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The Power of the Emotional Fuel Behind the Message
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When we feel the message in your story, there is an imprint that
the storyteller leaves with the receiver. We experience what you wanted
to say and we connect our own history and emotions to it and walk away
with a stronger sense of fulfillment of what the journey was all about.
Stories that make us feel the fuel behind the pursuit are the stories
that resonate on a universal level because the message is clear. We
understand what is motivating the character toward the goal. There is a
quote that encapsulates the experience of life and the idea of choice
perfectly, "Our lives are defined by opportunities, even the ones we
miss." -- F. Scott Fitzgerald. I love this quote. It reminds me that
this is what story is all about. With the incredible batch of movies
this year, I felt a variety of emotions for stories that came from a
place of depth and a wide array of topics.
With the movie
Nebraska, written by Bob Nelson and directed
by Alexander Payne, we felt the pursuit of a son's desire to connect
with his father by helping him on a pursuit that others considered
frivolous. It is a story about belief. They go on a road trip. The
father has to settle scores along the way. For the son, it was about the
idea of allowing his father to believe in something as a way to give
him purpose. In doing so, he gets a chance to get to know him more. I
really connected with this. Now, the timing of just going through cancer
with my mom certainly made the idea of this simple pursuit resonate
even more. The humor was perfectly placed. There were lines that made
you laugh out loud and moments that tugged at your heart and really made
you feel what the storyteller intended. We understood the fuel behind
the pursuit. Universally, the desire to connect with our parents before
the time passes is a strong one. I loved this film.
With the movie
12 Years A Slave, screenplay written by John
Ridley and directed by Steve McQueen, I felt so many emotions. One of
the strongest emotions that I felt was anger. I really struggled with
the concept of human behavior. This was the first movie I've been to
where I seriously wanted to leave several times because the brutality
hurt my heart. The power of the story, the performances and the pursuit
of the central character are what kept me there because I wanted to know
the answer to his quest. The universal idea of one day we have
everything our heart could ever dream of and in a moment, it is taken
away. How strong is our desire to get it back? Do we have the strength
to survive? What did it all mean? Can we get back to a moment that will
forever change as a result of the pursuit and the obstacles hit? This
powerful story is a gift. It shows the true meaning of kindness and the
will of the human spirit to feel unconditional love.
In the movie
American Hustle, written by Eric Singer and
David O. Russell and directed by David O. Russell, we feel the fictional
story of a con man on a quest to survive with a woman that he loves.
The two, Irving and Sydney, are caught in the middle of a con when she
accepts a check from an undercover cop, Richie, and is arrested. They
are given the choice of her giving up her freedom or the two of them
helping Richie to get four more con artists like them. They realize to
pull this heist off and free Sydney from returning to prison, they will
have to make one final play. The idea of "People believe what they want
to believe" resonates throughout. We feel the pursuit of moving from the
idea of conning people for a living to the idea of legitimacy and
truth. The emotional motivation behind the pursuit and the stakes were
clear in this story. I loved the themes that were explored.
With the movie
Philomena, screenplay written by Steve Coogan
and Jeff Pope and directed by Stephen Frears, we feel the story of a
man who is dismissed from the Labour Party in disgrace and a woman who
had her son taken away when she was an "inmate" at a Catholic convent.
The pursuit is fueled by a mother's desire to find out whether she made
the right choice in giving up her son. There is strong emotion behind
this. He helps her in her pursuit and in doing so finds some of the
answers to his own. Through her emotional responses to the obstacles
that they hit on their quest, he is able to open his eyes to his own
flaw and what is holding him back in his life. It is about a man's
search for meaning as we see this odd couple learn about life through
the conflicting perspectives that each of them has toward it and the
choice that she thinks she made but discovers was really made for her.
In the movie
Her, written and directed by Spike Jonze, we
feel the pain of life after divorce through the lead Theodore. He
purchases an OSI to help him cope with the loneliness. He falls in love
with an Operating System named Samantha. The gift of this journey is
that it is such an internal experience. The writer and director
brilliantly figured out how to tell it externally. It is a movie about
living after trauma and how we find closure when parts of our story end.
I was totally immersed in the gift of this vision. Having gone through
divorce, I know what it is to move through the filling of a hole after
something major changes in your life. Universally, this hits all of us
who've known the experience of love and loss.
Storytellers, when we feel your intent with clarity and can define
the fuel behind the pursuit, you give us the gift of understanding your
message and interpreting it in a way that speaks to our own journey.
Detective Michael Glade, with the San Antonio police department, has
wandered onto the dark side and has run afoul of the Mexican Mafia. He
battles his family and feelings while riding his collision course to its
ultimate outcome.
©2013 The Hollywood Reporter.
