Why This is Good

Basic screenwriting teaches you that a hero must have a goal, and his or her pursuit of this goal and the obstacles they face constitutes the story. It is vital to the emotional impact of your story that the hero’s goal is something personal. It needs to be more than just a mindless quest. This is why even superheroes given the task of saving the world often have their friends, families, or loved ones put in jeopardy. Watching Spiderman rescue Mary Jane is much more emotionally engaging than watching him save nameless innocent civilians.

The goal is always personal in a love story-the hero is trying to win the love of someone and so they are personally involved in seeking their own happiness. Heroes of action-adventure stories, as well as thrillers and suspense movies need a little more craft on the part of the writer to make sure their goal is personally involving and thus elicits emotion from the audience. This is often done, as in superhero movies, by putting the hero’s own family or loved ones directly at risk. They are being held hostage, or are in that building with the bomb in it. Sometimes, however, that device doesn’t work for the story, and the writer must come up with another way to make the quest intensely personal for the hero. Clarice’s wound still haunts her, and the only way she can silence the lambs is to find the killer and stop him before it’s too late. She doesn’t know the girl being held captive, and if she were simply a flat, one-dimensional detective with no vested interest in solving the crime other than her generic sense of duty, this story would not have been as fascinating and emotionally impactful as it was, and it would not have been a success. If the girl had just happened to be Clarice’s long lost sister, the story would have felt contrived, phony, and more than a little melodramatic.

Other times heroes are pursuing a more abstract goal that doesn’t involve saving someone’s life. It can involve uncovering corruption, revealing or stopping a conspiracy, or successfully holding up a bank or stealing jewelry. In all of these cases, the most effective films make these goals personal by involving the hero on a deeper emotional level than simply their need to succeed. Jerry Maguire works hard to get his business up and running throughout the movie, but the success or failure of his career becomes more personal and that much more exciting when it ties into his developing relationship and his love for Dorothy as well as his genuine friendship with Rod, who becomes more than a client.

When Marty goes Back to the Future, it isn’t just for fun or to stop some random event from hurting other people, it is to make sure that his parents meet and fall in love so that he can be conceived. The quest is infinitely personal as his own existence hinges on his success.

In The Last Samurai, Algren grows close to the people who take him in, and grows to care deeply about them and their livelihood. Their quest becomes his as he is emotionally involved in their lives on a deeper level than a mercenary would be. The Goonies don’t just want to find the treasure because it’s cool and they’re bored, they are desperate to save their very homes and the neighborhood they love.

The heroes of the Lord of the Rings are on a quest to save the world from the dark forces bent on domination, but Aragorn and Frodo have others in their lives who they feel a personal need to protect and save. It’s not just about saving the world being the right thing to do, it’s about saving their loved ones and their homes that makes them care enough to go on such a hopeless mission.

With the holidays looming in the near future and 2009 coming to a dreary close, the political and economic climate seems to be reflected in the abundance of dark, apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic movies coming out by the end of this year or the beginning of next. 2012, The Road, Daybreakers, The Book of Eli, and Legion all present different scenarios for the world coming to an end or what life will be like for the few survivors.

Movies about the end of the world, or, in turn, a bizarre world after what we know has ended, have always been around and always been popular. If you believe, as I do, that we watch movies to experience emotion, then it is easy to understand why these movies prevail. They play into one of our most primal emotions-fear-in a realistic and terrifying way that cuts deeper than any monster or slasher movie ever could. A crazed serial killer is something a few unlucky teenagers may have to deal with, but if the world ends and civilization is wiped out, we are all affected, either killed or forced to adapt to a horrifying and unknown new reality.

At the same time, these movies offer a sense of relief to people who feel overwhelmed and burdened by the current state of their personal lives, or the world at large. A catastrophe would wipe out all of the petty problems and issues we all deal with in our normal lives. No one will care about your credit card debt, your missed mortgage payment, that promotion you didn’t get, or that speeding ticket if aliens, God, a virus, a natural disaster or some self-aware computer system destroyed everything. If aliens decided to attack, we would no longer be at war with other nations, but united as humans fighting a common enemy. And since when watching a well-made film, we identify with the hero and not the masses of sacrificed extras, most of us feel deep down that we would survive, as the hero inevitably does, and make the best of this new reality. All of our personal as well as our society’s problems would be wiped away, with the promise that eventually something better could be created.

The best of these movies present logical scenarios for the destruction of civilization, or at least are so well told that we are able to suspend our disbelief and feel that the events portrayed are actually happening. Often times it is man-made events that lead to the apocalypse-computers or robots who turn on us, viruses or vaccines going wrong, natural disasters brought on by our activities, or war and mass use of nuclear weapons.

With the current unrest in the world, as well as the turmoil we’re facing domestically with the economy and divisive political battles being waged on all sides, people are eager to watch the worst possible outcome played out on screen. In addition to allowing us the catharsis of feeling these emotions in a safe way, and getting a subconscious sense of relief at the possibility that we may be offered a clean slate, these films help us deal with our fears about the possibility of a nuclear war or some other horrible disaster, but putting these very real potential futures on screen, they are made less terrifying, as we can reassure ourselves that it is only a story, it’s not real.

Despite reading a few negative reviews, I had high hopes for Amelia. Of course, the critics were right and it was not good. The best thing about this film was the cinematography. With grand, sweeping aerial shots of all the gorgeous land and sea Amelia flew over, there’s no denying it was stunning visually. That and the fact that Hilary Swank looked just like Amelia Earhart are the two things I could say were done well. The rest was a mess.

There were little things that were irritating about the film. Hilary Swank’s weird accent bothered me. I don’t know anyone from Kansas, so I’m not sure what women from Kansas in the 1920s and 30s would have sounded like, but if they truly sounded as irritating and awful as Hilary Swank did, then the acting coaches should have taken poetic license and allowed her to speak normally. Her accent was so odd, it was distracting. It was also inconsistent and drew attention to itself, taking me out of the experience of the film.

The chemistry between Amelia and George Putnam, played by Richard Gere, was entirely lacking. While Richard tried his best to feign love, and said all the right things, I just didn’t buy it. And Amelia was cold and completely unlovable towards him, which I assumed was just part of her character, since when he proposed marriage she responded with a grimace and a promise that she would not be faithful nor would she expect him to be. Because she was so honest, it was not dramatic, interesting or exciting when she began her passionless, short-lived affair with Gene Vidal.

The only thing keeping me awake through most of the film was my popcorn, but I perked up slightly when I thought perhaps they were hinting at Amelia being gay. This at least, was a new take on her life that I hadn’t heard of yet.  While at a bar, she pointed out that a woman nearby was very attractive. That, her masculine appearance, and her support of other female pilots, particularly the mentoring of an attractive young competitor combined to make me wonder if maybe the filmmakers were going to explore that side of her story. But no, it was just an idle comment used to explain why Amelia always wore pants, she admired the other woman’s legs and thought her own were inadequate. Yawn.

The primary problem with this film goes back to the script at its very basic level. There was an utter lack of conflict that made the story incredibly dull. Biographies are hard to do well, as most people’s lives are meandering and episodic by nature.  We all know the fascinating story surrounding Amelia Earhart’s disappearance. This story should have brought us into her life, engaged us so thoroughly that we were on the edge of our seats and calling out “No Amelia-don’t get on that plane!” as we watched her take the fateful voyage. Because if we had cared more about her and been brought into her world by an exciting, conflict-driven look at her life, we would have been emotionally attached and deeply moved at the thought of her demise. We all knew how Titanic would end, but were nonetheless moved to tears when we watched Jack sink to his watery grave, because the writers of Titanic did what the writers of Amelia did not-they got the audience emotionally involved with the characters so that we cared whether they lived or died. Watching Amelia was like watching a historically accurate documentary which included all the dull parts of a real person’s life. There was little focus on the obstacles and conflicts Amelia Earhart no doubt faced in doing what she did at that time in American history. Instead, everything seemed relatively easy for her. The main conflict arose from her feeling like a sell-out while endorsing product after product, but this too was explained and accepted as necessary, and didn’t create any real drama or conflict for the hero.

When the ending we all saw coming finally arrived, it was just that, the end of a story we already know, no less exciting after watching this uninspired portrayal of a woman who truly was groundbreaking and inspirational. It’s a shame that the writers did not craft a more engaging Amelia for Hilary Swank to embody. The real woman was a passionate pioneer whose life was interesting, dramatic and groundbreaking. This bravery and zeal could have been captured by an actress as talented as Hilary Swank if the writers had given her a story to work with, rather than this dull retelling of facts.