I finally got around to watching Sound of Metal and I found it to be a compelling and riveting story. There was nary an explosion to be found. No gunshots. No car chases. No breakneck action sequences. It was a slow, mostly quiet, deliberately paced story and I could not look away from it. You might ask, how could this be? How could a film with such a dearth of action and violence be so interesting in today’s movie environment? The answer is that it was a well-crafted, well-constructed story that had the solid foundation of a compelling and exquisitely executed Hero’s Journey.

What makes that statement all the more remarkable is that The Sound of Metal, as least after one viewing, skips a couple of key stages. There appears to be no Approach or Supreme Ordeal, and yet there is definitely a midway point in Act II where you can see the story changing direction from Act IIA and Act IIB. It’s a tad jarring, but it still works for this movie. Director Darius Marder also wrote the screenplay with cowriter Abraham Marder and what they did was create an Ordinary World and a Special World that both fit the classical definition of the Hero’s Journey by showing not only how the hero changes, but how his experience in the Special World changes, and how his journey changes his perception of each world.

There may not be any car chases, but the hero is chasing something throughout the entire film.

The hero of this story is Ruben (Riz Ahmed), a drummer in a heavy metal band with his girlfriend, Lou (Olivia Cook). Ruben’s Ordinary World shows him and Lou living in an RV that acts as a recording studio and rehearsal space. Their gigs are at small venues and they play so loud and with so much distortion that it’s almost impossible to understand the lyrics that Lou sings. Ruben is a recovering addict who’s covered in tattoos and has bleached his hair. Lou is barely holding on. She compulsively scratches her arm and her clothes and hair are a mess. They love each other, but this is a lifestyle that neither of them can sustain.

The inciting incident happens when Ruben starts to notice that he’s losing his hearing. This is devastating for a drummer in a Metal band, so he sees a doctor who tells him that it’s going to get worse. He could get surgical implants that could potentially save his hearing, but that would cost between $40K and $80K. Then during a gig, he realizes he can’t hear and he gets up and walks out, eventually confessing his condition to Lou.

Here’s where the script finds its drama. The most compelling stories are the ones that pit what a character wants versus what that character needs. In Sound of Metal, Ruben wants to regain his hearing. What he needs is to find the peace within himself to accept his new reality. This comes to light when he receives his Call to Adventure. Lou finds out about a place that might be able to help him, but it’s in a different way than Ruben expects. It’s a home for the hearing impaired, and this is where Ruben experiences the Meeting with the Mentor. The mentor in this case is Joe (Paul Raci), the kindly man who runs the home. He’s also deaf and also a recovering addict. In classic mythology, the mentor often offers the hero some magical gift or provides the hero with his initial call to adventure. Joe, in archetypal fashion, does both. He offers Ruben the opportunity to live in the home and learn how to live as a hearing impaired person. Ruben, however, Refuses the Call because he sees himself as broken and he wants to be fixed.

It is Lou, however, who finally pushes Ruben to Cross the First Threshold. She tells him that he has to do this, and she makes arrangements to go home to her father. A car comes to pick her up, and they share an emotional good bye. After she leaves in the car, Ruben tearfully walks back to the RV, looking back at the car a couple of times as it drives Lou away.

Ruben leaves the Ordinary World and Crosses the Threshold to the Special World of the adventure when he moves into the home. As a part of the Tests, Allies and Enemies stage of the journey, he has to give up his cell phone and the keys to the RV as a condition of living there. He’s also tested by the fact that everyone else there knows sign language and he does not, making him feel even more like an outsider. He literally does not understand this world or the people in it, and he fails every test laid before him.

Here’s where as a director, Darius Marder showed his chops. The pacing of the second act is brilliant. Ruben slowly learns how to navigate in this new world. He slowly learns the language. He slowly accepts kindness from the people in it, and then he starts to return that kindness. He finds a home in the Special World, but he still doesn’t want to be there. He still wants his hearing back. This is shown through an exercise that Joe gives to Ruben. He instructs Ruben to go to his study early every morning and just sit and be quiet. If he feels the need to do something, he should write. It doesn’t matter what. Just write. But Ruben can’t just sit and be quiet. He has an insatiable desire to keep moving and to lash out. It’s beyond his power at the moment to accept the peace that silence brings.

Act IIB shows Ruben taking some initiative to get his hearing back. He sells all of his recording equipment and the RV, and that gets him enough money to get the surgery. In an interesting bookend to Lou’s departure, the RV pulls away down the road, and he walks away in the other direction, showing no emotion and never looking back. He gets the surgery and can hear again, but it’s not the same. It’s tinny and sounds like a radio that’s having difficulty finding the signal. He tells Joe that he got the surgery and asks Joe for some financial help, but Joe refuses. He tells Ruben that he hopes he finds happiness, but this house is for people who don’t feel broken by being deaf, and he needs to move out right away.

Act III has Ruben on The Road Back and returning to the Ordinary World, but it’s different and he’s different. In his Resurrection, he’s cropped his hair short, symbolic of the inner change he’s experienced, and he goes to find Lou at her father’s house. He’s welcomed in, but Lou is different. She’s cut her hair as well, and she’s wearing nicer clothes. She’s also stopped scratching her arm, and she looks much healthier than she did before. Ruben is invited to a party at the house and he notices that the implants cause him to hear everything at the same level. He can hear everything the same, so he really still can’t hear anything. He later talks to Lou about getting back out on the road, but the thought of that gets her to start scratching her arm again and Ruben finally accepts the fact that his world will never be the same. The Return With the Elixir shows him leaving the next morning. He experiences the same overwhelming sound as he walks through the city. He hears everyone’s voice. He hears every ambient sound. Finally a bell in a clocktower gets him to turn off his implants and everything goes silent. Then, for the first time, he actually sees the world. He sees its silent beauty and he finds the peace that has eluded him.

What makes this Hero’s Journey so effective is the clear difference between the Ordinary World before Ruben goes to the Special World and after he emerges. He can hear again, but it’s not the same. He sees Lou again, but she’s changed. In fact, the Special World changed Ruben as well. He looks different with his implants sticking out of his ears and his cropped hair. But he’s changed on the inside as well, as represented by the different way he hears. He can’t go back to the way he was. The old world is gone and it’s never coming back. The old Ruben is dead and new Ruben has been resurrected in his place.

The only thing for him to do is to embrace the new person that he is and the new world in which he lives.

There is one other thing that I need to briefly touch on about Sound of Metal that doesn’t really have anything to do with the screenplay, but has everything to do with the story, and that is the sound. I’ve always been a proponent of the notion that sound is half of your film. It’s an unappreciated concept that is often taken for granted by the audience. But because the primary relationship in this movie was between the main character and sound, sound takes a large role in this film. There are the obvious times when the mix is done in such a way as to represent Ruben’s hearing loss, but there’s something else. Watch the film again and listen for the ambient sound. When they’re at the house, you can hear the wind blowing, You can hear birds chirping. All of that is brought way up in the mix, allowing the audience to hear what the characters cannot. It’s a huge part of the movie that should not be missed.

The first thing I’ll say about Onward is that the whole thing feels rushed. PIXAR’s movies over the last several years have been pretty formulaic. As much as that formula has worked, both critically and commercially, it feels like PIXAR has painted themselves into a little bit of a corner, and Onward suffers for it. It felt like the filmmakers were trying to cram every last little bit of planting into the film so that we could get the emotional payoff that we’ve all come to expect from them.

Certainly, no one pulls at the heart strings like PIXAR does, and they were successful again in this film. However, it falls short of recent successes like Coco, because it lacks the subtlety that that film had. This one beats you over the head with exposition, and starts off at 90 MPH with little let up. Everything happens fast, from the dialogue to the action. The actors’ delivery of the dialogue feels like it’s playing at 125% speed, especially Chris Pratt as Barley, Julia Louis-Dreyfus as Laurel and Octavia Spencer as The Manticore. There are a couple of times when the pace slows down, like when Ian writes his lists or when Ian meets his father’s old college friend, but even those scenes do little more than allow us to catch our breath. They don’t let the story breathe, and that’s what’s missing from Onward. It’s fun. It’s entertaining. It tugs at the heartstrings. But it needs to breathe. It needs to allow the audience to soak in what it’s trying to tell us.

A perfect example of when they did was during the climactic scene of the movie. I’m not going to give any spoilers, but suffice it to say that Director Dan Scanlon finally did let the movie breathe in this crucial moment, which is ironic because he gave the movie a ticking clock and the clock is about to run out during the climax. But they let us hang. They gave us an extremely emotional beat and they let us experience it for as long as we could, and it worked brilliantly. The last 20 minutes saved this movie, and that’s not the first time I’ve ever said that about a PIXAR film.

The problem was the getting to those last 20 minutes. Another issue that the vast majority of PIXAR films have had over the last decade and a half is that they tend to be road movies. The hero goes on a physical journey, and many of these journeys have been episodic with no real flow to the narrative. They did avoid that trap in this film, although barely. The film is still episodic, but at least there’s a flow to the story. For example, I always felt the problem with Finding Nemo was that you could have taken all of the individual adventures that Marlin and Dory had in that film and changed the order of them and it wouldn’t have changed anything about the order. One adventure didn’t lead organically into the other. In Onward they didn’t have that issue in such a pronounced way. Ian and Barley do have a series of individual adventures, but the filmmakers did a better job in this film of making sure that one adventure led into the next one. The reason for that is that the film as a clear, even if somewhat weak, Hero’s Journey. Warning! Spoilers ahead!

Ordinary World

In a prologue, we learn that this is a world in which magic used to exist, but it was replaced by technology, and now all magic has been forgotten. We meet the Lightfoot family, including Ian (Tom Holland) and his brother Barley (Chris Pratt) and their mother Laurel (Julia Louis-Dreyfus). We learn that Ian is timid and has few friends and that Barley is holding on to his belief in magic and a desire to live in those olden days. We also learn that their father died before Ian was born and Barley only as three memories of him.

Call to Adventure

Laurel shows them the wizard staff that their father left for them, along with a Phoenix Gem and the words to a spell that could bring him back to life for one day. Barley can’t get the spell to work but Ian can. Unfortunately, Barley messes it up half way through and their Dad only comes back from the waist down. With the Phoenix Stone disintegrated, Barley wants to go on a quest to find another one before their Dad disappears forever in 24 hours with the next day’s sunset.

Refusal of the Call

A very short and very weak refusal by Ian lasts only a couple of lines, but he’s soon as excited about the quest as his brother.

Crossing the First Threshold

The load up in Barley’s van, Guinevere, and are off on their quest.

Tests, Allies and Enemies

Ian tries to learn to do magic, but fails at first. They arrive at the Maniticore’s Tavern in order to find the map to the Phoenix Gem. Expecting a magical tavern filled with hoards of rough adventurers longing for their next adventure, they find at a Chuck E. Cheese. They enrage the Manticore and she sets the tavern on fire, burning the map, but giving Ian an opportunity to use the magic he couldn’t before. Even though they don’t have the map, they find a children’s menu that has a clue to find the gem at Raven’s Point. Barley wants to take the Path of Peril, but Ian convinces him to take the Expressway. After running out of gas, they piss off some pixie bikers, but Ian has to drive to get them away. The final test shows Barley finding out that Ian thinks he’s a screw up when they have a run in with a couple of police officers, and he refuses to talk to him. Then they have a dance party with their Dad before deciding to go the way that Barley wanted to go originally.

Approach

On the Path or Peril, they come to a bottomless pit that they need to use magic to get across it. But here is where Ian starts to gain confidence that he can do this. It’s an archetypal moment that borrows heavily from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (believing in the bridge) and Dumbo (Barley’s rope substituting for the magic feather). They get across the chasm and see a Raven statue pointing to clues.

Supreme Ordeal

Colt Bronco sows up to stop them from going any father. A chase ensues, with Ian driving, A character shift has happened with him now. But they find themselves trapped, and when Ian is unable to do the necessary magic, Barley has to sacrifice Guinevere in order for them to be able to continue. All she leaves behind is a tail light that looks a lot like a Phoenix Stone.

Reward

They keep following Ravens until they get to a river that flows through a cave. Ian uses magic to turn a cheese puff into a raft that they take down the river. Ian starts to show some real skill with the magic and the brothers have a bonding moment. Barley reveals another memory of being too scared of their Dad when he was sick and hooked up to all of the tubes and he didn’t look like himself, so he wasn’t able to say good bye to him. That’s when he decided to never be scared again.

The Road Back

They get to another tunnel and need to avoid a series of Booby traps (more Indians Jones). They finally escape, but the escape leads them out a manhole cover that brings them back to their home town right outside the high school.

Resurrection

It looks like they won’t get to fully resurrect their Dad, and Ian thinks that Barley screwed it up his one chance to meet his father. He leaves Barley with the staff and walks away with Dad’s legs. He then goes through the list of all of the things that he wanted to do with his Dad and realizes that he already did all of those things with Barley, and Barley has been the only father to him that he’s really needed. But then, Barley finds the gem in an ancient fountain in town and they’re able to restart the spell. However, it unleashes a curse in the form of a Dragon. While Ian uses magic to defeat the curse, Barley is able to meet their father. Ian watches from a distance as Barley is able to get the closure that he never had before. Their father then disappears. Barley tells Ian that their Dad is proud of the person Ian grew up to be and Ian gives Barley the credit. Barley then gives a hug from their Dad.

Return With the Elixir

Magic is back in the world. Ian teaches people that with a little bit of magic, we can accomplish anything. He has friends now, and Barley has Guinevere the Second, and the brothers take it on another quest.

Overall, Onward has a decent structure and it pushes all of the emotional buttons that PIXAR is generally successful in pushing. However, the story isn’t told with the usual polish of the best PIXAR films. While it isn’t as bad as The Good Dinosaur or Cars 3, it’s nowhere near as good as Coco or The Indredibles or Toy Story 2. It’s definitely somewhere in between. If you’re a fan of PIXAR, you’re sure to be a fan of this film. If you’re not, you’ll probably be left wanting.

Anyone who follows this blog knows that I am a stickler for story structure. When I evaluate scripts, especially for new and/or undiscovered writers, I make it a point to pay particular attention to the structure of the story and note whether that changes in acts are happening in the right places. My thinking is that when you’re an unknown commodity, you need to demonstrate that you can follow the rules before people will trust you to break them. Sam Mendes is obviously at the point where he can break them, because 1917 broke many of the rules of conventional screenwriting, and yet it got made and became one of the most popular and successful films of 2019. However, even though it did not really follow the typical 3-Act structure, the script still works because it follows a very definite Hero’s Journey.

On one of my social media feeds a person commented that 1917 was nothing more than a glorified video game. We followed the characters through a series of levels having to confront a series of Bosses. When they defeated that level’s Boss, they leveled up and moved on to the next level and the next Boss. Sure it was entertaining and intense, the poster admitted, but it was a video game, not a movie.

You’ll also know, if you follow this blog, that I’m not a fan of Road Movies for the very reasons listed above. I’ve never articulated it that way, but many of those principles apply to why I’m not a fan of that style of storytelling. The stories are often episodic and you can often change the order of the episodes and not change the movie’s story at all.

That is where I part ways with the poster about 1917. Yes, it is a road movie, and on the surface the argument could be made that it’s an episodic story. However, you could not change the order in which they occur. This story follows a definite path which creates a definite arc for the Hero, and that is the big difference in 1917. Or, as the poster pointed out, the characters are doing nothing more than defeating whatever Boss is in front of them and then moving on to the next level. I would like to respectfully disagree and point out that if you break the story down to its Hero’s Journey components you would see that nothing could be farther from the truth. Even though the characters go on a journey, and this is an episodic story, the screenplay provides plenty of examples of quality storytelling and we have a through line that road movies are often missing. This through line provides the spine for the story and shows us that the movie works as a continuous story rather than the episodes that make it up.

For your consideration, here is a breakdown of the Hero’s Journey components in the film 1917.

Ordinary World – We meet Lance Corporal Blake (Dean-Charles Chapman) and Lance Corporal Schofield (George McKay) as they’re resting on a short leave. A Staff Sergeant kicks Blake awake and tells him he’s to report to the general and to bring a friend. He taps Schofield and the two of them go back to the trenches to the General’s quarters.

Call to Adventure – Once they’ve arrived, they’re informed by General Erinmore (Colin Firth) that a major assault is planned because the Germans have baited the 2^nd Devers into a trap, and that the attack will fail and that Blake’s brother, who’s a member of that regiment, will be killed along with the other 1600 men he’s with. They get orders to get to the 2^nd Devers and bring a letter to Col. Mackenzie ordering him to call off the attack, which is planned for just after dawn the next day. That gives the characters a ticking clock, which will come into play almost immediately, and will stay with us throughout the film.

Refusal of the Call – Schofield shows some reluctance thinking the Germans will be waiting for them. Then he wants to talk to Blake about it because he wants to at least wait until it’s dark. Blake, however, is only thinking of his brother and wants to move out right away. The surveillance says that the Germans have withdrawn so they should be able to cross No Man’s Land, but Schofield isn’t convinced and Blake recklessly rambles ahead.

Meeting the Mentor – The first of many, Lt. Leslie gives them instructions on how to get across No Man’s Land. Like the Archetypal Mentors of old, he gives them a gift to help them on their journey in the form of flare guns to fire off if they make it to the other side.

Crossing the First Threshold – Generally the beginning of Act II, it happens early in this film, just under 17 minutes in. They climb the ladders from the trenches and into No Man’s Land. They have left the Ordinary World and relative safety of the Trenches behind, and are now in the Special World of No Man’s Land and whatever dangers lie beyond.

Tests, Allies & Enemies – They start across No Man’s Land. The Markers that Lt. Leslie gave them are there. They make it to the German lines, dodging barbed wire, trenches and scout planes. They make it to the German trenches. Struggling to find a way through, they come across a tunnel that leads to a huge barracks. Schofield finds a trip wire but before they can move a rat sets it off blowing apart the chamber and burying Schofield in debris. Blake manages to get him up and drags him out of the caverns. The near-death experience fills Schofield with regret for Blake picking him, and the allies nearly become enemies. However Schofield gets his wits back and they move on.

The Approach –  Schofield tells Blake he’ll probably get a medal for saving his life. We learned earlier that Schofield received a medal that he no longer has. He admits to Blake that he swapped it for a bottle of wine. To him it was nothing more than a piece of tin. He didn’t want to take it home because he hated being there when he was there on leave. They arrive at a bombed out house surrounded by cherry blossoms. Blake is an expert on cherries because his mother has an orchard back home. They decide to investigate the house to make sure that it’s abandoned, as they suspect. Finding nothing in the house, Schofield moves out to the shell of what was once a barn where he finds a bucket of fresh milk that he pours into his empty canteen. Blake joins him and they watch the end of dogfight playing out in the distance. The German plane is shot down and they’re nearly killed when it crashes into the barn.

Supreme Ordeal – They pull the German pilot from the flaming plane, his legs still on fire. Schofield wants to put him out of his misery, but Blake tells him to get water. Schofield runs to a nearby well, but he hears a commotion and turns just in time to see that German pilot stabbing Blake with a knife. Schofield shoots the German and tries to tend to Blake’s wound, but it’s too deep and too late. Schofield tries to get Blake to move, but it’s too painful, and they both come to the realization that Blake is dying. Blake tells Schofield that he’ll recognize his brother because the two of them look just like each other. Blake asks Schofield to write to his mom for him, to tell her that he wasn’t scared and that he loves her. Schofield assures Blake that he knows the way, reciting the directions for him. He promises to find the 2^nd and warn his brother as Blake dies in his arms. Schofield pulls the orders from Blake’s jacket, removes a family ring and one of his dog tags. Schofield, the hero of this story, is now fully committed to the adventure.

Reward – As he pulls Blake’s body to a better resting spot, another couple of soldiers approach and help move him. He then meets Captain Smith (Mark Strong) who is second in command of a convoy heading to the new line. He offers to take Schofield part of the way. Schofield is put in a truck and tries to hold it together in front of other soldiers he doesn’t know as they laugh and tell stories. But the convoy gets bogged down by a downed bridge and Schofield has to move on alone. Smith wishes him luck and warns him to make sure there are witnesses when he presents the orders to Col. Mackenzie, warning him that some men just want the fight. Schofield crosses the debris of a downed bridge, but starts taking fire from a sniper. He manages to get a shot off and hits the sniper in the building he was hiding in. Going in to investigate, he shoots the sniper at close range, but the sniper manages to get a shot off, hitting Schofield in the helmet, knocking him unconscious.

Resurrection – The longest stage of this particular Hero’s Journey starts off with a literal resurrection as Schofield wakes up hours later. It’s dark and he has no idea what time it is. He’s bleeding out of the back of his head and he struggles to his feet. Flares are illuminating the night sky and he sees the ruined town in front of him that he has to get through. As he traverses the streets he realizes that light means danger, as he can be seen by the enemy and must dodge their bullets. As he wanders, he stumbles across a German soldier who chases him, but he manages to escape into a small alcove where he finds a girl hiding with a baby. He asks if this is Accoust, and she says it is. She tells him that he should follow the river to get where he’s going, but he nearly passes out. She examines his wound and cleans it, archetypally healing him and bringing him back to life. The baby, too, is an archetypal symbol of rebirth just as the girl is the symbol of healing and of peace. He gives them food and the milk that he found in the barn, giving them an opportunity for rebirth as well. Interacting with the baby reignites Schofield’s desire to fulfill his mission and he notices that the morning is coming. The girl tries to get him to stay, but he has to go and his mission is reborn as well. He then stumbles upon a couple of drunken Germans and quietly strangles one as the other obliviously stumbles over and Schofield bullies by him. He jumps into the river to escape the city under a hail of more German bullets. The river is raging and sends him over a waterfall. About to give up, the river calms down and he sees Cherry Blossoms floating in the river, an archetypal and symbolic resurrection of Blake and he is again emboldened to continue. But he eventually runs into a mass of bloated and distended dead bodies collected along the river’s bank. After climbing over them, his emotions get the best of him and he breaks down until he hears the sound of singing in the woods. He follows the sound and finds a group of English soldiers listening to another soldier sing a song that is reminiscent of the ordeal that Schofield has just been through. He tells them he has to find the Devers, and they tell him that’s them. They tell him how to find Mackenzie, and he runs ahead. He ends up with them in a trench, but he can’t get through and the attack is about to commence. In perhaps the most famous scene of the movie, he jumps out of the trench, dodging artillery fire and other soldiers before making it to the headquarters of Col Mackenzie (Benedict Cumberbatch). At first unconvinced, McKenzie reads the orders and dramatically calls off the attack.

Return with the Elixir – The colonel’s aid congratulates Schofield on a job well done, but he doesn’t know where to find Blake. Since the First Wave had already gone over, he suggests that Schofield try the casualty tent behind the line. He makes his way there, and after nearly giving up on the search, he finally does find Lt. Blake. He gives him the unfortunate news that his brother died, presenting him with the family ring and dog tag. Lt. Blake, obviously devastated, holds back his emotions and tells Schofield to get to the mess tent. Schofield tells Lt. Blake that his brother was a good man and he saved his life. Lt. Blake confesses that he was glad Schofield was with him and they shake hands. Schofield walks behind a lonely tree off in the distance and sits. He removes from his pocket a photo of his daughters and one of his wife. He flips that one over and written on the other side are the words, “Come back to me”. Schofield closes his eyes and we cut to black.

Unlike most successful films, this film’s story is largely told in one act. There is a very brief prologue of sorts, but once the adventure begins, there’s no all-is-lost moment or second plot point that changes the direction of the story. Blake and Schofield get their orders and from that point on the only thing they’re doing is trying to get to the 2^nd to stop the attack. What makes it work for 1917 is that screenwriters Mendes and Kristy Wilson-Cairns meticulously followed the Hero’s Journey model that led to a compelling, intense and entertaining story.

Again, I don’t recommend this if you’re a writer breaking in to the business. As I mentioned before, you need to show that you can follow the rules before you try to break them. But it is possible. Not only is it possible, but when done properly, it can be very effective.

Knives Out was nominated for Best Original Screenplay at this year’s Oscars. It didn’t win. The Academy favored Parasite over Knives Out, and indeed, Parasite had a deservedly big night. A couple of weeks ago, I wrote here about its Best Picture win, and I broke down in detail the effectiveness of its screenplay and the complete Hero’s Journey contained therein. Parasite was a deserving winner, however the achievement of the screenplay for Knives Out should not be diminished or forgotten. Rian Johnson’s mystery movie harkens back to the great stories of Agatha Christie and pays homage to the great sleuths of cinema. Had I been an Oscar voter this year, I would have voted for Knives Out based on its mastery of, not only the Hero’s Journey and strong story structure, but also technical prowess. This is a technically savvy screenplay in which Johnson used all of the tools in the writer’s tool box to craft a story that was thoughtful, witty and entertaining.

Almost nothing in Knives Out happens in a vacuum. Nearly everything that happens has a direct or indirect effect on some other aspect of the story. Nothing is thrown away. There are no McGuffins, no non sequiturs.

Knives Out is a meticulously crafted film on every level and it starts with the screenplay.

Act I of the film opens with a prologue of sorts. Fran, the housekeeper, pours coffee into a cup that says, MY HOUSE, MY RULES, MY COFFEE. She carries a breakfast tray upstairs and we get the inciting incident of her discovering the body of Harlan Thrombey (Christopher Plummer), the wealthy author, who died by apparent suicide of cutting his own throat. That kicks off a story that has a dynamic Hero’s Journey and a tight cinematic structure.

The Ordinary World picks up a week after Harlan’s death and we see various family members giving back story to the police. We are also introduced to Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig), a private investigator who has been hired by a client unbeknownst to anyone, including Blanc himself. The most important person, however, is Marta (Ana de Armas), who served as Thrombey’s private nurse, and has the unusual condition of vomiting whenever she tells a lie. Blanc, along with two police detectives interview the family members. None of them are particularly cooperative, and at least four of them had a reason to want to kill Thrombey.  Thrombey had fired his son Walt (Michael Shannon) from his position running Thrombey’s publishing house. He caught his son-in-law Richard (Don Johnson) cheating on his wife and Thrombey’s daughter Linda (Jamie Lee Curtis). He threatened to cut off the allowance to his daughter-in-law Joni (Toni Colette) after discovering that she’d been double dipping the college tuition for her daughter Meg (Katherine Langford). Finally, we see that he was planning on cutting off is grandson and the son of Richard and Linda, Ransom (Chris Evans), by cutting him out of his will.

There is a ton of exposition in the first 15 or 20 minutes of the film, but you need to be paying attention because there is also a ton of foreshadowing. Johnson uses the technique of Planting and Payoff like crazy in this script, and several key elements are planted here that will payoff at stages throughout the film.

There are a couple of Calls to Adventure. The first one is revealed by Blanc telling the police he was hired by an anonymous person who sent him an envelope of cash, and a note asking to investigate Thrombey’s death. However, Thrombey himself gives Marta the true Call to Adventure when she thinks that she gave him a shot of a lethal dose of morphine rather than the less powerful pain killer she’s supposed to give him, and Thrombey presents her the plan of how to get away with accidentally killing him. She tries to Refuse the Call by begging him to let her call an ambulance, but he talks her out of it, knowing that there isn’t enough time. We get three examples of planting and payoff in this stage of the journey. The first is when part of the plan involves climbing the lattice outside the house to sneak into his room. As she’s climbing, part of it breaks. That’s the first plant. The second plant involves the part of the plan in which Marta needs to avoid being seen by the surveillance camera and she fails. The third plant is when she’s seen by Nana Thrombey’s elderly mother, who thinks she’s Ransom.

We Cross the First Threshold when Blanc asks Marta to be by his side when he searches the grounds the next day. That leads us into Act IIA and the Tests, Allies and Enemies portion of the story. It starts with a flashback. The first test Marta has to go through is following through on Thrombey’s plan after witnessing him kill himself. It looks like she might crack under the pressure, but a wonderful acting performance by de Armas shows a look of determination that can’t be broken. We also see the blood on her shoe from the splatter of Thrombey cutting his own throat (another plant). The next test we see is finding out about the video and knowing that she pulled off the road where the camera could still see her. We also hear that the tapes can be destroyed using a magnet, and we see Marta’s quick thinking when she sneaks a magnet near the tape, destroying its usefulness (Payoff). Then she sees the mud that she obviously put footprints in when walking back to the house.  She then contaminates the mud by walking through it in front of Blanc and the police. Finally they walk up to the house and Marta finding the broken piece of the lattice (Payoff), and throwing it away for the dog to fetch.

All of these tests serve not only to propel the story, but they also build Marta’s character. We see that she thinks quickly, has ingenuity and the ability to get out of tight situations. All of these things endear her to the audience as a character and organically allow for us to root for her. We’re not rooting for her just because she’s the hero and we’re supposed to root for her. Johnson took the time in these two stages of the Hero’s Journey to proactively create in her a character that we want to root for. One of the ways he did that was by giving her a unique flaw. She physically cannot lie. Any time she even thinks about lying, she pukes. This is used to great advantage by other characters throughout the film, but she uses it to get ultimate revenge at the end. That type of flaw humanizes Marta in a way that allows the audience to relate to her and to root for her.

This type of character development can be instructive to any aspiring screenwriter.

The Approach shows Ransom arriving to the house for the reading of the Will. We also see the dogs barking at him, which is another Plant. The attorney (Frank Oz) arrives to read the Will and the family has some disagreements over it. Walt is particularly upset at seeing Ransom there when he wasn’t even at the funeral (another Plant). The disagreement turns into a lame fist fight before Walt’s son Jacob says what he heard in a fight the night of the party when Thrombey told Ransom he was out of the will. Then the dog drops the broken part of the lattice and Blanc discovers that the lattice leads to Thrombey’s room. Now he knows someone snuck into Thrombey’s room undetected (Payoff).

That, combined with the Supreme Ordeal changes the direction of the story when the Will is read stating that Marta is the sole beneficiary of Harlan’s entire estate, including the mansion, $60 million in cash and sole ownership in his publishing company. All hell breaks loose at that point, and Marta is no longer the kind, sweet nurse that the family is prepared to take care of. She’s now a little bitch that is stealing their fortune and we move into Act IIB.

The Reward shows Marta being rescued by Ransom and he takes her to a restaurant and relative safety. He confesses to her that he knows his grandfather didn’t commit suicide and that he knows lying makes her puke, and he fed her a whole plate of baked beans and sausage. He then tells her to look him in the eye and tell him everything. She does, and he assures her that he won’t tell anyone, but he still wants his cut of the inheritance for helping her avoid any more trouble.

Meanwhile back at the mansion, the family tries to find out from the lawyer if there’s anything that can be done to change the Will. Joni Googles the Slayer Rule in which a person can lose an inheritance if they’re found to be responsible for the death of the benefactor. Now suddenly, everyone is interested in cooperating with Blanc to help him solve the case.

This changes the direction of the story again and we move into Act III and The Road Back. Marta gets a threatening note through the mail showing the seal of the medical examiner’s office and her nursing license stating they know what she did but with no other blackmail message. Seemingly with Ransom’s help, Marta tries to cover her tracks after the medical examiner building is mysteriously destroyed in a fire by going to an address emailed to her to try and get the only paper copy of the toxicology report that would show Thrombey’s overdose. They outrun the police and get to the address where Marta finds Fran on a chair and dying of a Morphine overdose. Rather than leaving Fran to die, which would help her own cause, she calls 911 and tries to resuscitate her, further endearing her to the audience.

The Resurrection shows Marta and Blanc in an emergency room waiting area and she confesses everything to him. He says he knew she was involved from the first moment he met her when he saw the red speck of blood on her shoe (Payoff). They go back to the house, they find where Fran hid the toxicology report and it shows that Thrombey’s blood was clean. At that point, Blanc realizes that Ransom switched the vials during the funeral (Payoff) and is really responsible for Thrombey’s death, but he will see to it that Thrombey’s death will be ruled a suicide. He goes through the whole series of events that fills the center of the donut. They trick Ransom into confessing to murdering Fran, and he’s lead out of the house in handcuffs.

The Return with the Elixir shows Marta won. Ransom is arrested. She has the house and stands on the front balcony as the stunned family looks up at her, sipping coffee in Thrombey’s old My House My Rules My Coffee mug” (final Payoff).

Knives Out is a film that resonated with audiences. It had a relatively modest $26.8 million opening, but it parlayed strong word-of-mouth into a long run in the theaters and ended up with an impressive $164.7 million at the domestic box office, and it nearly equaled that overseas. The reason this movie resonated so well with audiences was that it had a compelling script that you had to pay attention to. It didn’t dumb anything down for the audience and treated them with respect. You had to pay attention to this movie in order to follow along with the plot. It only had a few locations. It didn’t rely on dazzling special effects. There was no love story, no sex and no sexual innuendo. It was a good, old fashioned whodunit that was cleverly written and well-made.

This is a film that screenwriters of all levels can learn from.

There is a reason 1917 is crushing it at the Box Office. Yes, it’s one of the most intense films I’ve seen in a long time. It almost never lets up. Even scenes in which the action and the tension seem to lessen in order for the audience to catch their collective breath, there is still an underlying feeling of tension that danger is never far away. Perhaps it’s around the next corner. Perhaps it’s on the other side of a closed door. Perhaps it’s waiting in the very room they’re in. Just as in a real war setting, you never know when that fatal bullet will strike, when the death blow will be dealt. But what is really propelling the popularity of this film is that it tells a compelling story with which the audience can engage.

With this film, Director and co-screenwriter Sam Mendes is cementing himself as one of the great story tellers of his generation. Indeed, everything about 1917 is superb. The acting is at once subtle and dynamic. Director of Photography Roger Deakins is at his light painting best. Mendes own direction runs at a pace that feels impossible to keep up, but does so in ways that are riveting and emotional. It was also impressively shot in a way that made the whole film feel like one continuous shot, similarly to Birdman. The screenplay, co written by Mendes and Krysty Wilson-Cairns, shows way more than it tells, which is exactly what you want from a screenplay. It might not be hyperbolic to feel that this film is something close to a masterpiece.

One thing I also noticed while watching the film was how strong of a Hero’s Journey it had and how archetypal the storytelling was. It would have been easy for Mendes to have turned this into a simple and forgettable action movie like 2014’s Fury, but instead we got a carefully crafted, thematically strong story with an anti-war message that was subtle and subdued, and didn’t disparage the warriors.

The emotion stayed just under the surface. It was always ready to explode, but the men, like the men of that generation, kept it stifled, for fear of showing weakness. They should have been robots, but somehow this subtle showing of emotion, this overt stifling of emotion, created a much more gut wrenching emotional situation. There are two moments in the film where characters briefly allow their emotions to get the better of them, and then immediately stifle them. This stifling of emotion makes the audience feel even more sympathy for these characters because they’re surrounded by death and heartbreak, but they must appear outwardly strong, not only in the face of the enemy, but in the faces of their own.

And that speaks to the duality and depth of this film. The main characters are on a mission to prevent an attack from happening. This would normally be antipathy to a war story, but the goal of the characters in this story is not to defeat the enemy, but to prevent a scenario that would lead to their own ultimate defeat. That means having patience and prudence and the strength to show restraint. A WWI film from the 50’s called Paths of Glory, directed by Stanley Kubrick, showed the consequences of seemingly showing cowardice in front of the enemy, and talking yourself into attacking against overwhelming odds. The anti-war message in Paths of Glory showed the folly of war through the pompous arrogance of the generals and how their rash decisions cause their subordinates to suffer. Ultimately in Paths of Glory, characters were punished for failing to attempt that impossible assault. In 1917, the main goal of the main characters was to prevent that impossible assault from happening in the first place, as the generals are trying to prevent one of their own subordinates from rushing blindly into a rash assault.

That component on the story creates an anti-war theme that’s caught within the subtext of the premise rather than being preached to us throughout the narrative. The premise is that English army intelligence has discovered that a battalion of troops is walking into a trap, and two young soldiers need to cross the front lines in order to get that information to them to save them from a slaughter. Oh, by the way, one of the two soldiers also has a brother in that battalion.

One thing that can’t be overstated is the strength of the screenplay. Anyone who has followed this blog with any amount of regularity knows that I am an advocate of the 4-act structure in a screenplay, and the screenplay for 1917 has that. Unfortunately doing an act-by-act breakdown will reveal spoilers, and this is a film where I particularly don’t want to do that. Aside from the structure, one of the strengths of the screenplay is that important things happen throughout the story and those events all heighten the drama. Knowing about them ahead is time would lessen your enjoyment of the film, so perhaps this script breakdown will come sometime in the future.

Another thing that you know if you follow this blog is that I am a disciple of The Hero’s Journey. Again, I don’t want to do a full on Hero’s Journey breakdown because I don’t want to give out any spoilers since the movie just came out, but suffice it to say, 1917 has a complete and compelling Hero’s Journey. One thing I can say about it is that it’s not a traditional Hero’s Journey. All of the stages are there, but some of them happen in an nontraditional order. For example, the Meeting of the Mentor stage actually happens throughout the story, as different Mentors guide our hero along his journey. Some are traditional mentors and others are more unique in the lessons they teach him, but the journey has several mentors right up to the very end that teach the hero as well as the audience about the world of the story.

That leads me to another point. This is essentially a road movie. Yet another thing that you will know if you follow this blog is that I am not a fan of road movies. I feel they tend to be episodic and the episodes rarely build the drama. Rather, they’re often vignettes that don’t build on each other and you can change the order of then around and it would have no affect on the story. These films often lack the spine or through-line that builds a narrative. In 1917, however, the road that the main characters go on is the through-line. Each stop they make leads to the next one, and each stop has something happen in it that pushes the narrative forward, and each stop has an affect on something that happens later or happened earlier in the story.

Another point that needs to be expanded on is the paucity of dialogue, especially in the second half of the film. There is some small talk between the soldiers as traveling friends will take part in. There are examples of witty banter and there is some exposition through dialogue, mostly in the first act. But once we get to Act IIB, there’s almost no dialogue with the exception of a couple of key scenes. The story telling is almost entirely visual at that point, and it couldn’t be more riveting or intense. 

What’s more, the screenplay works in tandem with Roger Deakins’ superb cinematography to tell a compelling story. As I said earlier, no one paints with light like Deakins, and there is a scene with night flares and shadows where we come in and out of darkness. In this scene, however, darkness means safety and light means danger. If you can be seen in the light, you can be shot. The darkness offers cover and it’s one of the few times in cinematic history that I can remember rooting for darkness. 

Overall, what makes a film like 1917 so refreshing and such a breath of fresh air is the story telling. It’s a war movie without an overt amount of special effects. It doesn’t have a ton of traditional action sequences, so when an action sequence does come around it feel that much more intense. Plus, the action scenes build in intensity as the film presses on. This is a textbook example of terrific storytelling and any aspiring screenwriter should study it in order to hone their own craft.

Man, Joker is an intense movie. Everything about Director Todd Phillips’ origin story for the iconic villain is intense, from the incredible performance by Joaquin Phoenix to the excellent story, which feels more like a Scorsese mash-up than a DC popcorn movie. It’s interesting. I can see several variations on how this could have been pitched. When I first started seeing trailers for it, I thought perhaps someone pitched a psychopath movie, and the executives at Warner Bros decided to replace whoever was going to be the main character with the Joker in order tap into the built in DC/comic book audience and give it some crossover appeal that would portend a better chance at success at the box office. Another more plausible scenario for a possible pitch was someone pitching a remake of The King of Comedy, but that same executive stating accurately that no one gives a shit about The King of Comedy, but substituting the Joker for Rupert Pupkin would deliver that built in DC/comic book audience and that built in Scorsese/cinemaphile audience that would portend some crossover appeal and perhaps open up the possibility of it being Oscar-bait.

Well, whoever came up with that idea is a flat-out genius because that’s what we got.

We got The King of Comedy meets Taxi Driver with just a splash of Batman. When it comes to comic book/super-hero movies, Joker is much more similar to Logan that it is to really any other films of that budding genre. It has no resemblance whatsoever to the cookie-cutter, quarter pounder with cheese films that Marvel has been serving up for the past decade. It bears even less resemblance to the tripe that Warner Bros and DC have been putting out in a vain attempt to tap into that Marvel market. No one has super powers in this movie. No one is fighting for truth, justice and the American way. This is a movie about a small, mentally unstable man who finally gets sick of being stepped on, and through either reality or fantasy, realizes that his only true joy is in creating anarchy.

In The King of Comedy, Rupert Pupkin played sublimely by Robert De Niro, is obsessed with the Johnny Carson-like TV host Jerry Langford (Jerry Lewis), and he’s built a fantasy that he’ll one day appear on his show and become friends with him. Rupert dreams of being a standup comic even though he’s never performed in front of an audience in his life, and he eventually kidnaps Jerry as a means of getting on to his show. Directed by Martin Scorsese, it never reaches the kind of darkness that Taxi Driver achieved, but it takes a satirical and poignant look at the desire for fame as well as fame’s price.

Taxi Driver, on the other hand, and also directed by Scorsese and also starring De Niro, takes a probing look at the underbelly of New York City in the 1970’s and the cesspool of depravity that it had become. It also takes a probing look at how lonely people like Travis Bickle (De Niro) can get, even when they’re surrounded by millions of people, and how that loneliness can manifest itself in unhealthy and self-destructive ways.

In Joker, Phillips took both of these ideas and mashed them together. Arthur Fleck (Phoenix) isn’t as obsessed with Johnny Carson-like TV host Murray Franklin (De Niro) as Rupert Pupkin was with Jerry Langford, and he’s not interested in becoming a vigilante in order to save a young prostitute like Travis Bickle. He’s just a lonely, disturbed man who is getting no help in this world. The super-rich like Thomas Wayne care nothing for his plight, and the government is too ineffectual in every aspect of its existence to be able to make a difference in Arthur’s life. Combine that with a mentally and physically disabled mother that he has to take care of, and you have the recipe for a man who is about to snap.

The screenplay for Joker is impressive.

There was a lot to like about this movie, but I want to take a moment to discuss the script, penned by Phillips and Scott Silver. For the most part, this was a supremely well-written screenplay. It actually hit many of the same beats as The King of Comedy, but the story was structured in a different way. There were actually four acts in this script as we slowly watch Arthur Fleck devolve into the Joker. The first act shows Arthur’s Ordinary World of struggling to keep his own mental health together while also struggling to hold on to his job as a clown, and also struggling to care for his ailing mother. In the second act he’s been fired from his job, and then commits his first murder. Actually, murders. He’s starting to realize that he doesn’t just have to roll over and that he has the power to fight back. He starts out the third act by believing that he’s learned the truth about something, but then finding out the complete opposite and he comes to the devastating conclusion that his whole life has been a lie and that he’s never been happy for one second of it. The fourth act and climax of the film shows that he can find happiness, but it’s only in creating anarchy, and the more disorderly and deadly a situation becomes, the happier and more satisfied he is. This is an exceptional script as the character arc and the dramatic arc of the plot move together hand in hand. It also has long stretches with little to no dialogue, demonstrating that Phillips and Silver were able to show rather than to tell.

Joaquin Phoenix is one of the great actors of this generation.

I would also be remiss if I did not mention the performance of Joaquin Phoenix. He’s always had a dark edge to him, whether he’s playing Theodore in Her or Commodus in Gladiator or Johnny Cash in Walk the Line, Phoenix excels at playing characters with inner demons that they’re trying to suppress, either consciously or subconsciously. As Arthur Fleck, Phoenix plays a man who fully understands that he has demons and discovers that he feel better when he lets them out. He spends the first three quarters of the movie suppressing them, and it’s as though he’s living in a prison of his own making with walls built of the medication that he takes. It’s only after he allows himself to be free that we see him truly happy. Of course, this is as a murderous, anarchistic psychopath, but hey, he’s happy.

The sheer intensity that Phoenix brings to the role is palpable. It doesn’t matter if he’s laughing for no reason, dancing down stairs to music that only he hears, or killing would-be attackers in the subway, Joaquin Phoenix delivers in Joker in a way that is certain to get him noticed come awards season.

There is one last point I’d like to make and that is my personal opinion about the direction that Warner Bros should take the DC universe. Warners and DC should forget about competing with Marvel. Marvel has that audience wrapped up. That audience is faithful, loyal and utterly devoted. Marvel movies are polished, generic and vanilla so that they appeal to the lowest common denominator and they cast the widest possible net. There isn’t anything wrong with that. Marvel movies make boat loads of money every time out and will likely continue to do so into the future.

But Warner Bros has always been at their best when they’ve been subversive. When Walt Disney was producing Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck and Goofy cartoons, Warner Bros was producing Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck and Porky Pig. Disney cartoons were fun, wholesome, family fair and Warner Bros cartoons were violent, edgy and rebellious. Warner Bros was the original home of the Gangster Movie with stars like Humphrey Bogart and James Cagney providing early tent polls for the studio. Warner Bros has always been the edgy and gritty studio that makes hard boiled movies that are as tough as five-dollar steaks. Joker is a very fine example of that attitude and style of film making, and I believe that Warner Bros should go all-in on it. They should consider moving their cinematic comic book universe into an area that Marvel couldn’t go into even if they wanted to. Perhaps it wouldn’t be casting as wide of a net, but it would be a whole lot better than what they’ve been doing up to this point. It also might attract real film makers who are interested in deeper stories and deeper examinations and explorations of the psyches of their characters. I’d be willing to bet that they’d find an audience that, while perhaps not as large as the Marvel audience, would be no less loyal.