learning that the most important thing she can do is not to "fix" Deven, but to simply be there, offering her presence as he navigates his own impossible terrain.
## Detailed Narrative Treatment (Act Structure / Episodes)
### Act I
We meet DEVEN, a statue in the architectural museum that was his late grandfather's house. He is paralyzed by a depressive episode, unable to begin the task of packing up the house to sell it. The inciting incident is the impossible appearance of a thick, gnarled ROOT bursting through the polished concrete floor. It is a messy, living scar on the home's sterile perfection. The root grows, seemingly reacting to his emotional state. His sister, BEA, arrives, a whirlwind of practicality who cannot see the root and grows frustrated with his inaction. She reminds him the movers are coming in days. Deven is left alone, and the root grows an ash-like flower that smells of his grandfather’s pipe tobacco, a sensory ghost from his past. The root begins growing toward him, forcing a choice: succumb or fight back. In a moment of sheer will, Deven slides off the sofa and confronts the root, pricking his finger on a hidden thorn. The sharp, real pain is a shock to his system, breaking his complete paralysis. He is up, but the root is still there, now a permanent fixture in the room.
### Act II
Deven makes halting progress, attempting to pack. But as he does, the house and the root resist. The root system spreads through the floor, tripping him, blocking doorways, and bringing with it objects from the past—an old photograph, a lost toy—as if excavating the home's buried memories. Deven, driven by a mix of fear and curiosity, begins searching for answers in his grandfather’s study. He finds old blueprints and journals that speak of his grandfather's obsession with creating a "clean slate" after the death of his wife, Deven's grandmother. He learns she was a passionate gardener. The Midpoint: Deven discovers a hidden compartment in his grandfather’s desk containing his grandmother's seed packets and a single, unsent letter revealing the depth of the old man's suffocating, unspoken grief. As Deven reads it, the house responds. The root system grows explosively, cracking the glass walls as vines pour in. The house is no longer just haunted; it's actively transforming into a wild, untamed greenhouse. Deven is trapped inside. Bea arrives to find the house strangely humid and dark, with Deven talking to the walls. She believes he's having a complete psychotic break, and her tough-love approach crumbles into real fear for her brother's sanity. This is his "All Is Lost" moment: isolated, misunderstood, and physically consumed by his family’s legacy.
### Act III
Trapped inside the overgrown interior, Deven realizes he cannot fight the root. He must understand it. He chooses to follow the main artery of the root system, which leads him to the very center of the foundation slab. Here, he begins to dig at the concrete with his bare hands. The climax is not a physical battle but an act of emotional excavation. He unearths a sealed box his grandfather buried beneath the house decades ago, containing his grandmother's most cherished possessions—her gardening tools, dried flowers, and a lock of her hair. Holding these artifacts, Deven finally allows himself to feel the full weight of his own grief, as well as his grandfather's. He weeps, a raw, cathartic release. As he does, the rampant growth of the root system subsides. It doesn't vanish, but recedes, integrating itself into the architecture. The broken glass walls are now trellises, and the central root has become a beautiful, strange tree in the middle of the living room. The Resolution: The movers arrive. Bea, seeing the profound change in Deven (and the literal, inexplicable change in the house), finally understands. Deven tells them he's not selling. He's staying. The final shot is of Deven, weeks later, calmly watering the tree, having turned his grandfather's sterile monument to denial into a living memorial.
## Episode/Scene Beat Sheet (Source Material)
1. **Paralysis and Intrusion:** Deven is frozen on his sofa, staring at a thick, impossible root that has broken through the concrete floor of the minimalist living room.
2. **Internal vs. External:** He feels a physical paralysis ("lead in his legs") while the garden outside explodes with life, highlighting his disconnection.
3. **The Root Grows:** The root twitches and grows thicker, a physical manifestation of his worsening psychological state.
4. **The Foil Arrives:** Bea, his sister, enters with coffee, a force of kinetic energy. She is grounded in the real world of deadlines and obligations.
5. **A Shared Reality, A Different Perception:** Bea steps over the root without seeing it, complaining about the mud on the floor, confirming it exists only for Deven.
6. **Dismissal of Pain:** Deven tries to explain the root, but Bea dismisses it as a "metaphorical" complaint about being uprooted.
7. **The Weight of the House:** Bea acknowledges the house is a "vacuum," validating Deven's feelings about the space but not his vision.
8. **The Haunting:** Left alone, the root sprouts a flower made of ash that exudes the distinct smell of their grandfather's cherry pipe tobacco, directly linking the phenomenon to their family history.
9. **The Confrontation:** The root grows directly towards Deven, forcing him to choose between being consumed by his paralysis or fighting back.
10. **The First Move:** He chooses to move, sliding painfully off the sofa to the floor—a monumental effort.
11. **The Shock of Reality:** He confronts the root and pricks his finger on a thorn hidden in the ash-flower. The bead of blood and the sharp pain break through his mental static.
12. **A New Beginning:** He pushes himself to his hands and knees. Bea sees him on the floor and, seeing his effort, softens her tone, accepting this small victory.
13. **Stepping Forward:** Deven stands and takes his first clumsy steps toward the kitchen, stepping *over* the root—acknowledging its presence without letting it stop him.
14. **A Permanent Scar:** Behind him, the root settles, now a permanent part of the room's geography, and begins to bud a second flower, signifying this is not the end, but the beginning of a new way of living.
## Creative Statement
*The Root in the Concrete* is a modern fable about the landscape of mental health. In a culture that increasingly values clean aesthetics, curated lives, and the swift "moving on" from trauma, this story champions the necessity of embracing our own messy, complicated, and often painful histories. The film visualizes depression not as a passive sadness, but as an active, living force—a supernatural entity that can be terrifying, but which is ultimately a profound call to life. It is a cinematic argument that the things we bury will always find a way to the surface, and true healing comes not from paving over our foundations, but from having the courage to break them open and see what's growing in the dark. This is a story for now, for a generation grappling with inherited anxieties and the pressure to perform wellness, offering a quiet, cathartic truth: sometimes, the only way out is through.
## Audience Relevance
Contemporary audiences are more attuned than ever to conversations about mental health, generational trauma, and the search for authentic living. *The Root in the Concrete* taps directly into this zeitgeist. It offers a powerful, visual metaphor for the internal struggles that are often invisible, making the abstract feelings of being "stuck" or "haunted by the past" tangible and visceral. The film will resonate with anyone who has ever felt overwhelmed by family expectations, struggled with grief, or felt disconnected from a world that demands constant progress. Its blend of intimate psychological drama and compelling magical realism provides a unique hook, attracting both fans of prestige character studies and viewers drawn to high-concept, genre-inflected storytelling. By framing a universal human experience in a singular, unforgettable way, the film offers not a cure, but a communion—a shared recognition that our scars, like roots, are proof that we have survived.
## Project Overview
**Format:** Feature film, 90–105 minutes
**Genre:** Psychological Drama / Magical Realism
**Tone References:** *A Monster Calls* (for its manifestation of grief as a powerful, natural entity), *The Father* (for its use of a single location as a shifting reflection of the protagonist's internal state), *I'm Thinking of Ending Things* (for its surreal, dreamlike logic and exploration of memory), and *Aftersun* (for its quiet, melancholic tone and focus on unspoken family history).
**Target Audience:** The A24 prestige drama audience; viewers who appreciate emotionally intelligent, visually inventive storytelling and character-driven films that blur the line between the psychological and the supernatural.
**Logline:** Paralyzed by grief in his late grandfather's sterile, minimalist house, a young man must confront a supernatural root that breaks through the concrete floor, forcing him to unearth the messy family history buried beneath.
## Visual Language & Cinematic Style
The film's visual identity is built on a foundation of stark contrast. The house is a character in itself, shot with the cold precision of architectural photography. We will employ static, wide frames, long takes, and a desaturated palette of greys, blues, and sterile whites to emphasize its brutalist perfection and oppressive emptiness. The camera will feel locked down, mirroring Deven’s paralysis. This clean, controlled aesthetic will be violently interrupted by the root. The camera will become handheld and intimate when focused on the root, pushing in on the texture of the bark, the wet soil, and the pulsing veins beneath. The lighting will shift from cool, ambient daylight to warm, focused pools of light emanating from the root itself, as if it generates its own life force. The space functions as a psychological battleground where the rigid lines of modern denial are fractured by the chaotic, organic, and unstoppable intrusion of the past.
## Tone & Mood
The film operates as a slow-burn symphony of stillness, building a powerful sense of claustrophobia and psychological dread within the vast, empty spaces of the house. The tone is deeply melancholic and meditative, treating Deven's depression not as a plot device but as a tangible, atmospheric presence. The silence is as important as the sound, punctuated by the unsettling, organic noises of the root—a wet pop, a grinding shudder, the whisper of unfurling leaves. This quiet horror gives way to moments of startling, surreal beauty and, ultimately, a profound and cathartic emotional release. It is a tragicomic journey through the landscape of grief, finding the absurdity and even the hope in being haunted. The mood is one of being stuck in a memory, waiting for a thaw that seems like it will never come, until it finally, violently, does.
## Themes & Cinematic Expression
The central theme is the destructive nature of suppressed grief and the necessity of embracing life's messiness. This is expressed cinematically through the primary conflict between the house and the root. The concrete floor represents a legacy of denial—a hard, seamless surface built to pave over the pain of the past. The root is the irrepressible truth of that pain, a force of nature that cannot be contained. Sound design will amplify this theme; the house will be unnaturally quiet, filled only with sterile echoes, while the root will introduce organic sounds of growth, decay, and life. Generational trauma is explored through sensory memory—the smell of cherry tobacco isn't just a scent, it's a ghost, a remnant of a man who tried to hide his own sorrows. The film argues that healing isn't about erasure or demolition; it's about integration. Deven's final acceptance is visualized not by the root disappearing, but by him learning to live with it, transforming the tomb-like house into a strange and beautiful terrarium where past and present can coexist.
## Character Arcs
### Deven
*Profile:* A man in his late twenties, trapped in a state of profound depressive paralysis following his grandfather's death. He is sensitive, introspective, and overwhelmed by the expectation to "move on." His flaw is his inheritance of his family's tendency to suppress emotion, turning his grief inward until it manifests physically and supernaturally.
*Arc:* Deven begins in a state of complete stasis, a prisoner in a house designed to prevent feeling. He sees the root as a horrifying intrusion, a flaw in the perfect prison he has accepted. His external journey is to pack up the house, but his internal journey is to confront the source of the root and, by extension, his family's buried sorrow. By being forced to physically interact with this manifestation of his pain—touching it, bleeding on it, following it—he slowly breaks out of his paralysis. He ends not by conquering his grief, but by accepting it as a living, breathing part of him and his home, choosing to cultivate the messy new growth rather than pave it over again.
### Bea
*Profile:* Deven's older sister, a pragmatic and energetic healthcare worker. She is grounded, direct, and often impatient with what she perceives as Deven's wallowing. Her flaw is her inability to understand illnesses that aren't easily diagnosed or fixed, leading to a loving but sometimes counterproductive "tough love" approach.
*Arc:* Bea starts as the voice of the outside world, representing the pressure of schedules, responsibilities, and forward motion. She initially dismisses Deven's struggles as self-pity and can't see the root, a metaphor for her blindness to the depth of his internal crisis. Her arc is one of dawning awareness. As Deven's condition worsens and the house begins to physically reflect his state (in ways she can perceive, like dampness or strange smells), she is forced to confront the limits of her pragmatism. She moves from a problem-solver to a witness, learning that the most important thing she can do is not to "fix" Deven, but to simply be there, offering her presence as he navigates his own impossible terrain.
## Detailed Narrative Treatment (Act Structure / Episodes)
### Act I
We meet DEVEN, a statue in the architectural museum that was his late grandfather's house. He is paralyzed by a depressive episode, unable to begin the task of packing up the house to sell it. The inciting incident is the impossible appearance of a thick, gnarled ROOT bursting through the polished concrete floor. It is a messy, living scar on the home's sterile perfection. The root grows, seemingly reacting to his emotional state. His sister, BEA, arrives, a whirlwind of practicality who cannot see the root and grows frustrated with his inaction. She reminds him the movers are coming in days. Deven is left alone, and the root grows an ash-like flower that smells of his grandfather’s pipe tobacco, a sensory ghost from his past. The root begins growing toward him, forcing a choice: succumb or fight back. In a moment of sheer will, Deven slides off the sofa and confronts the root, pricking his finger on a hidden thorn. The sharp, real pain is a shock to his system, breaking his complete paralysis. He is up, but the root is still there, now a permanent fixture in the room.
### Act II
Deven makes halting progress, attempting to pack. But as he does, the house and the root resist. The root system spreads through the floor, tripping him, blocking doorways, and bringing with it objects from the past—an old photograph, a lost toy—as if excavating the home's buried memories. Deven, driven by a mix of fear and curiosity, begins searching for answers in his grandfather’s study. He finds old blueprints and journals that speak of his grandfather's obsession with creating a "clean slate" after the death of his wife, Deven's grandmother. He learns she was a passionate gardener. The Midpoint: Deven discovers a hidden compartment in his grandfather’s desk containing his grandmother's seed packets and a single, unsent letter revealing the depth of the old man's suffocating, unspoken grief. As Deven reads it, the house responds. The root system grows explosively, cracking the glass walls as vines pour in. The house is no longer just haunted; it's actively transforming into a wild, untamed greenhouse. Deven is trapped inside. Bea arrives to find the house strangely humid and dark, with Deven talking to the walls. She believes he's having a complete psychotic break, and her tough-love approach crumbles into real fear for her brother's sanity. This is his "All Is Lost" moment: isolated, misunderstood, and physically consumed by his family’s legacy.
### Act III
Trapped inside the overgrown interior, Deven realizes he cannot fight the root. He must understand it. He chooses to follow the main artery of the root system, which leads him to the very center of the foundation slab. Here, he begins to dig at the concrete with his bare hands. The climax is not a physical battle but an act of emotional excavation. He unearths a sealed box his grandfather buried beneath the house decades ago, containing his grandmother's most cherished possessions—her gardening tools, dried flowers, and a lock of her hair. Holding these artifacts, Deven finally allows himself to feel the full weight of his own grief, as well as his grandfather's. He weeps, a raw, cathartic release. As he does, the rampant growth of the root system subsides. It doesn't vanish, but recedes, integrating itself into the architecture. The broken glass walls are now trellises, and the central root has become a beautiful, strange tree in the middle of the living room. The Resolution: The movers arrive. Bea, seeing the profound change in Deven (and the literal, inexplicable change in the house), finally understands. Deven tells them he's not selling. He's staying. The final shot is of Deven, weeks later, calmly watering the tree, having turned his grandfather's sterile monument to denial into a living memorial.
## Episode/Scene Beat Sheet (Source Material)
1. **Paralysis and Intrusion:** Deven is frozen on his sofa, staring at a thick, impossible root that has broken through the concrete floor of the minimalist living room.
2. **Internal vs. External:** He feels a physical paralysis ("lead in his legs") while the garden outside explodes with life, highlighting his disconnection.
3. **The Root Grows:** The root twitches and grows thicker, a physical manifestation of his worsening psychological state.
4. **The Foil Arrives:** Bea, his sister, enters with coffee, a force of kinetic energy. She is grounded in the real world of deadlines and obligations.
5. **A Shared Reality, A Different Perception:** Bea steps over the root without seeing it, complaining about the mud on the floor, confirming it exists only for Deven.
6. **Dismissal of Pain:** Deven tries to explain the root, but Bea dismisses it as a "metaphorical" complaint about being uprooted.
7. **The Weight of the House:** Bea acknowledges the house is a "vacuum," validating Deven's feelings about the space but not his vision.
8. **The Haunting:** Left alone, the root sprouts a flower made of ash that exudes the distinct smell of their grandfather's cherry pipe tobacco, directly linking the phenomenon to their family history.
9. **The Confrontation:** The root grows directly towards Deven, forcing him to choose between being consumed by his paralysis or fighting back.
10. **The First Move:** He chooses to move, sliding painfully off the sofa to the floor—a monumental effort.
11. **The Shock of Reality:** He confronts the root and pricks his finger on a thorn hidden in the ash-flower. The bead of blood and the sharp pain break through his mental static.
12. **A New Beginning:** He pushes himself to his hands and knees. Bea sees him on the floor and, seeing his effort, softens her tone, accepting this small victory.
13. **Stepping Forward:** Deven stands and takes his first clumsy steps toward the kitchen, stepping *over* the root—acknowledging its presence without letting it stop him.
14. **A Permanent Scar:** Behind him, the root settles, now a permanent part of the room's geography, and begins to bud a second flower, signifying this is not the end, but the beginning of a new way of living.
## Creative Statement
*The Root in the Concrete* is a modern fable about the landscape of mental health. In a culture that increasingly values clean aesthetics, curated lives, and the swift "moving on" from trauma, this story champions the necessity of embracing our own messy, complicated, and often painful histories. The film visualizes depression not as a passive sadness, but as an active, living force—a supernatural entity that can be terrifying, but which is ultimately a profound call to life. It is a cinematic argument that the things we bury will always find a way to the surface, and true healing comes not from paving over our foundations, but from having the courage to break them open and see what's growing in the dark. This is a story for now, for a generation grappling with inherited anxieties and the pressure to perform wellness, offering a quiet, cathartic truth: sometimes, the only way out is through.
## Audience Relevance
Contemporary audiences are more attuned than ever to conversations about mental health, generational trauma, and the search for authentic living. *The Root in the Concrete* taps directly into this zeitgeist. It offers a powerful, visual metaphor for the internal struggles that are often invisible, making the abstract feelings of being "stuck" or "haunted by the past" tangible and visceral. The film will resonate with anyone who has ever felt overwhelmed by family expectations, struggled with grief, or felt disconnected from a world that demands constant progress. Its blend of intimate psychological drama and compelling magical realism provides a unique hook, attracting both fans of prestige character studies and viewers drawn to high-concept, genre-inflected storytelling. By framing a universal human experience in a singular, unforgettable way, the film offers not a cure, but a communion—a shared recognition that our scars, like roots, are proof that we have survived.