Movies that gradually change in tone (e.g., starts a comedy, ends a drama)

Cafe Society
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I’ve been thinking about movies that pull off impressive and gradual shifts in tone over the course of the movie. Sometimes a movie starts out kind of light, and you’re humming along thinking you’re watching a comedy or at most a dramedy, and by the end you find yourself, open-mouthed, watching a Shakespearean tragedy. I don’t mean movies where the first scene or two is funny just until they get down to business. I’m thinking of movies where the transition is slow cooked over the course of the movie. I always enjoy movies that can pull that off. I like a good downer of a movie, and it can be even more of a downer when you’re not expecting it going in.

What got me thinking about this is Knockaround Guys, which I saw for the first time the other day. It’s not a bad movie. For the first half of the movie, it seems to be going along as a fairly funny movie about inept criminals. You’ve got Seth Green managing to stash a bunch of money where some stereotypical stoners make off with it; you’ve got some goofy local characters; and you’ve got a wild goose chase. All in good fun. Sure, one of the locals gets beaten up pretty badly, but the next time you see him, he just sports a swollen nose and some scratches, and he looks pretty much OK. And I’m thinking, “OK, this is the kind of movie where Vin Diesel can pummel a man unconscious and later that day the guy will be on his feet again. Fair enough.”

But by the time… the crew is at the shooting range and Matt and Taylor are discussing the shit they’ve gotten themselves into …I’m thinking, “This is going to end poorly, isn’t it?” And when… Seth Green gets whacked, after having been told he would be OK …I’m thinking, “This was a lot more fun before the bloodletting began.” And when I get to the… bloody three-way shootout at the end …I’m thinking “Well, that’s kind of a bummer. I need to go hug my kid.”

My memory of it is a little dim now, but I seem to recall The Falcon and the Snowman doing this pretty well too. In the first half of the movie, it’s all fun and games, and the “spying” is mostly harmless, and Sean Penn is acting like a goofball. And even though Timothy Hutton starts to sense that things are getting out of hand, I didn’t expect to have to watch… Sean Penn being tortured in a Mexican jail.

My favorite example is Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid because everyone but the two main characters knows they’re not in a comedy anymore. Butch and Sundance go along wisecracking, thinking they’ll be able to improvise their way out of whatever jam they get into. When… Etta decides to leave Boliva and go home, having previously said she refused to watch Butch and Sundance die …you kind of know what’s coming. But even up to the end, Butch and Sundance refuse to believe they’re in real trouble. They think they’re still in a movie where they can blow up a train car and now one really gets hurt. They’re not.

Other examples of this kind of thing? Discussion?

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The classic theatrical example is Shakespeare’s A Winter’s Tale. The first three acts are Othello-level tragedy; the last two are broad comedy. It was made into a movie.

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Hitchcock was a master of this. Many of his movies start out light and fluffy, then turn gradually darker.

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In Bruges is a great recent example.

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Audition. Starts out slightly sweet and then takes an abrupt turn into utter horror. I had no idea what I was getting myself into when I watched it.

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Good examples. I’ll have to Netflix In Bruges. I had wanted to see it when it came out but never got around to it. Then, I forgot about it. My wife doesn’t like violent movies, so I always have to make a note to watch them by myself. 99% of the time I forget completely.

As a former student of literature, I’m ashamed I didn’t know this one. I’ll dig up my complete Shakespeare. And I’ll look for the movie. Was the movie any good?

Keep the discussion coming.

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Something Wild, with Jeff Daniels and Melanie Griffith goes from quirky to very dark when the psycho boyfriend shows up.

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Shakespeare’s * A Midsummernight’s Dream*. In the beginning everyone is in the middle love’s angst, then the whole thing turns into a comedic romp.

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How about Muriel’s Wedding?

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Good Morning, Vietnam. It’s Robin Williams non-stop joking for the first hour, then gets all dramatic and turns into kind of a downer at the end.

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I don’t know if Arachnaphobia qualifies, but I remember watching that in the theater and wondering what happened to the semi-dark comedy that all the commercials promised me. What I saw was fairly close to a horror movie.

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Peter Medak’s The Ruling Class, starring Peter O’Toole. It’s a satire on British aristocracy, staring out absurd and funny, then turning brutally dark toward the end.

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How about Marley & Me?

Its start out as a movie about a young couple with naughty puppy that gets into all kinds mischief. By the end, anyone with a soul is sobbing like a baby.

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The Last American Virgin. Starts out as a moronic, sub-Porkys teenage sex comedy, and becomes a bitter film about heartbreak and sacrifice.

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This is what I came in to say. In Bruges is a comedy, but surprisingly dramatic as well.

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I was going to recommend this. Ray Liotta played the ex-con ex-husband, in his first major role–making what began as an R-rated screwball comedy very scary, indeed.

(While The Motels played “Total Control”–great soundtrack, too.)

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I recently watched Terms of Endearment for the first time in decades. I had forgotten how funny the early parts are, before it turns tragic.

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Burn After Reading was pretty funny at first, but got shocking and dark towards the end. The final fillip of humor by J. K. Rowlings makes it break the pattern, though.

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From Dusk Til Dawn started out as a pretty heavy-handed crime thriller then abruptly turned into a somewhat dark-comedic vampire movie.

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Hot Fuzz.
I’m not sure if gradual is the right word for it. There are clues throughout, but the shift was still pretty abrupt. It went from Agatha Christie murder-mystery to rock’em sock’em police explosion action movie about 80% of the way through the film.