YOU
CAN COUNT ON ME
Kenneth
Lonergan's film shows us the difference between drama
and melodrama. Because we see true drama so rarely
it is a surprise when it comes along. What is called
drama in Hollywood is almost always melodrama. Melodrama
is about going big: the shocking reveal, resorting
to the gun, the character who goes mad. It's exciting,
it's surprising, but it's almost never honest. It
is fake drama, and for that reason, the emotion doesn't
hit home with the audience.
This
film is real drama. Sammy, a woman with an eight-year-old
boy and a job at the bank, endures a visit from a
fun but unreliable brother. They don't shoot each
other, no one goes mad, no one molests the little
kid. But there is real conflict and honest emotion.
The brother eventually leaves and the sister and her
son stay behind in the town. But they are all deeply
changed by their time together.
Notice
how the writer sets up both brother and sister as
likable people with serious flaws. He's a Tom Sawyer,
a mischevous fun-lover who's also unreliable. She
is a decent stable woman who locks herself into her
way of life and falls into relationships with men
because she feels sorry for them. No one is evil in
this film. Not even the loser father.
The
quality of the drama makes the film's one false note
stand out even more clearly. Sammy's affair wiyth
her boss isn't set up properly to be believable. So
it becomes obvious that the writer is using the event
to force the plot to go where he wants it to go.
One
other lesson: notice how Lonergan often starts scenes
late or ends them early. This not only gives the story
economy it makes it feel more real.
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