I just watched “From Dusk Till Dawn” for the second time and was subsequently reminded of why this movie pissed me off seven years ago. I mean, it starts off as a fun, quirky crime-ridden romp, with interesting characters and good acting from good actors. In fact, it’s the only movie in which Quentin Tarantino acts that didn’t make me want to give him a painful purple nurple.
Unfortunately –
the movie throws its own Titty Twister at the audience. Any semblance of plot or characterization is completely thrown out the window and the second half of the movie becomes an exercise in ridiculous, cartoonish gore. Sam Raimi on speed. Forty-five straight minutes of exploding vampires. WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED TO THAT MOVIE I WAS JUST WATCHING?
My second example of a movie seemingly betraying its intentions is “Unfaithful.” For a while it was a wrenching portrayal of a woman who has gone off the deep end. You could sympathize with her at the same time you despised her for abandoning her family a little at a time. Richard Gere did a great job as a decent, unexceptional, somewhat weak man who can’t bring himself to face the truth. And it was all grounded in reality. Nothing felt fake or forced or cliche.
Then Gere hits the guy in the face with a snow globe. And kills him. And wraps the body up in a rug. And drags it into the elevator and out the building and into the trunk of his car, where it stays while he goes and enjoys his son’s recital or play or whatever it was, until he gets a chance to drop it off at the local landfill. Then the cops come, they do the Columbo “One more thing” thing, but he gets away with it, now he and the wife now both have terrible secrets that bind them together, yadda yadda yadda. Sorry guys, you lost me with the snow globe to the puss.
I loved From Dusk 'Til Dawn for those very reasons. It was an unremarkabe crime drama that, without any warning very abrubtly becomes a comedy horror classic. I was still laughing at that joke when the final credits ran.
Adaptation also shifted gears [spoiler]When it suddenly becomes a cliched crime thriller instead of an introspective quirky comedy about writing. But that was the point. The brothers switched writing chores.[/spoilers]
It was marketed as a Fatal Attraction-type thriller when really it was a futuristic “drama” (for lack of a better description). It started out that way and then just sold itself out.
I felt like it was false advertising; It’s one of only a few movies that’s ever made me want my money back.
Another movie that totally changes direction partway through is Malice.
At first it takes you in with the serial killer angle, and then shifts gears into a con game between Bill Pullman’s naive college professor character and Nicole Kidman’s manipulative uber-bitch.
An example of it done well is Jonathon Demme’s Something Wild.
[spoiler]Starts off as a somewhat light-hearted comedy, with uptight Jeff Daniels being taught how to let go and have fun by free-spirit Melanie Griffith, then quite suddenly halfway in it turns into a somewhat dark drama as Melanie’s scary ex-boyfriend Ray Liota enters the picture.
The way it’s done is what is so interesting - it’s almost instantaneous, but still artful. They’re dancing at a goofy high-school reunion that the MG character has dragged Jeff Daniels too, when suddenly the lights dim and the band, played by the ever great Feelies, break into the slightly ominous sounding intro to the song “Loveless Love”, and as it crescendos Ray Liota’s head comes into the frame and quietly, but in a somewhat foreboding and mocking tone of voice says “Hello,…” ( whatver MG’s character’s name was ).
Really quite effectively done. I’ve always respected Demme a lot for that little moment.[/spoiler]
It starts off as a goofy heist-movie spoof a la Take the Money and Run, then becomes a mildly amusing fish-out-of-water comedy about newly rich Manhattanites.
Takashi Miike’s Audition. It starts out as an odd little drama, with a man who has lost his wife attempting to find a replacement by soliciting pictures and resumes from prospective partners. As he meets women, he becomes interested in one, and centers his attention on her. Up to this point, it seems fairly normal, more or less; it’s got kind of a strange and unsettling tone, but nothing outrageous, and it’s even kind of a comedy at times. And then:
It suddenly turns into balls-out psychological horror when the man shows up at the woman’s apartment and we find out who has been auditioning whom, and what the woman’s got planned for the man. When the moaning amputee wriggles out of that canvas sack… –shudder–
The plot of The Ring doesn’t do a complete 180, but it does have a nice little button-hook at the end of its route. You think you’re being set up for a cliche ghost-story plot: the unhappy ghost will be made happy if the fleshy protagonists find its body and right the wrongs that lead to its demise. But noooo…this ghost doesn’t let you off that easy. Not a perfect movie (and nowhere near as scary as advertised) but I appreciated the twist.
Many people who hate David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive hate it for this very reason. They continue to hate the film even after a plausible explanation of the story arc is offered (and yes, there is a plausible explanation). To me however, the 180 degree turnaround is the crux of what makes the film compelling. If the film had instead continued along its “obvious” storyline, then, aside from a few good creepy scenes, it would have been pretty much forgettable.
Other examples that strike me are Jacob’s Ladder and Brazil, both of which also pull the rug out from under you — and again, that’s a big part of their impact.
Of course movies in which one of the characters is dreaming, hallucinating, or otherwise seriously delusional are probably going to make the best use of 180 degree plot turnarounds. We’re meant to see the world as it is contrasted with the world as it’s perceived. That’s the whole point, or nearly. Otherwise, it’s hard for me to say exactly why the device works some times and not others. (For example, I agree with Kizarvexius that Malice fails in this regard.) Perhaps it’s just a matter of taste, or our individual quirky backgrounds, as to what sorts of plot twists we’re willing to follow.
The very first thing I thought of when I saw this thread title was From Dusk till Dawn. That movie did do a complete 180. It was fucking awful.
Bytegeist, I don’t think the OP (or me) are including movies like Brazil where the story turns out to be something different than you thought it was because the film makers intentionally hid the true nature of things – another example would be The Sixth Sense – everything is different than it appeared, but the clues that this was so were right in plain sight, which is what makes the technique so cool and effective.
From Dusk till Dawn is a different case, IMHO. The movie did quite a bit of character exposition, several intense moments and a buildup of tension… for nothing. It was just completely thrown away, and the movie took a left and turned into something diffent for no reason at all. I could have liked either movie. But together they just didn’t fit.
I agree. I came into the theatre knowing what the movie was about and I was still surprised when the first half of the movie turned out to be a hallucination. I really thought the FBI stuff was happening. Color me gullible.
Heavenly Creatures did that to me. I mean, I knew the story, but the movie is done in such a way that when it starts, everything seems so normal and lighthearted. It’s also genuninely funny at times, then the gears shift and things get sooo dark.
Suddenly, these two imaginative best friends are plotting murder. Real murder. Then, poor Pauline’s mother is being bludeoned with a brick. Dear God.
I suppose this is a hijack because it’s really more of a twist ending than a change of genre in the middle of the movie, but… What about Rosemary’s Baby?Rosemary, through her investigation, comes to believe – and the audience is led to believe right along with her – that the Satanists want her unborn child for some kind of ritual sacrifice. After the baby’s born, Rosemary is told that the baby was stillborn (or died soon after birth, I can’t remember which), but she assumes – as does the audience – that the sacrifice has been performed and the baby murdered. So when she hears her baby crying in the adjacent apartment, she – and we – are filled with relief… Until she goes next door, planning to valiantly rescue her baby from the villains’ clutches, looks in the bassinet, and sees that her baby is clearly not a normal human baby. It’s the antichrist.This is supposed to be as shocking and unexpected as the climax of Psycho. Unfortunately, it’s so well known now that the “secret” was given away on the back of the box for one of the film’s video releases not too long ago.
Two nominations, one good (intentional, and effective, although seriously discombobulating to many first time viewers) – Miracle Mile – and one bad (director just didn’t seem to know where to go with the movie once it got to a certain point) – Wolf (the Jack Nicholson werewolf movie).
In Miracle Mile we’re drawn into a cute, warm romantic comedy of the Doris Day variety except set in modern times until a misdirected phone call tosses out the possibility that we’ve just gone to nuclear war with the USSR. As viewers we’re thinking maybe the call is the premise for some silly sitcom behaviors (watch the guy make an ass of himself like Chicken Little thinking the world is coming to an end) or maybe our cute warm main characters will do some cute Goldie-Hawnish international hero stuff and stop the war. But nope, the world comes to an end, and after some frantic attempts to get out to safety everyone dies. Disturbing, sad, ominous movie.
With Wolf, things go in the opposite direction, and the movie to hell. Jack Nicholson’s character gets all broody and individualist-isolated, a mean predator in the modern corporate environment, as the old werewolf stuff does its traditional magic in an allegory-flavored noir-toned fluorescent-lights gothic. Then he gets scrutinized by another guy who managed to get wolf-bitten himself after which point the movie rapidly degenerates into a DC/Marvel Comics kind of good-werewolf versus bad-werewolf flick. Batman meets Vampire Boy. Wildcat versus Predator. Yawn.