House of Games (Oberon Modern Plays)

This is the screenplay of the first film written and directed by David Mamet, the story of a well known psychiatrist seduced by an underworld of petty intrigue. Mamet is commonly--and wrongly--considered a writer who consistently litters his characters' speech with obscenities. There are a good number of tongue lashings in House of Games, but what this script really proves is that Mamet has an extraordinarily poetic grasp of human language and human psychology. Every word, every exchange counts in this twisty, suspenseful screenplay, one of those rare dramas where it is impossible to predict what will happen next.