![]() The narrative takes place inside the structure of an interrogation of the protagonist “Verbal” Kint (so-called because he talks a lot), one of five men suspected of a crime. The film The Usual Suspects is a prime example of this tactic. Twist endingīut some expectation subversions need no warming up for the audience, no groundwork laid-their power lies in the fact that they have truly come out of the blue and overturned everything audiences thought they knew about the fictional world they have been spending time in. After all, you can’t expect to subvert your expectations if you’ve got no expectations to begin with. ![]() This method of incremental storytelling also demonstrates that you trust your viewers to recall details and “keep the score” between characters. Our expectations are subverted along with hers, making it all the more satisfying when she sees the truth and exacts her revenge. ![]() The novel and film The Girl on the Train also follow this format, leading us to view the protagonist, Rachel, as unreliable only to discover that her ex has been gaslighting her into believing she cannot trust her own instincts. When we find out in the end that they are not to be trusted and have been playing an elaborate trick on Marta in order to induce her to submit to them, we are both surprised and vindicated. However, we are also led over the course of the film to treat certain family members with suspicion, then to trust them again. In somewhat more predictable fashion, Tarantino pulled the revisionism card out again for his most recent film, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, rewriting the fate of murder victim Sharon Tate (Margot Robbie) by having her would-be attackers get dispatched before they even met her - in hilariously brutal fashion no less.While your story and characters might not belong to the mystery genre, you can establish an air of uncertainty, guide viewers to question certain characters’ reliability, and so on by dropping hints throughout the story.įor example, writers in the movie Knives Out, the action occurs among an insular family in an isolated old house and as the protagonist, Marta, is an outsider to the family - although trusted - we are set up to find her suspicious. Though some cried foul at Tarantino's historic revisionism, it was nothing if not a thoroughly tongue-in-cheek flipping of the bird to reality, where Hitler ultimately escaped anything close to true justice. The Basterds and Shosanna's (Mélanie Laurent) plan to burn down her cinema with the German High Command sealed inside is successfully pulled off, but because that's a little too subtle for Tarantino, he also has the Führer and Joseph Goebbels (Sylvester Groth) get machine-gunned to pieces by Ulmer (Omar Doom) and Donowitz (Eli Roth). opted instead to offer a window into the alternate history many wish actually happened. ![]() If most viewers assumed the film would end with the Basterds' plan to kill Hitler (Martin Wuttke) failing in spectacularly ultra-violent fashion, Q.T. While it was reasonable to assume that a Tarantino-directed World War II movie was never going to be strictly married to The Facts, even so, his homage to classic men-on-a-mission movies of yore made one extremely bold decision in its finale. This isn't to say that defying cinematic conventions is inherently a good thing - in fact, when done for its own sake it can often be quite terrible - but when talented filmmakers tinker with established movie rules in inspired ways, the results can be truly incredible.Īnd while many directors have fudged the facts either for the sake of a more entertaining story or to suit their own political agenda, Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds tinkered with history for the sake our collective catharsis. While such efforts often end up falling flat, and a certain subset of audiences are always going to struggle with films that do something different, these ten films all flipped the script in frankly brilliant ways.įrom unexpectedly deviating from historical truth to ditching moldy genre tropes, killing off characters out of nowhere, and even denying the audience the violent catharsis they think they need, these films left audiences surprised and perhaps even a little bemused. Studies have proven time and time again that general audiences actually find genre formula comforting in its familiarity, and often reject films that dare to challenge the status quo.īut sufficiently creative and daring filmmakers have attempted to rip up the rulebook and subvert expectations of the type of movie they're making.
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