Great Expectations

Last night I sat up late, impatiently waiting for extended coverage of the US Masters golf to end (who watches that stuff anyway!?). At last, about 45 minutes later than scheduled, the final episode of Damages began.

As I mentioned in a previous posting (The Power of Withholding Information) the masterfully created mystery and tension had me hooked right from the get-go and I could hardly wait to see the final pieces of the puzzle fall into place!

Which they did, but with a whimper rather than a bang as far as I’m concerned.

The build-up was tremendous. The clever use of flash-forwards kept teasing and wrong-footing me. It created the expectation of some kind of incredibly unorthodox denouement.

Which is exactly why, as the final details were laid out like someone revealing their hand after a nail-bitingly tense game of cards, I couldn’t help feeling they’d been bluffing. That’s it? That’s all there is to it!?

The principle the series used is simple: Cut the story and serve it up in such an order that it’s never obvious who’s really responsible for what until the very last moment. But for this kind of storytelling to be more than a fig leaf for an otherwise mediocre plot, the final twist needs to be hugely powerful and memorable. Which it wasn’t. Not for me, anyway.

Contrast this to a movie I saw recently, The Illusionist, written and directed by Neil Burger. A very simple story in terms of plot, but told in such a way that the very last sequence completely reverses almost every assumption you’ve been led to make throughout the film!

You are literally treated to a montage of all the pieces falling into place in the mind of the detective. Suddenly it all makes sense and in retrospect the entire story acquires a different value.

For me the difference between Damages and The Illusionist is like the difference between a slick and hugely expensive commercial for a run-of-the-mill product, and a modest recommendation for something surprisingly valuable.

The lesson for screenwriters? Never create expectations you can’t deliver on, big-time.

The Power of Withholding Information

I’ve been following and immensely enjoying Damages on the BBC. It has great acting, snappy dialogue, convincing conflicts and relationships, but it’s something else that keeps bringing me back to watch the next episode: I’m dying to know exactly what happens in the end because of all the hints that have been dropped along the way.

Using flash-forwards, each episode reveals a tiny bit more about where all the action is leading. The most intriguing clues are the constantly recurring shots of the sympathetic young attorney Ellen Parsons (played by Rose Byrne) in a prison cell. The images are grainy and the colours faint, almost black and white, dreamlike.

Normally, Ellen Parsons is dedicated, honest, ambitious and totally in awe of her boss and mentor Patty Hewes (Glenn Close). But in the flash-forwards she looks completely haggard, shambolic, defeated. Clad in ill-fitting, formless, convict garb, her hair a mess, her eyes desperate, she’s the total opposite of the carefully groomed and likeable persona we see in the “present.”

We are repeatedly shown snippets of her being interrogated and of her being visited by various characters we’ve gotten to know along the way. We also see vague images of a murder taking place in which she is somehow involved.

This use of flash-forwards is very clever in a paradoxical way.

To create suspense and excitement, you have to withhold information, keep the audience guessing. However, giving away information in advance, makes the mystery and drama that much more exciting. It tantalizes, confuses, intrigues. It makes you care about the fate of the characters.

A bit like teasing a child by giving them clues about what you bought them for their birthday, before they receive the actual present.

I’m not usually a loyal tv show fan, but I have my seat booked well in advance for the next episode of Damages!

P.S. For a more detailed piece on set-ups and pay-offs, check out my blog Great Screenwriting. There I use one of the storylines from Paul Haggis’s amazing Crash screenplay to illustrate the technique of withholding information in order to create suspense.

Enjoy!