Save the Cat Goes to the Movies (19 page)

Set-Up:
Meet Tim’s upscale parents, Beth (Mary Tyler Moore) and Calvin (Donald Sutherland). Everything
seems
normal. So why is Tim having nightmares? One morning over breakfast, Tim is asked if he called “that doctor” yet and we wonder what the tension is and why Mary is so distant. We are catching a family post-trauma. Though it is not revealed until later, they have recently lost their older son Buck, after which younger son Tim tried to off himself. He has just returned from a psychiatric hospital, agreeing that if he isn’t feeling better, he’ll seek help.

Theme Stated:
“You okay?” Donald asks Tim over pancakes. It is a question that will become a running litmus test, and our theme.

Catalyst:
When Tim doesn’t eat the pancakes Mom made, Mary takes them away brusquely and dumps them. Her harsh attitude prompts Tim to call the therapist.

Debate:
That night, Tim’s terrifying dreams reveal a boating accident and a storm. Tim meets the therapist, Dr. Tyrone C. Berger (Judd Hirsch), the next day. Tim tries to be honest: “I don’t like this,” he tells Judd. Can Tim commit to therapy?

Break into Two:
Still resisting, Tim works out a schedule with Judd. At school, Tim is on the swim team, trying to emulate his swim-star brother, and has a crush on Elizabeth. But both routes offer the “wrong way” — at least for now.

B Story:
Through Tim’s sessions with Judd, he will accept what happened and be healed. Their relationship is the “love story” of the film. Tim can only work with Judd a few hours a week, and must cut into his swim-team practice time to do so, but what he learns in Judd’s office will be applied in the world as he gets stronger.

Fun and Games:
Though their relationship is awkward at first, Judd gains Tim’s trust. “Aren’t I supposed to feel better?” Tim asks at one point. “Not necessarily,” Judd answers — proof positive that Judd speaks the truth. The “promise of the premise” also includes small moments of the very intense kind: Tim reconnects with Karen (Dinah Manoff) from the hospital; she too tried to kill herself. Dinah did not stay in therapy and, unlike Tim, seems fine. Yet it is the interactions between Tim and his mother that are the most wrenching. When their uncomfortable conversation in the garden after school one day is interrupted by a phone call, Mary is asked what she’s doing and responds: “I’m not doing anything.” The “Fun and Games” end with the famous Christmas photo scene where Tim loudly refuses to take a picture with Mary. The therapy is working; Tim is at last coming alive — even if his emotion is anger.

Midpoint:
Through Judd’s encouragement, “false victories” now begin: Tim talks to Elizabeth, quits Buck’s swim team without telling his parents, and starts to stand up for himself. And when he is “okay” enough for Elizabeth to agree to go out with him, Tim heads home singing “Hallelujah.” But feeling “okay” is about to be challenged. Threatened by how Tim is changing due to his sessions with Judd, Mary confronts Tim about quitting the team, accusing him of lying and embarrassing her — on purpose.

Bad Guys Close In:
The crack in the family begins when Tim tells Judd: “I think I just figured something out.” The conflict expands as Donald also meets with Judd. When Donald reports this to Mary, looking for approval, she is instead appalled. The truth is starting to dawn on Donald, too. As for Tim, his date with Elizabeth shows how not “okay” he is when they go to McDonalds and Tim can’t
handle some boisterous kids whom Elizabeth jokes with. Maybe Tim is not getting better, after all. And later after a swim meet, when a pal makes a remark about Elizabeth, Tim overreacts and pummels him. “You’re crazy,” the friend yells.

All Is Lost:
After the fight, Tim calls Dinah and learns she killed herself, even though she was “feeling fine.” The “whiff of death” includes Tim thinking he could have saved her from suicide.

Dark Night of the Soul:
Instead of following suit, Tim runs through the streets in panic and phones his doctor. Judd, unlike any therapist
we
know, meets Tim at his office. And now it all spills out. In flashback we see the night of the accident, the storm, Buck’s death — and the one thing Tim did wrong: He didn’t drown. “I hung on. I stayed with the boat,” he cries. Tim now realizes his sin was being stronger than his “perfect” brother. A and B stories cross as Tim accepts what happened — thanks to Judd.

Break into Three:
Next morning, Tim waits at Elizabeth’s house. “Have you eaten?” she asks. In a reversal of the earlier pancake scene, Tim is now ready for nourishment. Elizabeth ushers him inside — and back into the world.

Finale:
On vacation, Donald and Mary fight about Tim, with Donald standing up to her. The dynamics are changing. When the couple returns, a reinvigorated Tim hugs his mother, who stiffens — not knowing how to hug back. Later, Mary finds Donald sobbing in the middle of the night. “Do you really love me?” he asks. “I feel the way I’ve always felt about you,” Mary says. Now he has his answer. Donald tells Mary: “I don’t know who you are. I don’t know what we’ve been playing at.”

Final Image:
Mary packs. She’s been insulted — or found out — and instead of trying to change, she’s leaving. In a bookend of the opening, “Canon in D” by Pachelbel as we pull back from this town. We are wiser about what goes on behind its well cared-for facade.

Tales of obsessive drug and alcohol use offer some of the most compelling starting points in modern story craft. From the breakthrough
The Lost Weekend
directed by Billy Wilder, to the best, Blake Edwards’
Days of Wine and Roses
, to funny and surreal indie treatments like
Trainspotting
, the “Addiction Passage” can be heart-breaking … and triumphant.

Director Betty Thomas tackles the subject by focusing on the story of a standard 28-day stay in rehab that has become not only a rite of passage, but also a badge of honor. It is a look inside a world in which people from all walks of life address a universal problem and face an overwhelming challenge: change. With an eclectic cast of characters, and the underpinning of program-based recovery,
28 Days
focuses on those who take their recovery seriously, those who don’t, and one person who becomes desperate to “get it.”

Sandra Bullock stars as a sophisticated urbanite whose drinking and using is out of control when we begin. She nearly kills herself in a scary opening scene that gives new meaning to the term “wedding crasher.” Sandra does not heed the wake-up call and has a way to go to discover that the problem lies inside. As her low-key guidance counselor, Steve Buscemi offers a portrait of someone already on the happy road of recovery, who wants all the company he can get.

ROP Type: Addiction Passage

ROP Cousins:
The Lost Weekend, The Man with the Golden Arm, Days of Wine and Roses, When a Man Loves a Woman, Clean and Sober, Permanent Midnight, Postcards from the Edge, Trainspotting, Barfly, Clean

28 DAYS

Written by
Susannah Grant

Opening Image:
Meet Gwen Cummings (Sandra Bullock), drunk and dancing in a club to The Clash’s “Should I Stay Or Should I Go?” Weird voices, weird music, and weirder behavior blur. Sandra’s boyfriend (Dominic West) takes her home and, while making love, they start a fire. Laughing, they put it out — not realizing they could have died.

Theme Stated:
Remembering her sister’s wedding the next morning, Sandra and her man race to the train station. He asks: “Are you all right, darling?” and she replies, “I could care less.” “Isn’t that the whole point?” says Mr. Sensitive. Caring about others, and herself, will be key to Sandra’s recovery and our theme.

Set-Up:
Arriving at the wedding, Sandra continues to drink to excess and act rudely to guests. During the reception, Sandra — now way drunk and dancing wildly — falls into the wedding cake. As her boyfriend laughs, Sandra teeters out of the reception, hijacks a limousine, drives away on a mission to replace the cake, and careens into a house.

Catalyst:
Sentenced to rehab for her crime, Sandra enters the world of recovery. Though this facility is a plush and touchy-feely kind of sober living, it’s either here or a jail cell.

Debate:
Should she stay or should she go? Despite the threat of prison, Sandra is torn. “They chant here,” she complains. But 28 days of rehab is not only the title; it is her punishment. Sandra meets the other patients, each with a different horror story. Even early on, separation from drinking has an effect. Experiencing withdrawal, Sandra has flashbacks — some about her alcoholic mother. Still, Sandra resists joining group therapy, holding hands, and saying the Serenity Prayer. On a break in the woods, she meets Cornell Shaw (Steve Buscemi). She thinks he’s a patient, but he’s her counselor.

Break into Two
: Caught by Steve after she and her boyfriend go on a bender during visitor’s day, Sandra is asked to leave. She is told she must go to jail. Desperately, she tries to convince Steve she’s not alcoholic. But when she climbs out of a second floor window to retrieve some contraband pills, she falls and injures her leg. It is the moment of clarity she has needed; she knows she must stay.

B Story:
Sandra’s relationship with everyone in rehab is how she learns to care and begin to heal. We also get a “love story” with handsome Viggo Mortensen as alcoholic major-league pitcher Eddie Boone. But it comes with an ROP curveball.

Fun and Games:
Recommitted to the program, Sandra starts to take a look at herself. “I don’t want to die,” she says to Steve. Recovery begins. This is why we came to this movie: Rehab stories, the grind of cleaning bathrooms, going to group, sharing feelings, being honest, and getting at the root of the problem are the “promise of the premise.” There’s more fun as the patients are brought to a nearby farm to learn to shoe a horse — a lesson in “letting go.” Sandra continues to have flashbacks about her mother’s death by alcoholism — set to the groovy sounds of Crosby Stills Nash & Young.

Midpoint:
On his second visit with Sandra, her boyfriend proposes. He brings champagne to celebrate. Sandra dumps the champagne out and refuses this “false victory.” “Maybe there
is
something wrong with me,” she now admits to Steve. Sandra is changing. A and B stories cross as she starts to care about other people when she rescues her Goth roommate (Azura Skye) from cutting herself. And she’s starting to like Viggo, too. She learns they both are fans of the same soap opera, which they begin to watch together.

Bad Guys Close In:
Pressure mounts on Sandra as both her past and current behavior threaten her recovery. Sandra’s sister (Elizabeth Perkins) agrees to show up for family day, and reveals
that Sandra mortified her with the rude wedding toast she gave during an alcoholic blackout. And when Sandra seems to be getting closer to Viggo during a game of catch, they’re interrupted by her boyfriend, who winds up getting punched out by the pitcher.

All Is Lost:
Unable to face the trauma of life on the outside without drugs, Sandra’s Goth roommate OD’s. Now Sandra has lost her sister, her boyfriend, and this new friend. The final swizzle stick in her heart: She catches Viggo with another girl. Sandra’s hoped-for happy ending in rehab seems out of reach.

Dark Night of the Soul:
Sandra sits by the river and contemplates her life. Her sister arrives and, in an effort to make up, reminds Sandra that she has always been the special one.

Break into Three:
Sandra leaves rehab. A and B stories cross as she gets a send-off from her buddies knowing she might not “make it.”

Finale:
Sandra resumes her life, but it’s different without booze. Her apartment that seemed bohemian by candlelight now looks dirty and cheap. And when Sandra’s boyfriend takes her to the club where we began this story, their conversation is dull. While taking a stroll after dinner, she approaches a horse on the street and motions for it to raise its hoof, just like she learned in rehab. The horse complies, which Sandra takes as a sign: Nature or God is ready to help if she asks. Sandra kisses her boyfriend goodbye forever and walks away. Synthesis as Sandra accepts herself for who she is.

Final Image:
A last scene has a clean and sober Sandra buying a houseplant — a first step toward “caring” for another. She spots a friend from rehab doing the same. A new life has begun.

Director Jared Hess’ film of the script written by him and wife Jerusha Hess began as a short and expanded to feature length as its hero found fans (and backers). It is an ROP story that seems to defy structure analysis. As Napoleon might say to one attempting the task: “What are you stupid or something?”

The “Adolescent Passage” Napoleon goes through is not only a direct descendent of
Porky’s, Sixteen Candles
, and
American Pie
, it hits all the beats — both structural and emotional. Napoleon begins this movie under the watchful eye of his grandmother, but when she has an accident and his dim-bulb Uncle Rico takes over as guardian, Napoleon’s ROP adventure begins. Frozen in his teen years like a bug in amber, young Master Dynamite experiences a journey of growth through friendship. And while
you
may not have had to deal with a pet llama or a brother who swears by a time machine when you were a teen, you recognize Napoleon’s embarrassing plight. His world may not be real; it just
feels
like it is.

In his quest for dignity, Napoleon (the brilliant Jon Heder) will come up against bullies and prom queens, yet ache to belong. And the finale, in which he takes the stage to save his pal Pedro from embarrassment, is one of the most celebrated — and hypnotic — moments in film history.