The Departed

The Departed is very instructive in showing us how to write a crime thriller, and how not to. It starts with a terrific premise: cops and criminals have a mole in the each other's organization. But this is also a premise that is loaded with pitfalls. In the Great Screenwriting Class, I talk extensively about how you develop your premise, to learn not only the potential strengths of your idea but also the hidden structural weaknesses.

In The Departed, the writers must immediately confront the difficulty of two main characters (see my breakdown of The Prestige for more on this problem). Again, the need to cross-cut between two leads first takes a toll on the definition of the characters. The writers are so interested in getting the plot going they fail to give Billy (played by Leonardo DiCaprio) a motive for going undercover. As the story progresses, it becomes clear that no one in this movie has a motive for what they do.

Lack of character motive (which is connected to the first major structure step, the Need) is always a big weakness. But in a story already dominated by plot, this is a disaster. The characters are nuts and bolts being moved by plot mechanics.

The premise does highlight the strength of The Departed, which is the plot. But it also shows us how even the best plot can spiral out of control.

Plot in crime stories is all about opposition under the surface, and The Departed is worth studying to see how to create that, not only in a crime story but in any work of fiction. But when you are creating your plot, you have to be aware of the fundamental trade-off between plot and believability. The more you try to hide the opposition under the surface - thus giving you more plot - the more you push the believability of your characters to the extreme. You become so conscious of creating surprise that you force the characters to take actions that they, and indeed no human being, would logically do.

This believability problem surfaces right away when Billy, who has been to the police academy, becomes the mole in the Costello crime family. It would be so obvious that this guy is the snitch that I was immediately reminded of Clark Kent and Superman. Somehow when Superman puts on a suit and a pair of nerdy glasses no one can see that he is Superman. In a fantasy superhero story, the audience accepts that convention and lets it pass. Not so in a realistic crime story.

The writers keep the believability problems at bay for most of the story. But any story that emphasizes plot always pushes the reveals to the end, where whatever believability problems it has will be magnified as the reveals come fast and furious. Sure enough, The Departed rapidly disintegrates into farce and stupidity. The final sequence is filled with reveals and assassinations, but they are based on actions so mindlessly dumb that the audience is left muttering, "No! No! No!"

Even worse, this sort of false plot, sprung at the end, kills the audience's sense of investment in the film itself. If it's so easy to assassinate these characters, why didn't they just shoot Costello in the first place and save me 2 1/2 hours of my time.

Something's Gotta Give

Something's Gotta Give comes off as an argument in praise of older women, which is exactly what one of the characters preaches at the dinner table near the beginning of the film.

If you're writing a script where you are literally trying to prove a premise, you have to hide and sugarcoat it. For example, the writers of Tootsie want to show that men are chauvinists with women, and they do so with a guy forced to dress up as a woman and a swirl of characters creating an intricate plot weave.

When your premise is out in the open like this one is, you cause yourself all kinds of problems. First, your dialogue is stilted. Second, you make the actors look like they are acting whenever they try to say the lines. Third, you kill the plot. If we are waiting for both characters to play out their side of the premise and they do, just as we thought, we have no surprise and no payoff.

Sure enough, tough but brilliant Erica learns to live a little. Harry learns to fall for a woman's "deeper" qualities and decides to spend the rest of his life with a great older woman.

But the writer (and director) gives Erica too little time to fall, based on too little from Harry. It's not as unbelievable as Helen Hunt falling for Nicholson in As Good As It Gets, but it's close.

All love stories are contrived. The trick is to hide the contrivance, give characters some real reasons to fall for each other, and give them enough screen time to do it. Don't underestimate this form. Love is among the most highly choreographed of all genres, and when it's connected with comedy it's even tougher. (See either the Comedy Class or the Love Story Class). But when it is done with a high level of craft, it is always popular.

About Schmidt

About Schmidt does something that is rare in movies, especially from Hollywood. It depicts a lone man. That is both a blessing and a curse.

There is a very good reason films don't usually depict a lone man. Film is drama. It is public. We need someone for the main character to talk to. Otherwise the audience doesn't know what the film is about.

The main device this film uses to overcome the lone man problem is the voice-over where Schmidt reads the letters he's written to his African foster child, Ndugu. This technique not only gives the audience a great deal of information, it provides the best comedy of the film.

Missing from the script are opposition, hidden information and thus reveals. The lack of opposition means that we go for long periods without much happening, and worse, we get no depth or variation in the main conflict of the movie. The main opponent in the movie is Schmidt's daughter, who is about to marry a man Schmidt doesn't like. But the daughter is rarely present. And the conflict has no issue. It's an emotional thing; she's either going to marry the guy or not.

The lack of hidden information and reveals means there is little plot. True, Schmidt finds out about his wife's infidelity. But this reveal has little effect because the wife is already dead and we've seen very little between Schmidt and the friend who betrayed him.

In place of a developing opposition and reveals, the writers create a story line by sending the hero on a journey to his daughter's wedding. This gives the appearance of character development, but not the reality. Schmidt simply flips at the end of the film when he makes a speech praising his daughter's new husband and family. But he is clearly trying to be polite, not truthful.

This film seems to be getting praise because it is not a Hollywood mainstream picture, and Jack Nicholson is playing a schlub. That's not enough for me. I left the theater thinking the real drama of this man's life happened before this picture began.