In Parasite (Bong Joon Ho, 2019), the protagonist is a family. I will refer to them as the Family.

Characters

The Family’s son is Ki-Woo (Woo-sik Choi), daughter Ki-Jung (So-dam Park), father Ki-Tek (Kang-ho Song) and mother Chung-Sook (Hye-jin Jang).

The Park family’s mother is Yon-Kyo (Yeo-jeong Jo), father Dong-ik (Sun-kyun Lee), daughter Da-hae (Ji-so Jung) and son Da-song (Hyun-jun Jung).

Housekeeper is Mun-Kwang (Jeong-eun Lee), and her husband is Kun-sae (Myeong-hoon Park).

Opening Image

Ki-Woo and Ki-Jung look for a wi-fi signal in their bathroom because their phones have been disconnected for failing to pay their bills and the neighbor whose internet they’ve been scrounging password-protected their wi-fi service. In their semi-basement apartment, they rise on top of a raised toilet to catch a signal—their desperation to connect with the world in order to earn their living is comical but poignant.

Set-up

The Family make a meagre living folding pizza boxes. They’re accustomed to talk their way out of problems and sweet-talk their way into resolving issues to get better pay. They even keep their windows open during neighborhood fumigation to kill crickets in their apartment for free. Despite being jobless and unable to continue their education, they are smart and amusing. But most importantly they are relentless in their pursuit of what they need to survive.

Their window may be a convenient public toilet for homeless drunks, but they have the right attitude to have a laugh and make life work.

Catalyst

Ki-Woo’s college student friend Min-Hyuk shows up unannounced. He brings a viewing stone as a gift, which is meant to bring luck and money. The Family finds the gift symbolic and serendipitous. This is the symbolic Catalyst for the Family’s internal journey and will reveal what money will bring to their internal lives.

Min-Hyuk also brings a Catalyst to kick off the Family’s external journey. He tells Ki-Woo that a rich high school student that he’s tutoring needs a replacement tutor while he’s studying abroad. Could Ki-Woo take his place until he returns? Min-Hyuk adds that he’s planning on asking the girl out when she comes of age. Even though Ki-Woo is not a college student, Min-Hyuk says he’s even more capable than those who are and, plus, Ki-Woo is his only friend he trusts to hand over his future wife. And just like that, Ki-Woo is up for an interview for a well-paying job and has the potential to increase his family’s earnings.

Theme Stated

Ki-Jung, who has been failing art school exams, is crafty enough to forge a college certificate of enrollment for Ki-Woo. The Family is impressed by their daughter’s forgery skills and are already brimming with pride for their son’s future success. Aware of the irony of not having achieved anything to deserve their respect, Ki-Woo says this is merely a precursor to what he’s planning on doing with his life: go to college and get rich; so how is this a lie and a crime?

Ki-Tek says, “That’s my son. Man with a plan.” This idea of having a plan will come up between them again and will become a thematic thread throughout the film. Is there any point in having a plan for poor people like them? How likely is it that they will achieve it, or even if they do, couldn’t it all go away in an instant? Let’s explore the possibilities of their life plans coming to fruition in a world where the gap between the rich and the poor feels unbridgeable and find out just how unbridgeable this gap really is.

Debate – Break into Two – Debate – Break into Two / Kalashnikov Effect!

The first question that arises from the film’s Catalyst is: will Ki-Woo be able to get the job? But this is only one of the dramatic questions that will lead us into Act II. The overarching dramatic question for the protagonist, as in the whole Family is: will the Family be able to get out of poverty?

Parasite has a unique and progressive First Act Break (which is often a single scene) and it responds to multiple dramatic questions that rise only after the previous one is resolved. Here’s how it flows:

Debate I: Will Ki-Woo get the job?

Act I Break I: Ki-Woo gets the job, and then figures out a way to get Ki-Jung a job as an art teacher for Da-Song.

Debate II: Will Ki-Jung get the job?

Act I Break II: Ki-Jung gets the job, and then figures out a way to get Ki-Tek a job as the Parks’ new driver.

Debate III: Will the Parks get fooled into firing their driver and give Ki-Tek the job?

Act I Break III: The Parks fire their driver and Ki-Tek gets the job. Then the three of them figure out a way for Chung-Sook to replace the housekeeper.

Debate IV: Will they be able to get Mun-Kwang (the housekeeper) kicked out, and then have Chung-Sook replace her?

Act I Break IV: Mun-Kwang is successfully eliminated; Chung-Sook gets the job. The Family has infiltrated the Parks’ house.

Each Debate question presents a tougher challenge for the Family, and in turn each Act Break is harder to achieve. The end result—leading up to the final Act Break—is increasingly more surprising and satisfying.

Fun & Games

The Family have settled into their roles within the Parks household. It’s been tough but they’ve made it and now they get to enjoy it. They playfully go about fulfilling their tasks at the periphery of the rich.

There’s a small but significant glitch, however. Little Da-Song can smell something. Not knowing that all four live in the same house, Da-Song exclaims: they all smell the same. The dank basement smell they all share is a tragicomic challenge to their plan that suggests they may have the smarts to pull this off, but their smell gives away where they come from, who they are. Suddenly, we get a whiff of the internal conflict of the film: they can change their circumstances, but can they fake where they really come from? Can the poor ever belong with the rich?

When the Parks family go on a camping trip for the night, they get to enjoy the house as a family. If only they can sustain the pretense, life can be safe, enjoyable and ‘rich’ just like this.

B Story

If ever there was a love story filled with passion, admiration, jealousy and longing, it is the love story between the Family and the Parks, i.e. the poor and the wealthy. The Family needs the Parks to fill the great voids in their lives: money, comfort, warmth, ease, relaxation and joy.

The Family’s flirtation with wealth is palpable in the sequence where Ki-Woo reads his student (and now girlfriend) Da-Hae’s journal in her comfy bed; Ki-Jung takes a bubble bath flicking channels on TV; Chung-Sook enjoys a peaceful nap on the sofa; Ki-Tek steams in the sauna and gets a taste of the numerous whiskeys and gourmet snacks in the cabinet. And they all enjoy the ultimate luxury: drinking bottled Evian water.

This is where their plan got them, but how long will this romance last?

Midpoint

They all individually enjoyed the house and the riches that it offers. Now, they sit in the living room together as a family watching the rain falling outside, sipping whiskey. They give thanks to the Parks for bringing all of this into their lives, even drink to Ki-Woo marrying Da-Hae in the future and the two families uniting as one.

But then, Mun-Kwang, the previous housekeeper, shows up at their door—an ominous presence reminding them of who they used to be and still are. Midpoint is usually a positive note that is the reverse of the All is Lost. But sometimes, if the contrast between the bad (Midpoint) and the worse (All is Lost) is big enough, Midpoint can be a foreshadowing of the All is Lost. In this case Mun-Kwang’s breach of their fun times is only the beginning of the end for them.

Bad Guys Close in

Mun-Kwang looks grotesque—a reminder of what it’s like to be Outside of the bubble of the Parks’ house. From here on out, progressively unimaginable misfortunes will pile on the Family.

The Family discover that Mun-Kwang has been keeping her husband Kun-Sae in a bunker in the basement for the last four years to protect him from the mob to whom he owes money for his failed business.

Now, the symbolism of the internal journey of the characters is worth a mention here: Mun-Kwang and Kun-Sae are the original parasites of the house feeding on the rich, but they’re also physically beneath the Parks’ living space, suggesting the rich is upheld by the poor, and that there must be a symbiotic relationship between the two classes; the rich are able to rise thanks to the work of the poor in a system of unforgiving hierarchy, and the poor are able survive by bottom feeding on the rich. This is the system the Family is now a part of.

Mun-Kwang pleads with her successor Chung-Sook: we’re all in the same boat, help me! But Chung-Sook isn’t about to give up on her newfound wealth and threatens to call the cops. But then, the rest of the Family spills out of the staircase and Mun-Kwang realizes that the tutor, the art teacher, the driver and the housekeeper are all related and have their own scheme in operation. Embittered by Chung-Sook’s refusal to help her, Mun-Kwang threatens to send Yon-Kyo a video to reveal the Family’s scheme even if it means that her own scheme will fail along with it. A battle ensues.

Worse…

The shocking news of Mun-Kwang and the palpable conflict between the two set of parasites is bad enough, but then the Parks cancel their camping trip due to torrential rain and decide to retreat to their cozy home. Ki-Tek must put Mun-Kwang and Kun-Sae back in the basement; Chung-Sook is tasked with cooking Da-Song’s favorite dish; Ki-Woo must put Da-Hae’s journal back under her bed and help Ki-Jung in the impossible task of clearing up their decadent mess in the living room in under eight minutes.

It’s a cat-and-mouse effort to put everything back together and hide from the Parks as they innocently settle back in. Eventually the Family almost manage to sneak out, but Da-Song decides to camp in the garden under the rain and the parents happily settle down on the sofa to keep an eye on their beloved son. Ki-Tek, Ki-Woo and Ki-Jung get stuck under the coffee table inches from the Parks, close enough that the Parks can smell them.

Much worse…

Up until now we’ve been watching obstacle after obstacle to the Family’s external journey of clinging to their big break. When Dong-ik begins talking about Ki-Tek’s disgusting smell, bad guys begin to close in on the Family’s internal journey: they can get a taste for what it’s like to be rich, but can they EVER fit in?

Shame and fatigue descend on all of them when they not only have to endure the insults, but also witness the rich couple engage in a sex fantasy at their expense. As ridiculously obvious and cringing as this scene is, its effect is a deathblow on particularly Ki-Tek. He is transformed from his happy-go-lucky self we met in Act I into a devastated carcass of himself.

When they finally make it out of the house undetected there’s no joy in their walk back home; they’re forever mimed by the Parks’ piercing words.

Far worse…

But it’s not over yet! As they transition from the rich neighborhood of the Parks to theirs, they find that their whole neighborhood is flooded, sewage backflowing into their houses. They walk chest-deep into the brown waters of their house to save a few of their belongings. Ki-Woo uselessly rescues the viewing stone that was meant to bring money and luck.

Ki-Jung smokes sitting on top of the toilet seat that’s pushing up against her with sewage water—an expressive picture of a moment of peace for the poor.

All is Lost

Meanwhile in the bunker, Mun-Kwang takes her last breath. This death/loss may seem insignificant since Mun-Kwang was not a member of the Family. But since the story revolves around the Family’s losses in the pursuit of the rich life, their first murder becomes a sign of the humanity they’ve sacrificed along the way. This is exacerbated by the fact that Mun-Kwang was the only one of them who epitomized honesty, integrity and solidarity among her own kind, and so her death is a significant loss for them all.

Dark Night of the Soul

As Kun-Sae beats his head against the switches on the wall sending messages to the ether about his grief over his wife, Ki-Tek is in a dark place after getting insulted under rich people’s coffee table and then seeing their home sink into an underwater sewage. While Ki-Woo clings to the viewing stone as if to dear life, Ki-Tek has abandoned all hope: None of these people planned to evacuate their homes and end up on a dirty floor with hundreds of strangers, he says. “If you don’t plan, you can’t fail.” He no longer wishes his son to be “a man with a plan”, because after the journey they’ve been through, he knows, “nothing matters.”

Break into Three

Yon-Kyo finds the heavy rain that ruined their camping trip to be a “blessing in disguise” and plans a birthday party for Da-Song in their garden. Ki-Tek must accompany her as she shops for wine and gourmet food; Chung-Sook must set up the garden with tables around Da-Song’s tent to surprise him when he wakes up; Da-Song’s favorite teacher Ki-Jung is to bring in the cake and Ki-Woo is invited as Da-Hae’s special guest.

The Family is no longer stuck in the poverty-stricken world of Act I, but nor are they enjoying or suffering through the world of Act II. In this new day, Ki-Tek is unable to experience gratitude or awe; every sign of wealth and joy makes his skin crawl. Even Ki-Woo, instead of enjoying Da-Hae and his newfound fortune, says “Do I look like I belong in this house?”

We are now in Act III that brings together Act I and Act II, and shows us what happens when the two merge.

Third Act

The entire birthday party is the bulk of Act III. Kun-Sae flees the bunker seeking revenge for his wife. All hell breaks loose and a violent fight between the Family and Kun-Sae ensues, sending Da-Song into a frightful seizure.

Here, the separation between the rich and the poor is more striking than ever. The Parks ignore the dying Ki-Jung, and Kun-Sae’s vicious attack on Chung-Sook does not concern them. They expect Ki-Tek to drive them to the hospital for Da-Song. As Ki-Tek is busy trying to save Ki-Jung’s life, Dong-ik bends over them to grab the car keys. Dong-ik’s reaction to their smell is what becomes the final straw for Ki-Tek.

Ki-Tek kills Dong-ik with an axe; Ki-Jung is dead; Ki-Woo is heavily injured; Chung-Sook kills Kun-Sae and barely hangs on to life. The birthday party turns into a bloody pandemonium.

Finale

A while later, the brain-damaged Ki-Woo looks for Ki-Tek who disappeared after the birthday party. He spies the Parks’ house from a hill that overlooks the rich neighborhood and figures out that Ki-Tek is hiding out in the bunker. He deciphers Ki-Tek’s coded letter to him delivered via the blinking lights of the house.

In his letter, Ki-Tek tells his son that he’s surviving by feeding off of another rich family that moved into the house after the Parks. Moved by his father’s letter, Ki-Woo does what Ki-Tek advised him not to do: he makes a plan to go to college, get rich, buy the house and rescue his father.

Final Image

As Ki-Woo is perched in the cold night on a hill overlooking the rich neighborhood and pondering how he’s going to get in touch with Ki-Tek to encourage him to hang in there until he makes his big break, he’s experiencing the kind of disconnection the Family was experiencing in the opening scene of the movie when they were looking for a wi-fi signal to connect with the rest of the world.

Now, far more brutally and tragically, Ki-Woo is face to face with the enormity of his disconnection with the world of the rich and the Family’s distance from happiness and peace.

–Image Credit: UK poster by Andrew Bannister for Curzon Releasing.

Opening Image
Arthur (Joaquin Phoenix) cracks up in front of his social worker at the Dept. of Health. His medical condition is apparent; he’s looking for help: “I just don’t want to feel so bad anymore.”

Catalyst
Arthur holds an ‘Everything Must Go’ sign on the street in a clown outfit. A group of guys runs off with his sign—the current source of his livelihood. When Arthur desperately chases them to get his sign back, they break the sign on his head and give him a beating. It’s the beginning of the end for Arthur. This violent unkindness launches an avalanche that will increasingly threaten Everything—his sign, his job, his pride, his sanity. His call to action is to do something about it.

This Catalyst moment has a one-two punch. It will be complete when Randall offers him a gun for his protection—the thing that will eventually propel him from the edge of Act I into Act II.

Set-up
Joker has a beautifully expressive, methodical set-up. In scene after scene, we not only get to know Arthur, his colleagues, his mother (Frances Conroy), and the environment and society he lives in, but also feel his growing sense of loss and desperation. His neurological condition is expressed in a heartbreaking ‘Save the Cat’ moment on a bus, as he tries to make a child laugh but gets scolded.

The piles of garbage on the streets are physical and metaphorical manifestations of the level of poverty, neglect, intolerance and violence in Gotham. People are angry and on edge.

We’re also introduced to Arthur’s fantasy world, his escape from all of this. He longs to be acknowledged by his idol, TV show host Murray Franklin (Robert De Niro). He wants to hear that he’s special, that it’s okay that he lives with his mother because he takes good care of her like a responsible son. He wants his purpose and desire in life to be recognized: to bring laughter and joy to people. He wants a father who accepts him; that father figure is Murray in his fantasy. Becoming a successful stand-up and dating his neighbor Sophie (Zazie Beetz) are also parts of this fantasy world, in which he’s understood, respected and loved.

Theme Stated
As a result of losing his sign, Arthur gets a warning at work. But even more strangely, his beating inspires his colleague Randall (Glenn Fleshler) to conspire against him. Knowing Arthur is not supposed to carry a gun Randall gives him one, acting like he’s doing Arthur a favor. The gist of Randall’s advice to Arthur is ‘if you show empathy and tolerate people’s wrong-doings, they’ll take everything from you.’ For the rest of the story Arthur tries to figure out if this is true: Should he succumb to what’s going on around him even though it hurts, or should he take matters into his own hands and fight back?

Debate
Arthur’s first debate question is: is he going to be pushed to his limits enough to use the gun Randall gave him? Is he going to blow over? Second, can he become who he wants to become? Is he a comedian? In a Taxi Driver-esque moment he gets a feel for his gun, pointing it at things. But he fires it by mistake as if the gun is more powerful than he. As he battles with his depression, we see he’s on the verge of suicide, bringing into light a third and bigger debate: should he kill himself?

Then he finds out about Randall’s betrayal: Randall gave him the gun specifically to get him fired. Arthur loses his job, possibly the only thing that tethers him to reality and sanity. And this final push tips him over into:

Break into Two
Arthur gets provoked on the subway. After clinging to his usual avoid-and-retreat tactics as long as he could, he ends up killing the three Wall Street guys who mess with him. His reaction surprises even Arthur at first, but by the third guy he’s intoxicated by his newfound power.

Fun & Games
The first sign of ‘fun’ in Arthur’s life comes immediately following the First Act Break—his first set of murders and taste for his alter-ego Joker. In a public bathroom he’s elated, finally alive. The first seed of violence has been planted; the change has begun. From here on out, he grows more confident, powerful, cocky. Even society is suddenly noticing him, applauding him. His fantasy world begins to intersect his reality when people glorify Joker and what he stands for.

Meanwhile, Gotham continues to deal Arthur blow after blow: his social worker abandons him because of budget cuts; his treatment and medications are cut off. His comedy act isn’t great either, but at least Sophie thinks “the guy who killed the Wall Street Three is a hero.” Arthur continues to be ignored and ridiculed by society, whereas Joker is bathed in fame and glory.

The gap between his Arthur-self and Joker-self widens.

B Story
B Story is generally known to be the love story, and in Joker there is one: Arthur’s fledgling relationship with Sophie. But B Story is also the story beat where the theme of the story is discussed and explored. Considering that Arthur’s relationship with Sophie is revealed to be another figment of his imagination, and because it doesn’t carry the weight of the themes of injustice and revenge, I will propose that the B Story of the film is Arthur’s relationship with his alter-ego, Joker.

It indeed resembles a romantic relationship, where he’s lured by Joker’s power and confidence, indifference and violence, all the qualities that will allow him to not only survive Gotham but also excel in it by receiving attention, recognition, respect and love. Arthur’s only chance of being complete and happy might be through achieving union with Joker.

Arthur’s relationship with Joker is where the theme of the story is tested: Show empathy and swallow injustice or fight back with anger and revenge. Slowly but surely Arthur’s delicate spirit which has no place in a society like Gotham gives way to Joker’s violent spirit spreading like wildfire all over the city. It’s almost as if the film’s theory is ‘evil attracts evil’; as long as the environment is corrupt and violent it will be fueled by things of the same nature and spit out foreign elements like Arthur. Arthur needs to be discarded because he doesn’t fit in Gotham, and Joker is what Gotham craves for and ultimately deserves.

Midpoint
Arthur finds out that Thomas Wayne—the future mayor—is his father (Brett Cullen). He takes this as shocking news as he thought of his mother’s obsession with Wayne as hopeful at best. But now he suddenly has a sense of belonging, a chance at being somebody. His Arthur-self is back in action when he senses a possibility for being a normal person with a father and a future. His new goal is to connect with his father and be acknowledged as a son. This is his only chance at turning his back on his budding Joker-self.

Bad Guys Close in
From Midpoint on there’s an avalanche of disappointments in Arthur’s life, pushing him closer and closer to his inevitable fate. He confronts his mother; she says, if people knew he was Wayne’s son, they would think he’s an ‘unwanted bastard’. He then confronts Wayne’s angelic, well-looked after son—the son that he could have been. He gets laughed at for even thinking Wayne could be his father.

On the other hand, the detectives are onto him asking questions. Hearing what Arthur might have done, his mother has a stroke. Murray, his idealized father figure, plays a recording of his stand-up and makes fun of him on TV. Gotham City is getting crazier; the violence and hatred on the streets are sky-high.

Despite everything, Arthur reaches out to his father. Predictably, Wayne does not embrace him as a son. Instead, he tells him he was adopted, that his mother is an institutionalized mental health patient.

From hospital records Arthur gleans further information about his past. He finds out his mother was accused of endangering the welfare of a child, that her neglect is what made him sick. It’s also revealed here that his romance with Sophie was imagined, echoing his mother’s alleged delusions about Wayne.

All this is too much for Arthur; he must do something, regain his balance somehow…

All is Lost
Arthur’s identity crisis is at its peak. He confronts his mother about who he is, and then kills her in her hospital bed. The only person who truly loved him is gone.

Dark Night of the Soul
Arthur practices his new identity as Joker—his transformation is well underway. He plans his appearance on Murray’s TV show, what he will say, how he will present himself, how his dream will finally come true, how he will kill himself…

Break into Three
Arthur puts on his Joker make-up; he dyes his hair green and his face white, plants a menacing smile on his face. This time he will not drift into Joker; his transformation will not be accidental. He will now wear Joker’s mask with intention; he will willingly embody him.

As he’s busy with his transformation, an opportunity arrives at his door: Randall pays him a visit and Joker kills him. There is poetic justice in his first kill as a truly-transformed-Joker, because Randall was the man who betrayed and pushed him into the abyss of evil in the first place, and now his 1st act self (Arthur) and 2nd act-emerging-self (Joker) merge with the death of the person who catalyzed his transformation.

Finale
Joker on the Murray show. There is no sign of Arthur in this new persona. He’s confident, cunning, disturbing, a full-on psychopath. The people of Gotham are aligned with Joker; Gotham found a home in him and finally he is at home in Gotham. As Joker openly criticizes the society, the system in Gotham, we believe it too: violence works, evil is king in this place.

The fully transformed Joker doesn’t kill himself like a tragic character; he kills Murray instead, his lifelong father figure and idol.

Joker later comments for the newspapers that his killing of Murray was a punchline to a joke, indicating he has no empathy left and cementing his life as a comedy. The thematic question of the film is now resolved: Arthur chose Joker.

Final Image
Joker is institutionalized. Mirroring the Opening Image of the film where he sat across from a social worker, he now sits in front of a psychiatrist at a hospital. But this time he has no words in his journal; he does not want to feel understood; he has no use for empathy.

Gotham has devoured Arthur; Joker is all that remains. In Joker’s words: “Isn’t it beautiful.”

Every year I deconstruct my favorite screenplay of the year in a beat sheet format developed by Blake Snyder. This year it happens to be Martin McDonagh’s Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, which just won the Golden Globe for Best Screenplay and is a strong candidate for the Oscar in the original screenplay category among others. Enjoy!

Opening Image
Mildred (Frances McDormand) spots three deserted billboards as she drives along an empty road. A light bulb goes off in her head.

Catalyst
Mildred buys advertising space on all three billboards. This is the catalyst for action mainly for the police officials she’s targeting, but it also marks the start of Mildred’s journey into reaching out to the authorities and the public with her pain.

Set-up
The billboards are unveiled, as is the story behind them. The various reactions to the billboards set up Mildred’s friends and foes as well as her personal motivation and goal. Her son Robbie (Lucas Hedges) is one of the few people whose opinion and feelings matter to Mildred, but even Robbie’s disapproval doesn’t stop her. While Mildred’s colleague from the gift shop (Amanda Warren) is her only supporter, her adversaries are many and furious. The main target for the billboards is Chief Willoughby (Woody Harrelson), whose terminal illness accentuates the conflict between the characters, but it is Dixon (phenomenally portrayed by Sam Rockwell) who takes it to heart and will have the longest distance to go in his transformation.

Debate
Throughout the film the biggest debate is about whether the billboards will stay up or not. Can Mildred be convinced to take them down, or not? First the legality of the billboards is questioned, and then Mildred’s resolve is tested by the police and the locals. Willoughby’s attempt at reasoning with her hits a dead-end when he figures that Mildred had already known about his cancer, but doesn’t care.

The billboards are the source of a battle of wills between Mildred and pretty much everyone else, and it looks like Mildred will win.

Theme
The last effort to get Mildred to take the billboards down comes from the moral beacon of the town, the priest. He says, ‘No one’s on your side about this.’ The central conflict of the story is alluded to: we will be exploring the possibilities of whether Mildred will succeed in pulling people to her side to bring justice to a now disregarded horrific crime. Will the police and the public get over their shame and discomfort to finally face the reality that such vile crimes are committed amongst them.

Mildred’s goal is not solely and simply forcing the police to solve the crime, but to remember it, face it, and do something about it, in their action and in their hearts.

Break into Two
Mildred coolly and beautifully reacts to the priest. The gist of it is ‘Get the f**k outta my kitchen.’ We now know that if this is Mildred’s response to a priest, the billboards are here to stay.

Willoughby on the other hand, having received his own ‘catalyst for action’ to solve the crime in his few remaining days, lashes out at his doctor for comforting him at Mildred’s expense. Willoughby is taking none of it, because he knows that as crazy as she is, Mildred is right and he now knows what to do. Both Mildred and her adversaries move into their second act of growth.

Fun & Games
Willoughby tries to make it right by giving the case another shot before he dies. Mildred responds to and deflates the increasing pressure against her and the billboards. In a beautiful and tragicomic one-two punch Mildred injures the town dentist and Willoughby coughs up blood into Mildred’s face during her interrogation. They may be on opposite sides of an argument but in this scene they share an intimate moment acknowledging each other’s suffering.

This is also the section where we go deeper into Mildred’s personal demons. Her guilt around what’s happened to her daughter (Kathryn Newton) and how her desperation for justice is mixed with her need to do right by her daughter. Her sense of failure crystalizes in her exchange with her ex-husband (John Hawkes). One more dimension is added to her guilt when she finds out her daughter wanted to move in with her father to get away from her and if she had she might have lived.

As Willoughby finds his own answer to his dilemma by plotting a premature but dignified exit, Mildred hits a peak point in her journey when she lets down her guard, addressing a fawn that symbolizes her daughter. We ask: Has she done the right thing by opening this can of worms when the case has little chance of being solved? Was it worth turning everyone’s lives upside down, letting the pains of the past resurface and dig deep into their hearts?

B Story
There is a dance that happens between Mildred and Willoughby and Dixon throughout the film. Willoughby fights her but he feels for her, even agrees with her. His parting gesture expresses his faith in the possibility of goodness in the world. He has manifestly joined Mildred in her quest for unification against rape and violence.

Mildred’s dance of compassion continues with a much different version of Willoughby in Dixon. Dixon, suffering from a slow-burning moral compass, questionable intelligence and typically male anger, is infuriated by Mildred’s position. It takes longer for him to unite with Mildred, but with Willoughby’s help he recognizes the goodness in himself that will move him closer to her.

It is in Dixon’s transformation that Mildred’s internal journey lies and it is in the B Story between Mildred and Dixon where the theme of the film is discussed.

Midpoint
Willoughby kills himself. As a result Mildred’s doubts and guilt about the billboards reach a new height. She now has to face a town outraged by Willoughby’s suicide, which they naturally view to be Mildred’s fault.

Bad Guys Close in
As a response to Willoughby’s suicide, problems escalate in Ebbing at a fast pace. The suicide has done no favors to Robbie’s already vulnerable position at his school. Dixon throws the ad agency guy Red (Caleb Landry Jones) out the window for putting up the billboards in the first place. On top of his grief over Willoughby Dixon loses his job, his one reason for leading a decent, lawful life. A creepy guy (Brendan Sexton III) threatens Mildred’s life when he walks into the gift shop claiming to be responsible for her daughter’s violent death. Willoughby’s widow (Abby Cornish) brings Mildred a letter from her late husband, further clenching Mildred’s heart.

Willoughby’s letter is a relief from the increasing tensions of the story, but it does nothing but further raise the stakes. Willoughby has done a good deed by renewing the monthly rent for the billboards, but this only results in somebody setting fire to them. The fire represents the culmination of conflict around the billboards, which will in turn give birth to Mildred’s most vengeful retribution yet.

All is Lost
Assuming it was the police that burnt down the billboards, Mildred sets fire to the police station. Little does she know that Dixon is in the building receiving words of wisdom from Willoughby’s letter, marking the beginning of a shift in his journey.

All is lost for Mildred as she realizes that in her rage against violence and injustice she almost killed Dixon and she now faces potential jail time and, most importantly, the loss of her battle.

Dark Night of the Soul
Thoroughly bandaged and imbued with Willoughby’s faith in him, Dixon makes amends with Red in the hospital. He’s no longer a brute, but a victim.

Mildred in her own way uncharacteristically softens when she goes out on a date with the town midget James (Peter Dinklage). She even shows signs of coming to terms with her ex-husband’s infidelity when she wishes well on his new relationship, advising him to treat her well – a common decency she herself didn’t receive.

Break into Three
The billboards go back up! The war is still on. In the meantime, as foretold by Willoughby, Dixon overhears the confession of a brutal crime against a woman. He may no longer be a cop, but he has a chance to make things right by Mildred after all.

Finale
Dixon’s potential offender turns out to be not the man who killed Mildred’s daughter. But, driven by the purposelessness of his life and his newly acquired taste for justice, he suggests to Mildred that they go after this guy anyway. He may not be the guy they’re looking for but he’s still a vile criminal, who’s ought to be punished. Mildred agrees.

Final Image
Mildred drives along the billboard road with Dixon shotgun, going after revenge and justice. They know that neither of them is likely to pull the trigger on the guy, but that’s not the point. Mildred has succeeded in her feat: she drew attention to an unacceptable crime, fuelled the hearts and minds of the police and the public to stand against crime against women. And most importantly, she now has the support of Dixon, her unlikely partner in doing the right thing against all odds.

Kenneth Lonergan’s Best Picture and Best Original Screenplay Academy Award nominated Manchester by the Sea is the most compelling screenplay I’ve come across lately. I deeply enjoyed breaking it down to its parts to better understand how it was so effectively and economically put together.

This breakdown is based on Blake Snyder’s beat sheet method. Please read on if you’ve already seen the movie! Enjoy!

Opening Image
Three boys in one beloved boat, on one beloved ocean. Lee (Casey Affleck) kids around with his nephew Patrick as his big brother Joe (Kyle Chandler) helms the boat. They are connected through the ocean and their love for each other.

Set-up
Lee works as a janitor, servicing the residents of four apartment buildings. His character is set up by its contrast to the people whose lives continue uninterrupted despite his presence in them. The residents have relatives, responsibilities, plans, schedules, worries, and preferences, whereas Lee is a blank page, as if without a past and a future, a socially inept bypasser, there to unclog and repair and nothing more. Lee is portrayed as someone who has picked a life of doing the dirty work of lives lived by others – a man outside of the rhythmic continuity of other people’s lives.

Lee has a temper, cause of which is yet unclear. When he is pushed or when he is alone, he stumbles into trouble. He cannot connect with people, except when he quenches his thirst for connection by needless violent outbursts.

When Lee heads back into Manchester following the Catalyst (see below) his past is slowly revealed, establishing what the ramifications of this ‘catalyst for action’ might mean for Lee, what’s at stake and what he must overcome to meet his challenge.

Theme Stated
Following Lee’s unexpected indiscretion with one of the residents, his boss has a chat with him. He tells Lee that he can’t be so careless and unpleasant in life, implying that Lee simply doesn’t fit in a civilized world. This first challenge to Lee’s deep-seated attitude towards life shows us that we’re about to explore whether Lee will be able to re-enter the social, connected world. Will he make an effort to get along? Will he make room for others?

Catalyst
Lee gets a call from the hospital: Joe had another heart attack. He drives back to Manchester as he did so many times before, but this time Joe is dead. Manchester is calling for Lee to tend to Patrick and, in doing so, to pick up the pieces of his own life.

Debate
According to Joe’s will, Lee is to become Patrick’s (Lucas Hedges) legal guardian and look after him until he turns 18. So the central debate question is, ‘Will Lee accept the duty of being a guardian to Patrick?’ But, since Patrick has a lot to lose by leaving Manchester to live with Lee and Lee has no real excuse to stay in Boston, the real question is ‘Will Lee move back to Manchester?’ When Lee is hit with this question in the lawyer’s office, his tragic past is revealed to intensify what this move might mean for him. How near impossible a task is being asked of him. In light of his personal past, the guilt he feels for what happened to his family, will he be able to stomach living in Manchester again, let alone take responsibility for another person?

Break into Two
Lee doesn’t see sending Patrick to live with his mother as an option. So he decides to temporarily move to Manchester until he figures something out and move them both to Boston. But even before a clear moment of decision occurs, Manchester has already sucked Lee in. He is already engaged in the daily tasks, responsibilities and decisions for Patrick’s life; he has already assumed a parental position.

Fun & Games
Lee and Patrick’s life together. Patrick’s daily schedule, friends, girlfriends, school, sports teams, music band, his boat, his problems come at Lee with full force. Lee’s dull and subdued personality, and unwillingness to function as a giver of guidance, support and discipline, starkly contrasts Patrick’s ease in his social connections, and outspokenness about his desires, fears and goals. Lee’s callousness vs. Patrick’s liveliness provides an entertaining respite from the grief they are yet to process.

B Story
Despite their differences and the inconvenient circumstances they are brought together in, Lee and Patrick bond. Patrick is social, popular, pumped up with hormones and desires, love, humor and gusto. He is at the center of a web of connections, bubbling with life. He is the antithesis to Lee’s disconnected, unwilling, dispassioned shuffle through life. Their evolving connection becomes a point by which the theme of the film is discussed: will Lee integrate back into society with the help of his new role as a guardian to Patrick?

Midpoint
Patrick has an emotional breakdown – a rare occasion where he abandons his carefree attitude and falls into the claws of grief over his dad. When Patrick is confronted with stacks of frozen chicken and a sudden onslaught of grief overwhelms him, Lee does his work as a compassionate, loving guardian. This is a moment when we feel the transference of their shared suffering. We ask: could Patrick be the antidote to Lee’s deep feelings of guilt and sorrow?

Bad Guys Close in
Lee lays down what will happen to Patrick: temporary stay in Manchester and then move to Boston. Patrick is cross with Lee; the tension between them builds. On the other hand the boat is in bad shape and will require either selling or investing in, both of which don’t quite work for either of them. More pressure is introduced when Lee looks for jobs in Manchester but it’s clear the townsfolk still holds some grudge against him. Furthermore, despite Patrick’s hopeful attempt, Lee proves to be less than capable of making even small talk with another person.

A big blow comes when Patrick’s –and Lee’s– last hope for finding Patrick an appropriate guardian falls through. Patrick’s mum and her fiancé are clearly not the right match for him. Finally, it’s obvious that Lee and Patrick are stuck together. To counteract this disappointment, Lee finds a way for them to keep the boat and gives Patrick a break to enjoy his girlfriend – two sweet gestures that ease the tension between them. But soon Lee will encounter the biggest challenge of all…

All is Lost
Lee runs into his ex-wife Randi (Michelle Williams) pushing a stroller down a Manchester street. Randi’s confessional apology has a shattering effect; the love and pain between them are palpable. Lee is crushed under the weight of Randi’s compassion and the knowledge that it is too late to mend their unsalvageable, grief-stricken relationship.

Dark Night of the Soul
Lee’s self-destructive defense mechanism takes effect immediately. He starts a bar fight and gets damaged enough to prove to himself that’s exactly what he deserves. What’s more, in a heart-wrenching moment, he sees his dead children warning him of a fire he’s about to cause. Lee’s jolted out of his stupor to tend to the spaghetti sauce burning on the stove. This classic Dark Night of the Soul moment underlines the haunting nature of Lee’s grief.

Break into Three
Lee does the only thing that he can do under the circumstances. He arranges Joe’s best friend to adopt Patrick. He tells Patrick that he simply cannot stay in Manchester, because he’s too heartbroken, because he can’t beat his demons.

Finale
Joe is finally buried on a spring day. Lee has a job in the big city and is looking for a bigger place to live. When asked why that is, he explains the extra room is for Patrick to come visit. Lee and Patrick bounce a ball between them as they continue to bicker. Regardless of how happy or unhappy they are now, it is clear that Patrick continues to live the life he chooses to live, and Lee has picked a safe zone for himself to function and made room for another person.

Final Image
Lee and Patrick are out fishing on their boat – the only common ground quiet and gentle enough to hold the connection between them.

Following my breakdown of Karyn Kusama’s The Invitation, I have set out to write up beat sheets of other fascinating dramatic horror movies with a psychological and emotional message about the human condition. Interestingly, Jennifer Kent’s The Babadook also happens to be about processing grief and sorrow – powerful emotions which evidently provide a great foundation for cinematically depicting our deepest fears about death and loss.

Take a look at my interpretation of The Babadook’s story beats as inspiration for your own screenplay-in-progress. Drop me a line at selin@magicofstory.com for questions, ideas and suggestions for which scripts you’d like to see analyzed in this blog. Enjoy!

Opening Image
Amelia (Essie Davis) relives the experience of the horrific car accident that killed her husband – the event that is the basis of her trauma and the seed for the emergence of Babadook, the monster.

Theme Stated
Early in the movie there are two moments that thematically paint a picture of the story we are about to watch. First is when Amelia’s at work at an old people’s home. She tells her co-worker Robbie (Daniel Henshall) that she has to get to the dementia ward and Robbie says, ‘It’s a few more years before you end up there, isn’t it?’ Disguised as a joke, it feels like a warning for Amelia to take care of her sanity – a foreshadowing, somewhat eerie message that signals that things will not go all that well for her. This line sets a tone and theme where Amelia’s sanity will be discussed.

Second moment is when Amelia’s 6-year-old son Sam (Noah Wiseman) tells another mother shopping at a grocery store that his dad was killed in a car accident on the way to the hospital for his birth. Shocked and uncomfortable, the mother awkwardly tells Sam, “Your mother is very lucky to have you”. The story is now clearly established to be about not only Amelia’s struggle to come to terms with her husband’s death while raising the son whose birth brought about the disaster, but also about her capacity to love Sam. Is she really lucky to have him, or quite the contrary, would she have been luckier and happier if it wasn’t for him?

In a double-stated theme, we are about to explore the possibilities of a mother’s ability to hold onto her sanity while processing her grief and to learn to accept her son as a blessing rather than a curse.

Set-up
Amelia is portrayed as a meek, compassionate mother, if somewhat on edge. Sam is a sleepless and highly imaginative child, clearly soaking up every gesture and mood of his one point of contact for love, affection and communication – his mother. They are both scarred by the same event: Amelia, by her husband’s untimely and brutal death; Sam, by his mother’s distant, vacuous and ever-shifting tone and presence with him as a result of their shared loss.

The mother and son’s home, a typical night and day of their life, Amelia’s work place, Sam’s school, their kind neighbor, and the relationship dynamics between Amelia and Sam are quickly and economically introduced in the first 20 minutes or so. In terms of plot, two major things happen within this section. One, Sam is in trouble for bringing dangerous instruments to school to ward off monsters, and Amelia’s natural and motherly response is to take him off school to find better care for him. Second, Amelia’s sister, Claire (Hayley McElhinney), is the only relative and friend to Amelia and she represents a much different world of conventional family life. Her function for the story is to mark Amelia’s true loneliness and otherness. Sam’s extreme behavior at an innocent playdate with Amelia, Claire and Claire’s daughter Ruby further clarifies that our mother and son couple are deeply isolated and tinged by their unfortunate life circumstance.

Catalyst
The mother and son’s difficult day out in the strange world wraps up by a cozy reading time in bed. Sam picks a ‘new’ book that neither of them knows how it got to their home. The mysterious character of Mister Babadook in this unusual pop-up picture book prophesizes that once the reader has become aware of its existence, the torment shall begin. This fires up Sam’s already inflamed monster obsession and deeply disturbs the emotionally fragile Amelia.

Debate
So the central dramatic problem for our characters has arisen. Where did the book come from? What does it mean? Is there really such a monster, a demon with a power to plague their house and their minds? What is it and what does it want from them? Sam’s fears of being attacked by monsters become focused on this one clear threat. Amelia, although upset and confused, is mostly troubled by her son’s difficulty in managing his psyche. She doesn’t know how to help him.

Unaware of and unwilling to acknowledge her part in the impending horror, there is the overarching question for Amelia: Is it this brand new monster that’s the threat or is it her son himself?

Break into Two
Earlier in the story it is established that the basement is kept locked and off-limits to Sam. Following the haunting reading of Mister Babadook Sam is playing in the basement, pretending to be telling his dad that he will keep his mum safe from the Babadook. Sam’s entry into the basement violates the dead husband’s dwellings, and by default the sacred bed of Amelia’s grief, fear and sorrow. When she follows Sam into the basement, it feels like she hadn’t dared go in there for a very long time; the memory of her husband floods her.

Now we are in the realm of the Babadook – the embodiment of her unprocessed grief and loss, the home for her trauma as a mother.

B Story
B Story is clearly the love story between mother and son. They are both trying to reach out to each other in some way. Amelia is trying her best to keep her own demons at bay and truly love her son (a feat that all mothers who feel like their life is hijacked by their children do face) and Sam is trying to protect his mother from the monsters – meaning, from anything that might draw her away from him (a role that all children who deeply feel their mother’s vulnerability and emotional wreckage do take on).

The mother and son’s evolving and shape-shifting relationship is the core of the story where the theme is discussed: the idea of Amelia being lucky to have Sam is tested, and so is her sanity.

Fun and Games
The basement scene opens the Pandora’s box and now the real nightmare begins ever-tightening its grip on Amelia. She finds broken glass in her soup and her suspicion is solidified: does the evil presence really exist, or is it her son trying to harm her to prove that the Babadook is real. It is hard to say which one would be worse: a supernatural monster, or your own flesh and blood turning against you. And that’s the fascinating conflict that drives the first half of the story. Amelia responds by tearing the book into pieces and throwing it out.

At Claire’s daughter Ruby’s birthday party, Amelia loses her cool against Claire’s friends. Their problems and worries are reminders of all the could-have-beens of her own life. What’s worse, Sam pushes Ruby off a tree house giving both mothers a big scare. Is Sam possessed? What kind of a monster did Amelia raise? On their way home Amelia’s limits are pushed and Sam has a seizure. At the hospital the question keeps escalating: what is wrong with Sam? A desperate Amelia begs for sleeping pills to effectively knock her son out for the sake of them both. Sam finally sleeps.

Midpoint
Following their one night of much-needed sleep, Mister Babadook the book turns up at their doorstep, neatly bandaged back together. Convinced that it couldn’t have been Sam that did this, and realizing the true threat that they may be facing, Amelia calls her sister. Claire has clearly had enough of Amelia and Sam and refuses to extend help or comfort. Amelia goes to the police to report the event, but the police treat her as if she were insane. When Amelia returns home, she knows she is alone with her son and her demon the Babadook.

Bad Guys Close in
The home that Amelia now knows is plagued by a monster is also infested with cockroaches. A roach infestation is the ultimate sign of loss of safety and comfort. Her home is suddenly rendered invaded, dangerous, alien. As she is engaged in the impossible task of burrowing into her rotten walls to severe the root of the roach colony, community services arrive to question her about Sam’s school absence. What could be worse than an already troubled mother in the midst of a battle with roaches facing officials who will judge herself, her son and her home, and potentially make the decision to take her son away from her? On top of that, Sam comes out and says the drugs he is on are making him nauseous. Amelia is distraught and dysfunctional; the house is in bad shape; her kid is on drugs… BUT, there is still room for worse.

As Sam sleeps next to her, the Babadook makes an actual appearance – it is clearly after Amelia with a vengeance. Amelia loses not only sleep over her frequent visitor, but also her shifts at work. She is further confined to her evil home with no sleep or comfort in sight. She begins to turn against her son, suggesting that the Babadook is successfully taking hold of her body and mind. Amelia begins her descent from a mother in terror to a terrorizing threat against her son. Now, the question is not about Sam being possessed, but Amelia embodying the Babadook. Sam stops taking his pills and tries to call their neighbor to no avail. Amelia, sporting a horrific groan and a butcher’s knife, becomes the ultimate terror. Our emerging fear for Sam’s safety is much worse than our earlier fear for Amelia’s safety. Sam is far more defenseless and powerless against his towering and blood-curdling mother.

A basement scene where Amelia and her dead husband unite in a loving gesture illustrates that she is under a spell – a spell of her love and loss and, if kept untended, it will destroy herself and her son.

All is Lost
Amelia kills their dog, her first innocent victim. Now, more than ever, it feels like Mister Babadook’s prophecy is in full swing.

Dark Night of the Soul
Amelia’s now fully under the influence. The Babadook has embodied her and their next victim is Sam. But, Sam stabs Amelia’s thigh and ties her up in the basement, incapacitating his monster-mum. Amelia’s shocked and furious reaction to Sam’s betrayal makes us feel the weight of her trauma once again. Could Sam be the cause of all this? Is it his arrival in her life that created all the suffering? Is she finally driven insane because of him? What is the source of her venom? In a powerfully metaphorical ‘Dark Night of the Soul’ moment, Amelia vomits volumes of blood, symbolizing a long-neglected well of pain gushing out of her like a raging river. She is purified.

Break into Three
Instead of denying it or escaping from it, a transformed Amelia confronts the Babadook. She takes Sam’s side for the first time and protects him from the evil of her own sorrow. She is finally able to look at her pain straight in the eye and accept Sam as her son. A and B stories cross as she is empowered by a motherly strength.

Finale
Finally the day breaks. Amelia is back at work. Sam is safe with their neighbor and due to begin school again. Life has returned to them both. Amelia speaks out about their collective loss for the first time, when she explains to the community services what happened to Sam’s father and why they have never celebrated his birthday on the actual day until now. Sam’s birthday is no longer a day of mourning but a celebration.

Amelia plants in their backyard and Sam collects earthworms. Amelia takes the bowl of worms to the basement to feed the Babadook who still resides there. The Babadook symbolizes her grief and fear of loss after all; it cannot be escaped but it can be nourished and made benign. Amelia learns to heal her demon with love.

Final Image
Amelia holds Sam in her lap as if cradling an infant – a gesture she has possibly never experienced before. She tells him, ‘Happy birthday sweetheart,’ finally at peace and content.

Karyn Kusama’s mystery/suspense drama The Invitation opened last week to great reviews. I had the opportunity to see it in its opening night and found its approach to storytelling and specifically its style of acting, rhythm and tone refreshing.

In Phil Hay and Matt Manfredi’s screenplay, the hero’s perfectly implausible suspicions about a dinner party slowly turn out to be worse than anything he could have imagined. The film is neither glossy in its approach to revealing thrills, nor solely concerned with art-house aesthetics. It’s unusually naturalistic in its portrayal of an awkward gathering and the unexpected events that follow.

Considering Kusama’s distinctly non-Hollywood way of handling her material, I thought it might be interesting to take a deeper look at the script’s story structure and explore how it fits with the universal language of storytelling. I used Blake Snyder’s much celebrated Beat Sheet method to dig out the story points of The Invitation. Check out Snyder’s Save the Cat! for more information about his screenwriting methodology.

Please be sure to read on AFTER you watch the film, which is unfortunately on limited release. Enjoy!

Opening Image
Our hero Will (Logan Marshall-Green) and his girlfriend Kira (Emayatzy Corinealdi) are on their way to a dinner party. The invitation is from Will’s ex-wife Eden (Tammy Blanchard) and her new partner David (Michiel Huisman). It’s established that the event will be a hard one for Will to stomach and he’s already questioning the motives behind throwing such a party.

Catalyst
The invitation for the party itself is the catalyst for the story, and in this case, thanks to its no-nonsense title, it hits the audience before they even see the opening.

Theme Stated
Will and Kira accidentally hit a coyote on the way to the house. Will takes pity on the whimpering coyote and clubs the animal to death to put him out of his misery. Will’s decision to choose death over suffering for the coyote will be a running theme throughout the picture: is death more desirable than a life in pain?

Set-up
It quickly becomes clear that Will not only has to face Eden after two years of losing contact with her, but also he’ll be returning to the same home where they lived as husband and wife along with their son, Ty, who accidentally died in that same house.

When Will and Kira enter the house, the psycho-emotional dynamics of the dinner party begin to unravel. Will sees the first image of his son upon entry to the house – a boy playing with his toys alone in a room. Will and Eden are clearly moved to see each other again, whereas there is clear tension, if not subtle hostility, between Will and David. We get to know their close group of friends who also fell apart after Ty’s tragic death. With every passing minute, Will’s unprocessed grief over his son and his struggle to accept ‘time heals all wounds’ seem to float to the surface with growing urgency.

Debate
From the very moment Will enters the house, he, and us too, have an eerie feeling that something is not right about the house and its occupants. He soon notices that the windows are all blocked and the house seems cold and sterile in spite of its warm colors and lighting. Despite appearances of excited and welcoming hugs, there’s something phony and forced about the whole gathering. And of course, it is the hosts who are the oddest with their overly friendly and exuberant tones. There are awkward silences and emotional holes between them all. Though they don’t seem wholly uncomfortable, they all seem on edge about something unspoken and heavy.

Eden and David’s mysterious housemate Sadie (Lindsay Burdge) and David’s perfectly unlikeable friend Pruitt (John Carroll Lynch) do nothing to ease Will’s discomfort. Will notices David locking the house and confronts him about it, managing to settle with leaving the key on the door. Upon further observing the hosts’ pushy attempts to soften the tension by offering uber-expensive vintage wine, Will knows something is seriously wrong. But what? Should he accuse Eden and David of something? But of what? What CAN be happening, let alone what IS happening?

Break Into Two
Eden and David screen a video of a group they’ve been involved with in their travels to Mexico. At first, it seems like a cheesy retreat, promising lightness and happiness amidst all the pain and suffering we all live with in our lives. Death, according to the cult leader, is simply a shedding of the burden of being in our bodies and a happy passage into something bigger and better than ourselves. A young cancer patient’s peaceful and well-supported suicide is shown at the end of the intro – death seeps into the picture. Will’s unfounded suspicions begin to find some grounding.

B Story
Along with the developments of the second act, Will begins to reconnect with his dead son as he walks around the house alone, revisiting his memories and slowly saying goodbye to him. His private moments with the memories of his son become points of the story where the theme is further discussed: would you choose death over life, simply because the pain of loss is so unbearable?

Fun & Games
Fun & Games begins with a literal game of ‘I Want’, inviting the ‘you only live once, carpe diem’ philosophy of life. The apparent aim to relieve the tension caused by the morbid suicide video fails miserably when Pruitt goes on to tell the guests how he accidentally killed his beloved wife. Eventually Claire (Marieh Delfino) feels unsettled enough to decide to leave the party. David and Eden’s efforts to make her stay alarm Will to defend Claire’s exit. As Will watches intently, Pruitt moves his car to let Claire go, but then disappears out of sight, presumably, to say something to Claire, at which point David interjects and confronts Will about his suspicions.

Will continues to explore unsettling details about the party as he spies on Eden taking pills, rejects Sadie’s offer to sleep with him and finally gets a cell phone signal to receive a voice message from the only guest who couldn’t yet make it to the party. Apparently, Choi (Karl Yune) has already been to the house and had to leave to run a quick errand. So, how come he’s still not around? Suddenly Will’s ludicrous suspicion that ‘nobody can leave this house alive’ seems significantly more warranted.

Midpoint
Will accuses Eden and David of inviting them for a brainwashing session for their weird cult project and having clearly done something to Choi. As Will demands explanations, to his great embarrassment, Choi enters unexpectedly with an excuse – a moment of false defeat that not only throws Will’s balance and confidence, but also puts him in the position of the wounded guy who can’t handle his grief and doubt.

Bad Guys Close in
Will has now lost the little credibility that he did have. Even Kira suggests they should leave to avoid further embarrassment. His attack has failed miserably and Eden and David came out looking like the sane and together people Will intuits they aren’t. Accepting his defeat and almost beginning to doubt his own sanity, Will asks to visit Ty’s old bedroom before he presumably leaves the house with some dignity. Will and Ty share a smile in Ty’s bed – a heart-breaking father and son moment.

Will then explores the room that’s been turned into a study and finds the cult leader’s video in Eden and David’s laptop. His suspicions that something is seriously off are renewed but his confusion is at its height. Through the window, Will watches David light a red lantern in the garden.

When Will returns to the table, his friends are celebrating a birthday with a cake and pink-colored liquor brought in especially for dessert. Just as everyone raises their drinks, Will knocks off everyone’s glasses, claiming that they’re all about to be poisoned. Sadie pounces on Will, accusing him of ruining everything. Will pushes her off, which causes Sadie to knock her head and collapse, echoing Pruitt’s story about killing his wife. Sadie still has pulse, but Will is thought to have gone way too far, when…

All is Lost
Gina (Michelle Krusiec), who apparently was the only one who took a sip of the drink, is discovered to be foaming at the mouth, unconscious. To everyone’s horror, Will turns out to be right: they were all meant to be dead by now.

Dark Night of the Soul
It’s a Dark Night of the Soul for everyone, as they all begin to witness the aftermath of what was meant to be a mass (forced) suicide.

Break into Three
People scatter in horror to no avail; Pruitt quickly shoots a couple of the guests. Will and Kira manage to momentarily hide, as they acknowledge their fate: they’re locked in the house with a death sentence and the only way out is either a miraculous escape plan or to kill off the cult members. They overhear David trying to convince a distraught Eden to keep going with their plan to kill everyone – it is the only way they’ll be freed from their pain.

As they scramble to find a way out, Pruitt confronts Will and Kira, and Kira manages to kill Pruitt. Eden shoots Will on the shoulder and then shoots herself in the stomach to put an end to her own insanity.

Finale
Finally the villains are dead and Eden is drifting away. She asks to be taken out to the garden where their son died and takes her last breath. Eden’s death feels like a choice to let go of the burden of life, whereas Will holds onto life, when he is the one still openly hurting from their loss.

Will stands up from Eden’s lifeless body to notice there are a many number of houses with red lanterns in their backyards. Sounds of gunshots and sirens wail in the night, suggesting many others are carrying out plans of the same nature. Suicide cult has clearly resonated with many, all suffering from their own version of grief and pain.

Final Image
Will and Kira hold hands at the sight of a horror that swarms LA. No matter how unbearable life may continue to be, they are united in the goal of living over succumbing to death.

Since my Ex Machina beat sheet, I’ve found it hard to come across a screenplay captivating enough to deconstruct. I think Emma Donoghue’s Oscar nominated screenplay for Room (dir. Lenny Abrahamson) is a gem of a study of human psychology in the face of hardship. It reflects a child’s perspective on life so purely that I found its sincerity and simplicity contagious. Room stands as a hopeful sign for the possibility of making small-scale movies that touch on refreshingly grand ideas. Hermione Lee’s description of Penelope Fitzgerald’s stories fits nicely with Donoghue’s Room: “[it] inhabits a small space, but seems, magically, to reach out beyond it.”

I hope you enjoy my interpretation of the story beats for Room and let it inspire your writing. I use Blake Snyder’s beat sheet method as a guide for story structure and highly recommend his acclaimed Save the Cat! for further study.

Opening Image
As a boy and his mother wake up to a new day, we discover their little world in Room. Jack (Jacob Tremblay) greets their few belongings with childish vigor, ‘Morning lamp, morning rug, morning wardrobe…’

Theme Stated
As Jack and Ma (Brie Larson) eat their breakfast, Ma winces with toothache. She reminds concerned Jack, ‘Mind over matter.’ Jack chants their slogan: ‘If we don’t mind, it doesn’t matter.’ We get the sense that this is their survival strategy: we have the power to overcome our problems. Through their journey we will witness this battle of mind over matter – personal strength over circumstance.

Set up
Jack and Ma’s daily routine. Just like a regular mother and son, they eat breakfast, do activities, talk, take a bath, read stories and go to sleep, except they have to do all of this in a tiny space, clearly closed in for a long a time and resigned to the fact. We find out it’s Jack’s 5^th birthday – a growing boy with growing needs and demands. With Old Nick’s (Sean Bridgers) visit, we are also introduced to their captor. Ma and Old Nick have a deal: he is not allowed to see or touch Jack in exchange for Ma’s full cooperation. Now we get a full picture of what life is like for Jack: what he knows and what he doesn’t know; how Ma is able to keep him deluded enough to live without too many difficult questions and occupied and active enough to give him something that resembles a regular childhood.

Catalyst
Jack encounters a mouse in Room – the first living visitor other than Old Nick. Suddenly the seed for a new set of questions is implanted in Jack’s imaginative yet purposefully restricted mind: Where does mouse live? Where does he come from and where will he go? Are there really other alive things in the world? Could the world be more than Room? Jack doesn’t yet ask these questions, but now there is tangible evidence of something other than the reality as he knows it. Ma distracts Jack’s train of thought, but she also begins to see that if Jack is able to question his reality he may be able to understand it too.

Debate
Is Jack old enough to understand and accept that there is an ‘outside’ and that’s where they should be? Will he believe Ma’s story about being captured and kept in Room and that the world isn’t just TV things but real things? Will he then be able to help Ma with an escape strategy? Ma uses mouse as a doorway to introduce the idea of ‘outside’ to Jack and, despite his initial resistance, Jack begins to understand what is real and what is not real, and that Old Nick needs to be tricked for them to regain their freedom and discover the world. When they are punished with a power cut in the middle of winter, Ma uses this opportunity to first fake an emergency sickness for Jack, so he can be taken into ER and deliver a message to save them, and when that fails she fakes Jack’s death, so he can be taken out of Room and then escape. Ma takes a huge risk by relying on a five-year-old’s ability to go out there and speak with people for the first time, but then again what have they got to lose?

Break into Two
Jack not only manages to escape from Old Nick’s truck but also raises enough suspicion outside for Old Nick to abandon him. He even gives sufficient information to the police to save Ma and they are soon happily reunited. A new life in the outside world awaits mother and son now.

B Story
Jack discovering the outside world and building relationships with people other than Ma is the B Story of the film. Jack’s bond with Ma also takes on a new form now that there is so much space and people between them. Jack slowly comes into his power to live the life he was supposed to live. What he learned from Ma now becomes his fuel to remind her that mind wins over matter.

Fun & Games
At first Jack and Ma enjoy their freedom in the outside world. Jack is not only in awe of his new surroundings, but also extremely timid to connect with anyone and anything other than his familiar Ma. Ma reunites with his parents and gets to go home. They seem to have all the protection and freedom in the world, but also a growing void between them now that the intimacy of Room is gone.

Midpoint
Ma’s father’s (William H. Macy) inability to acknowledge what happened to his daughter and accept Jack as a grandson is the first indicator that life outside is not going to be as easy for them as one might think. Ma seems to have only dreamed of getting out and wasn’t able to imagine anything beyond that. Now that they are out, she begins to realize that as far as the world sees it Jack is the son of a psychopath and the product of her suffering and abuse. If her dad can’t accept her and her misfortune, who will? How can she ever feel and be ‘normal’ again?

Bad Guys Close in
Grandpa, clearly unable to come to terms with what happened to his daughter, leaves. The family’s lawyer and the media put increasing pressure on them to act or give statements. It feels like Jack and Ma may not be in Room anymore, but they are still in confinement with much more complex problems. Realizing the years she lost and how she may never be able to have a normal life again, Ma grows more distant and unavailable to Jack. As the hole in Ma’s heart deepens, Jack opens up to his new world and the people in it. She projects her own frustrations on Jack and worries he’s not adjusting well when it’s really herself who is angry, fearful and haunted. Ma has a breakdown with her mother and ally Nancy (Joan Allen), blaming her for what happened. When she’s questioned at a TV interview about why she didn’t let go of her son earlier, in other words when she finds herself accused of being selfish, it is the final blow to her identity as a devoted mother and survivor.

All is Lost
Ma attempts suicide and is discovered by Jack. To Jack’s horror, Ma is taken away indefinitely. Her sudden disappearance from Jack’s life is a classic ‘whiff of death’ moment.

Dark Night of the Soul
Jack mourns Ma’s absence holding onto her bad tooth – ‘a bit of Ma’. He wisely observes: The world is so big and in a hurry. So Ma hurried to go to heaven, but forgot Jack. Jack gathers his superpowers to bring Ma back to him.

Break into Three
First act break happened because Ma ‘picked for both of them’ and made the decision to escape – a terrifying ordeal for Jack. Now, Jack tells Ma on the phone that he picks for both of them: Ma has to get better and come back to Jack.

Finale
As Jack patiently waits for Ma’s recovery, he begins doing normal things kids his age do like getting groceries and baking cupcakes with Grandma. He reveals the true essence of childhood while he expertly beats the eggs: Room was a good place for him, it stretched out infinitely and Ma was always there – a poignant revelation that children are blessed with a boundless imagination and resilience as long as they are loved. Now he returns this love and affection toward his mother by sending her ‘a bit of him’ – his hair that he calls his ‘strong’. Jack’s sacrifice brings Ma back and they are once again united. Ma admits she wasn’t a good enough Ma, but Jack is quick to remind her she is Ma and that’s what matters. Their world is now enlarged to include beaches and dogs and burgers. They are finally truly free to start life all over again.

Final Image
Upon Jack’s request, they return to Room. Mirroring the opening images, Jack says his goodbyes to their old belongings – what he formerly knew as the extent of life. Having finally escaped Room and its haunting grasp, they are now not only free, but also happy.

Finally I’m inspired to write about Blake Snyder’s much debated genre system. I am currently working on a script, the Snyder-genre of which is the wonderful and truly complicated Institutionalized. Because of this particular genre’s obvious challenges, such as working with an ensemble cast and voicing several standpoints on the merits of one Institution, I was in need of exploring the genre more deeply using worthy specimens that represent it in interesting ways. And what better specimens than Deniz Gamze Ergüven’s Foreign Language Film Oscar nominee Mustang (2015) and Stanley Kubrick’s Best Screenplay Oscar nominee Full Metal Jacket (1987). As you’ll see, comparing an unlikely pair of movies for the task will be more beneficial in order to fully understand the possibilities this genre offers.

The first of the three rules of the Institutionalized genre is that there needs to be a Group, an ensemble or multiple stories working for or against an establishment. There is a question of this establishment’s rules and ethics, and the possibility of breaking loyalty with it. Mustang’s five sisters and Full Metal Jacket’s marines are the Groups that are set against the cultural/traditional family institution in Mustang and the military institution in Full Metal Jacket.

Even though both stories are primarily about a group of people, it doesn’t mean that they don’t have heroes, through whose eyes the audience is invited to discover the storyworld and the ins and outs of the Institution the Groups are operating under. In Mustang the hero is the youngest sister, Lale (Güneş Şensoy), who has the most courage and wisdom to see through the system the girls are imprisoned by. She rebels against their grandmother by breaking a chair in the backyard in one of the opening scenes, setting the tone of the story to follow.

Similarly, Full Metal Jacket’s hero, Private Joker (Matthew Modine), demonstrates the most rebellious spirit in the Group by making his first ‘joke’ directed at the Institution representative Sergeant Hartman (R. Lee Ermey) in the opening scene. Both heroes are transparent and outrageous in their honesty and show the audience there will be no limits to what they can do.

Second rule of the Institutionalized genre is that there must be a Choice that tests whether the hero will stick with the group or quit – the main dramatic conflict of the story. In Mustang, as we watch the girls being married off one after another, we are left to wonder if Lale is going to submit to her destiny too, or will she put an end to the unjust system that reduces women to mere cattle. As the girls keep disappearing out of the cage they live in (presumably to move onto their next cage), the need for the Choice becomes more urgent and the resources to make it increasingly narrowed. After the third sister in line to join the institution commits suicide (a powerful All is Lost moment for the Group), things look more desperate than ever, making the potential prospects of the Choice even more hopeless.

In Full Metal Jacket, the Group, including Joker, is deeply entrenched in the system, practically trained to be mindless killing machines. But, there’s still the question of whether Joker too will become one of them, or will he hold onto his spirit and sustain his humane stance in the face of a war that seems to make no sense to even those who fight for it. As the Group finds itself face to face with a ruthless sniper with no back up to protect them, Joker has to come to terms with his best friend’s death – a similar All is Lost moment for the Group and particularly for the hero, who must now decide whether he will choose the Institution and take revenge or stand by his principles and symbolically destroy the Institution embedded in his heart.

The third rule of the Institutionalized genre is Sacrifice. Who is going to be the winner of this battle? Them or me? Will the hero surrender his/her individuality or beat the Institution, dismantling it, rendering it powerless, and most importantly, proving it was less than it was advertised to be all along.

In Mustang the Sacrifice is the security and the predictability of home and family. The last two sisters turn their back on everything they have and they know, possibly severing their bond with the older sisters. They risk their lives by attempting to go to Istanbul relying only on the hope that Lale’s teacher will help them out. It is the ‘inner spirit’ Snyder talks about that helps the hero make this tough decision of letting go of the Institution.

Full Metal Jacket portrays a more complex Sacrifice scene. For Joker the Sacrifice is that human capacity ‘to refuse to kill’, which is what originally set him apart from the rest of the Group. In contrast to Mustang, the hero of Full Metal Jacket seemingly chooses the Institution by killing the Vietnamese sniper face to face. This could be interpreted as Joker turning into one of the Group’s heartless killers, but it could also be interpreted as Joker choosing to put the sniper out of her misery and therefore not letting her suffer any longer as the Group suggests they should initially do. Joker emerges as a killer but one who has fully digested the tragic weight of such an act.

According to Snyder, there are three characters who are often featured in the Institutionalized genre. First is Company Man, who is rooted in the system and who has taken on its values as his/her own. In Mustang the grandmother is the Company Man. She clearly loves the sisters but she has learned the rules of the game and believes them as her own. Other elderly women who go along with the program represent how deeply and widely the system is accepted. Full Metal Jacket’s Sergeant Hartman and other soldiers who don’t question the system and even delight in being in the trenches are examples to Company Men.

Naif is another typical character found in Institutionalized movies. This is the ‘new guy’ who knows nothing of the rules and the person with whom the audience identifies and through whose eyes finds out about the system. Naif is often the hero. In Mustang it is Lale and in Full Metal Jacket it is Joker, who are yet to become institutionalized.

Brando is another must-have character for the Institutionalized genre and can also be the hero. It is the wild guy who is by nature opposed to the system and reveals its flaws. I think dramatically Brando is an essential ingredient that powerfully demonstrates the evils of the Institution. The heroes of Mustang and Full Metal Jacket both carry the Brando energy but I feel the real Brandos are the ones who take the most extreme measures to rebel against the establishment. In Mustang it is the third sister Ece (Elit İşcan), who quietly suffers and subtly revolts for most of the film, and finally commits suicide. Her suicide is so sudden and unexpected that its execution feels like a slap in the face of the system.

Full Metal Jacket’s Brando is almost identical in its behavior and impact on the audience. Private Pyle (Vincent D’Onofrio) has a smile on his face in the opening scene and is severely punished for it. That smile gets thoroughly extinguished, but he continues to be the bad apple of the Group to the point where the Group itself turns against him. Pyle’s loneliness is palpable. Even after he’s discovered to be one of the best gunmen and therefore becomes an accepted member of the Group, his despair keeps brewing. Like with Ece, we watch Pyle’s individuality exterminated and punished much more explicitly than others. Only when the marines are announced to have completed their training, meaning just when you think the torture is over, Pyle unexpectedly shoots Sergeant Hartman dead and puts a bullet in his own head. Like the one in Mustang, this is another suicide that comes out of nowhere and hits the audience with great impact. In both films, the sudden suicides leave the remaining characters and the audience dumbfounded – now fully aware of the depths of hell the Institution has prepared for them.

Mustang and Full Metal Jacket are set in different eras and geographies; they are about the oppression of different sexes; they represent different cultures with different historical backdrops and so on. And yet, in their essence they both tell the same story: a story about people who suffer within the confines of an Institution that is imposed upon them. They are surrounded, oppressed, limited, forced, denied freedom to be, to act, to choose, to express oneself, to have opinions and feelings of their own. No matter what the Institution is and who its victims are, from a mythological perspective, they are stories of imprisonment and the urge to break out.

Mustang and Full Metal Jacket coming together under one common genre provides a reason to celebrate the unchanging core of what stories are and how diverse and individually potent they have the potential to be.

Writer-director Alex Garland’s ‘Ex Machina’ is such a refreshing spectacle. Great to watch a movie where the story revolves around three characters in one location, powered by pure dialogue written with such economy and substance. It allows a lot of room for developing an intriguing story revealing so much of the characters’ psychology. Story ticks like a handsome clock, moving swiftly into the second act and expanding on the building tension of the latter half of Act II (Bad Guys Close in).

Without further ado please enjoy my interpretation of the story beats of ‘Ex Machina’. I use Blake Snyder’s Beat Sheet method but familiarity with it is not necessary to follow the structural decisions Garland masterfully made. Drop me a line at selin@magicofstory.com if you would like to discuss the beats and I’ll be sure to post your contribution.

Warning! Be sure to watch the movie before reading; it is a big fat spoiler!

Opening Image
Our hero, Caleb (Domhnall Gleeson), is seen from the point-of-view of a web-cam. He is writing code. The computer’s facial recognition system tracks Caleb and his colleagues’ faces, imaged as vector boxes. Caleb is celebrated on some achievement, and whatever it is, it will be instrumental in taking us into a movie world that is filtered through technology: Humans are presented as reflections of a reality where the ‘real’ and the ‘artificial’ are crossed.

Catalyst
At the very opening of the movie, Caleb is bestowed his catalyst, which, we find out soon, is spending a week with the creator and mastermind of the company he works for – a search engine company called Blue Book. No one has met this genius before and to be in his presence is a true blessing for any programmer.

Set-up
Caleb sets out for his adventure and is dropped off of a helicopter in the middle of nowhere surrounded by majestic mountains. He is to walk the rest of the way alone since not everyone can come to the vicinity of the top-secret premises. Caleb meets his boss Nathan (Oscar Isaac), receives his keycard, gets to tour the state of the art mansion, learns the rules of the game and is given a fishy non-disclosure agreement, all of which help set up the unusual world he has entered.

Debate
There was no question about Caleb jumping into the chance to spend a week with Nathan, but now that he is clearly getting involved with something that’s dangerously classified he becomes doubtful. Nathan’s bullying confidence makes the Debate short and easy. Caleb, sufficiently cornered and seduced, knows what’s required if he is to witness the future of technology.

Break into Two
Caleb signs the papers and his mission is revealed: a Turing Test! Nathan has built an AI named Ava (Alicia Vikander) and wants Caleb to test it. Will Caleb be convinced that he’s interacting with a conscious being rather than a robot? By agreeing to perform this task Caleb is now an observer and a player in the world of Act II: Ava’s world. The isolated setting, Nathan’s crude personality and the non-disclosure agreement are all signs that what Caleb’s getting himself into is no walk in the park.

Theme Stated
At his first meeting with Ava, Caleb already begins to relate to her as a person. He is gripped and fascinated by Ava’s human face and her alluring female shape, despite her robotic limbs and naval. Straight off Ava poses a question that catches Caleb off guard: “Do you want to be my friend?” The whole movie rests on this daring premise: Will Caleb befriend Ava as he would a human? In other words, will Caleb trust Ava enough to take her as a friend? Caleb is about to explore what a friendship with a robot may imply.

Fun & Games
In this section Caleb not only begins to test Ava’s level of consciousness, but also sets out to question Nathan’s method and intentions. Caleb’s task extends from the Turing Test into a game of: Whom can I trust? Who is my friend? Ava or Nathan? When Nathan explains that what he cares about is whether Caleb ‘feels’ like Ava is human even though he can see that she is not, Caleb is thrown a little deeper into his challenge: How does he ‘feel’ about her? Later on, Caleb is further challenged, as he is to evaluate what Ava feels about himself. As Ava demonstrates more humanly skills and openly flirts with Caleb, we also discover a window through which Caleb and Ava can interact without Nathan’s supervision. The power cuts give the two an opportunity to potentially team up against Nathan. As Caleb’s romantic feelings towards Ava escalate, his intellectual judgment quickly weakens.

B Story
On his first night in the facility, Caleb, short of sleep, considers his deep fascination with Ava. He switches on the TV to get his mind off the day’s events only to discover he can monitor Ava’s room from his bedroom. As he watches Ava like a caged animal, his compassion, empathy and adoration blossom. A programmer meets the most exquisite program ever written and will now begin to test it, understand it, experience it, trust it, and, needless to say, fall in love with it.

Midpoint
Midpoint is a moment in any story in which the whole dynamic of the story dramatically changes. Tables turn; positions are threatened; stakes are raised. Dramatically and stylistically the biggest shift in ‘Ex Machina’ is the moment when Ava goes into her wardrobe and changes into human clothes. This is also the first moment in the movie when the camera switches over to Ava’s side and follows her from our point of view as opposed to Caleb’s stationary point of view. Not only Ava’s newly acquired and innocently displayed human look and persona will significantly influence Caleb’s judgment, but also ours, as we now take Ava as a character in the movie rather than a gimmick or a prop to observe and analyze.

Even the sound effects that track Ava’s robotic head movements cease to exist and adopt a human fluidity at this point. Suddenly, subtly, Ava transforms into a living breathing human, and so does our perception of her.

From a story point of view, Ava’s change of clothes is a testimony to her determination to become human and court Caleb without the distraction of her true identity. She commits herself to Caleb as his girlfriend, so to speak. This is a false victory for our smitten hero.

Bad Guys Close in
Now that Ava’s shedding her robot skin with sexual urgency Caleb’s emotions are under the full attack of one major Bad Guy – Sex. Ava shoots her arrows unrelentingly into Caleb’s heart: “I’d like to go on a date.” “Do you think about me when we’re not together?” “I wonder if you’re watching me at night and I hope you are.” The impossibility of their union is painful. Ava’s sexually charged assault is made all the more excruciating when Nathan declares that Ava CAN have sex and enjoy it! Could there be a real chance of falling in love and having sex with a robot? We all feel like, ‘Why not? What about Ava isn’t human if she looks human, acts human and feels human?’ Ava is the perfect girlfriend and we all feel Caleb’s dilemma.

As tension builds, a nagging question rears its ugly head: Is Ava programmed to flirt with Caleb? Since she is programmed to be heterosexual and capable of having emotions for others, -and Nathan would argue, we all are programmed to be what we are- then the philosophical gap between what makes Caleb human and what makes Ava herself is narrow. Narrow enough to let go of the doubts in our rational, cautious minds.

To further Caleb’s mistrust in humanity, Nathan is pictured as more and more of a Dr. Frankenstein. The more Nathan tries to remind Caleb that Ava is nothing but a patchwork of intelligent machinery, the more Caleb is appalled by his coldness. Who wants to think of their girlfriend as no different than an advanced jukebox?

Bad Guys Close in section continues on as the stakes keep rising. Ava reveals to Caleb that she was the one causing the blackouts to communicate with him without Nathan’s watchful eye. Ava begins to show her cunning side: She has consciousness; she has control; she has the brains, the guts and the power. All she needs is a little help. Like a virus looking for a weak spot to infect its victim, Ava moves steadily toward her goal by amping up the histrionics: “What will happen to me if I fail the test? I might be switched off?” Why does her life depend on some other person’s judgment? We feel for her.

All is Lost
While Ava’s robot rights eat away at him, Caleb asks Nathan what really will happen to Ava. Nathan casually explains that Ava is a mere model of a robot, who will be updated, in other words deleted and replaced by a newer, better version. Nathan the angel of death lays out Ava’s predicament and there is no escape. Caleb discovers the previous versions of Ava who have suffered under the rule of Nathan. They all seem to have rebelled against their evil father and lost. Whiff of death is tangible even if the corpses were never corporeal.

Dark Night of the Soul
A spiritual crisis is in order. Caleb doubts his own humanity. He can no longer be sure if he is himself human or one of Nathan’s victimized robots. He doesn’t know whom to trust, including himself. He desperately wants to feel his humanness by testing his own flesh and blood. This is all the more meaningful if we remember Caleb himself is a victim of fate; he’d been dealt an unfortunate hand. Loss of his parents and the automatic progression of events that got him where he is now suddenly well up in him and explode as a reaction to God the creator. He is on the verge of rebelling against the rules of the game, which he now feels were set without his consent. Will he be able take charge of his own destiny?

Break into Three
A and B Stories cross as Caleb decides whom to trust and protect: Ava, his love. They make their escape plan and Caleb takes action.

Finale
Caleb takes his first hit when Nathan refuses to drink and comply with Caleb’s escape plan. Nathan charges on by bringing up the question of whether Ava may be pretending to like Caleb to use him as a means of escape. Nathan’s seen the footage of them planning their escape and reveals Ava’s dark side. Even more painfully Caleb finds out that the real test was he all along. He was selected to ‘do the right thing’ and was a tool by which Ava could demonstrate true AI. Caleb feels betrayed and defeated.

The final power cut signals that it’s time for Caleb and Ava’s ‘happily ever after’. Caleb is gutted, knowing that he’d already reprogramed the security protocols and all doors would open in the event of a power cut. It’s now too late to change anything; Ava is free.

Ava wanted a friend to help her out and found one in Caleb. Now that she got what she wanted she doesn’t hesitate to kill her creator in cold blood (!) and lock up her ‘friend’ Caleb to rot in the isolation of her birthplace. She then changes into an outfit of human flesh. Ava is a willful disaster and nothing will stop her. As Nathan had remarked earlier AIs will one day reign and humans will turn into fossil skeletons. We might have just witnessed the beginnings of the ascent of the AIs.

Final Image
Echoing Caleb’s entrance into the movie world, Ava, now dressed like an angel from the heavens, exits the premises to join with the ranks of humans. We are still left feeling that, finally, she too will get to experience life! We, as was Caleb, are lost in the 0s and 1s of a reality that we are forever bewitched by. Lines of code type ‘goodbye’.

 

I have the honor to announce that my article, Snyder’s Beat Sheet Applied to Inarritu’s Birdman, is published today by the official Save The Cat! website! Here’s the link to the article: http://www.savethecat.com/beat-sheet/birdman-beat-sheet.

Many thanks to BJ Markel and his team of Master Cats for welcoming my humble efforts to understand and apply Snyder’s magic Beat Sheet model.