Monday, November 15, 2004

INCREDIBLE(S), and TAKING THE TIME

A truly wonderful movie. What makes it special is entirely the humanity with which the filmmakers invest their characters. The Incredibles family feels like a real family which has real fights and real love -- and even in the midst of catastrophe, they don't stop behaving like a real family. While there are whammies to spare, there is always time in between whammies for the movie to breathe and for the humanity to come out.

Some movies don't take the time, and we stop caring about the characters. Some take the time because the characters are simply taking time, unrealistically ignoring the urgency. But in this one, there are always minutes where the heroes can't do anything, or don't know they ought to be doing something. Nice work.

So: CRAFTY WRITER'S NOTE: Always take the time to remind us your characters are human, and that they are characters, not Everypeople. What distinguishes a great soprano isn't that she can hit the notes, but because she can hit the notes while still sounding like herself, and not someone else. Oh, the humanity!

7:49 AM

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