There is one thing that almost every one of my favorite movies or books or stories has in common -- they all simultaneously feel surprising and inevitable. Stories that seem to wind in on themselves, tightening the spring of character and action in such a way that I NEED to know what happens next. In short, it demands my CURIOSITY get involved.
The first time I'm conscious of having this feeling was actually reading Edith Wharton's House of Mirth. From the first moments of that book (truly, the first page) you know Lily Bart is doomed and I wanted nothing more than to be able to STOP the freight train of tragedy that was heading in her direction. But of course I couldn't, because her story was already printed. But what I could do was discover page by page by page how and when and why the fateful choices took hold of her life.
And it isn't only just narrative that does it. The Film Barbarian created that overwhelming sense of curiosity, not just through the characters and narratives that it presented, but because of it's form. When (spoiler alert) that film moves out of the first act and into a second act that at first seems entirely unrelated, my brain said "whoa?! okay, what's going on... I need to find out!" And clearly I wasnt alone given the box office success of that film.
But it isn't just thriller or drama that do this. Comedies can do it too. Bottoms, one of my fav comedies of the last year regularly surprised me because they truly had no sacred cows in that film and I kept wondering "okay, what are they going to go after next?!" or My Cousin Vinny, the first R-rated film I ever saw. You know Bill and Stan are going to make it out okay -- they have to it's a comedy -- but the way in which Vinny succeeds kept me guessing. Kept me saying "what's going to happen next?!"
Stories with that kind of tight taught undeniable momentum are the ones I like to watch and the ones I like to make. What are some of the films or stories that you've found both surprising and inevitable? That have awoken your curiosity? Here are a few more of mine in no particular order that are occuring to me RIGHT NOW: