‘Magpie’ Screenwriter Tom Bateman Talks Crafting the Perfect Twist and Collaborating With Wife Daisy Ridley
by Katcy Stephan · Variety“Magpie” screenwriter Tom Bateman doesn’t want you to guess his film’s twist ending; he wants you to squirm.
“I want an audience to just be nudging their boyfriend, girlfriend, mum or dad like, ‘Something’s wrong here. There’s something up,'” he says with a laugh.
“Magpie” follows married couple Anette (Daisy Ridley) and Ben (Shazad Latif), whose lives begin to fracture when their daughter is cast in a film alongside a glamorous movie star, Alicia (Matilda Lutz). As Anette’s suspicions of Ben’s infatuation with Alicia intensify, their secrets and lies burst to the surface, culminating in a jaw-dropping finale.
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Bateman, an actor known for his work in projects including “Murder on the Orient Express” and “Behind Her Eyes,” makes his screenwriting debut with the captivating neo-noir thriller directed by Sam Yates. He penned the script based on an idea from wife and star Ridley, who was inspired by her own experience on a movie where a young actor played her daughter. “She had this idea of the interesting dynamic on set, the blurred relationships and crazy intimacy that is created,” Bateman tells Variety. “She had this daughter who kept calling her ‘mom,’ both on and off camera. It blurred the line between reality and fiction.”
Bateman got to work on an outline, originally centered around a devious actress who intends to steal her on-screen family away from their real lives. But as he delved deeper into the story, he found himself more interested in the stay-at-home mom whose family was at risk of being ripped away.
“Who is this woman who is witnessing her family getting sort of put under this insane strain, and this ultimate betrayal by the father of her kids?” Once Anette became the focus, everything clicked into place: “I said, ‘It’s got to be a revenge story.'”
We’ll refrain from revealing exactly how that revenge is exacted — after all, figuring out how many clues to give the viewer was part of the fun for Bateman, who also produced the film with Ridley.
“My big thing was that we can’t cheat. I don’t want an audience to feel that they could never have guessed. We can’t hide anything. They have to be along for the ride,” he says. “I wanted to plant enough breadcrumbs throughout, and hope that it’s something that if an audience ever did go back and rewatch, they go, ‘Oh my God!'”
Of course, the film’s title also gives viewers an indication that something’s amiss. While American audiences may not be as familiar with the magpie’s symbolism, Brits watching will surely know that they are highly intelligent birds with a propensity for stealing shiny things.
“There’s the idea of stealing something — the allure of something that’s not quite what it seems. You know, magpies don’t really know what they’re stealing. They just want it because it’s shiny,” Bateman says. “I wanted to move those plates around during the story and kind of subvert an audience’s understanding and perception of who the magpie might be. Who might be the shiny thing.”
But the bird also carries a deeper meaning that closely echoes the crumbling relationship at the film’s heart. “Magpies are one of the only animals in the animal kingdom that mate for life,” Bateman says. “Seeing a magpie on its own is a very bad omen … If you see one on its own, it’s kind of an unnatural thing, and it represents something that shouldn’t be. They either haven’t found love, or they have lost love.”
Thankfully, there’s no love lost between Bateman and Ridley, who are doubling down on their creative partnership with two more projects in the pipeline. Bateman is close to securing financing on another film that he’s similarly written from a concept by Ridley, and is already fielding interest from major players following this promising debut. “This is a super fun time, because people are watching this movie and saying, ‘Hey, what else you got?’ Well, I’ve got quite a few.”