CS Weekly Archive > The Big Picture > 7/10/09

Didn't See That Coming:
Five Great Reveals

by Peter clines

CS Weekly looks at a few examples of that powerful part of storytelling—the reveal.

The reveal is that wonderful moment when a writer has the audience in the palm of his or her hand. It's when everyone gasps or gets a chill at once, and there's a real art to getting it just right. Sometimes it's an unexpected twist. Other times it points out false assumptions that were made by the audience and/or the characters. Now and then, a great reveal simply draws attention to something that was sitting in front of us all along. Like a good magician, a writer needs to know exactly how the audience is going to react for a reveal to work, because an awkward or premature reveal will crash a story.

Be warned—by their very nature these examples contain major spoilers for the films being discussed. They're are all about a decade or more old, but if you haven't seen them yet, you may want to avert your eyes and not ruin the experience.

X-Men (2000)
Screenplay by David Hayter
Story by Tom DeSanto & Bryan Singer (also directed)

When Rogue (Anna Paquin) stumbles across the savage cage-fighter called Logan (Hugh Jackman) in a flyspeck Alaskan town, it's a mixed blessing. On one hand, they're both mutants, outcasts because of their strange, genetic powers. On the other hand, from the day they meet he's hunted by a group called The Brotherhood who want the all-but-unstoppable warrior for their own purposes. While they find sanctuary with the X-Men and their leader, Charles Xavier (Patrick Stewart), it's not long before a Brotherhood infiltrator sends Rogue running away in an attempt to lure Logan out into the open again. When he takes the bait and catches up with her, he finds himself face to face with the Brotherhood's leader, Magneto (Sir Ian McKellan).

"My dear boy, whoever said I wanted you?"
This is a perfect example of the false-assumption reveal. The story spends so much time showing us how cool and kick-ass Logan is, neither the characters nor the audience stop to consider that Rogue is also there when the Brotherhood attacks, even though their target is never identified by name or gender. While her power to drain abilities seems minor when compared to rapid healing, optic blasts, or telekinesis, once we're reminded of Magneto's self-powered, mutation-inducing machine, it becomes clear that this story is taking itself far more seriously than the majority of comic book films before it.

Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986)
Written by John Hughes (also directed)

Ferris Bueller (Matthew Broderick) is far too cool for school—which is why Principal Rooney (Jeffrey Jones) has made it his mission to bring Ferris down and teach him some firm life lessons. While Ferris is ditching school for the ninth time this year, Rooney gets a call from the father of the boy's girlfriend, Sloane Peterson (Mia Sara). It seems Sloane's grandmother has died and she'll have to be excused from school for the day. The principal quickly realizes the stuffy voice on the phone is Ferris, trying to get his girlfriend out of school as well, and decides to have some fun before busting the truant teen.

"Can I speak to Mr. Rooney, please? Thank you."
Writer-director John Hughes (The Breakfast Club) pulls off three comic reveals in a row in this scene and leave his audience in tears laughing. While Rooney is cheerfully telling "Mr. Peterson" that school policy requires an actual corpse to be presented before releasing students, the audience gets to see his addled secretary (Edie McClurg) in a stuttering panic when she answers the next call—from Ferris. This is followed by the moment (complete with its legendary musical stinger) when it's revealed to Rooney that he is talking to Mr. Peterson and "Ferris Bueller's on line two!" As a shamefaced and terrified Rooney switches back over to begin his cascade of apologies, Hughes completes his hat trick by showing us Peterson has been Ferris's friend Cameron (Alan Ruck) all along. They may not advance the plot much past demonstrating Ferris' cleverness, but they're the kind of spot-on comic reveals we don't see much anymore.

Fight Club (1999)
Screenplay by Jim Uhls
Based on the book by Chuck Palahniuk

Ed Norton stars in this film about a life-weary, insomniac claims investigator for a major car company who finds an odd peace after meeting anarchist Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt). Tyler is everything a man could want to be: strong, charismatic, a born leader—and not afraid to take a punch to the face. The duo starts a series of underground fight clubs where men can glory in a brotherhood of brutality society has told them is inappropriate. But Tyler, it seems, has far bigger plans for their followers, and the claims investigator soon finds himself tracking his friend when Tyler vanishes to other cities for days on end to work on "Project Mayhem." Even more disturbing, though, as he tracks down more and more of Tyler's growing army, is the fact that everyone else seems a bit confused as to exactly which one of Fight Club's founding members he is.

"What did you just call me? Say my name!"
The twist in this adaptation by Jim Uhls is so tight and slick that it's not until long after the fact that most people realize Ed Norton's character was never given a name, a fact hidden in plain sight because he often uses his therapy group alias "Cornelius," along with constantly quoting a series of magazine articles that begin with the phrase "I am Jack's…" From there it's only another step to realizing we never see Tyler alone, only with Norton's character. It takes a few scenes to sink in, but by the time Marla (Helena Bonham Carter) is shouting his name at him there's no denying who Tyler Durden really is.

Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back (1980)
Screenplay by Leigh Brackett and Lawrence Kasdan
Story by George Lucas

Things aren't going well for the Rebel Alliance in this installment of the franchise. The Empire has crushed their base on Hoth, their fleet is scattered, and poster boy Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) has vanished to complete his "Jedi training." With all this in mind, Han Solo (Harrison Ford) decides to go into hiding with Princess Leia (Carrie Fisher). On the gas-giant world of Bespin they hook up with Han's old cohort, Lando (Billy Dee Williams), a former con man turned "respectable" who runs the Cloud City mining facility. Lando's just a little too happy to see this band of fugitives, though, and despite all his deflecting smiles and gifts, Han and Leia finally corner him on why he's not afraid of harboring them from the searching Imperial forces that might want Cloud City for themselves.

"I've just made a deal that will keep the Empire out of here forever."
One of the reasons this betrayal caught so many people off guard is that the first Star Wars movie was so squeaky-clean. There were bad guys in black, good guys in white, and that was that. Lando's treacherous deal is heavily foreshadowed in retrospect, but at the time it was a reveal that came out of nowhere because it just wasn't what the audience had been taught to expect from these stories. Suddenly there was a huge cloud of gray in this black-and-white universe, one that hung with audiences for years afterward. Even Vader changed into something unexpected at this key moment, from the looming, black-cloaked monster to a far more ominous type of villain—the gracious host.

Dead Again (1991)
Written by Scott Frank

Detective Mike Church (Kenneth Branagh, who also directed) is called back to the orphanage he grew up at to investigate a mute amnesia victim (Emma Thompson) who's been found on the grounds and suffers horrible nightmares. Compelled to help the woman he's nicknamed Grace, Mike finds an ally in Mr. Madson (Derek Jacobi), an antiques dealer who also specializes in hypnosis and past-life regression. It turns out Grace knew Mike almost 50 years ago, when they were Roman and Margaret Strauss—a relationship that ended when Roman allegedly murdered her with a pair of scissors. As Mike tries to convince Grace he truly loves her and will not repeat the past, he gets an unexpected lead into the mystery of Margaret's death. It turns out the reporter (Andy Garcia) who covered the murder all those years ago is still alive, living in Los Angeles, and willing to talk to Mike.

"Last I heard, they had opened some sort of shop…"
The beauty of this truly fantastic reveal by Scott Frank (The Lookout) comes in two parts. First is that it's sitting right in front of the audience the whole time. We're told Mr. Madson's first name when he introduces himself to Mike, and we see him break into a stuttering fit when Grace first announces the names from her past-life existence. Second is the timing. It takes Mike a moment to digest what the old reporter's just told him, which we get to use as well. The detective and the audience grasp the implications of this offhand remark at the same time, making it all the more powerful as it ties our reactions and realizations together with his.

Peter Clines grew up in the Stephen King fallout zone of Maine and made his first writing sale at age 17 to a local newspaper. He currently lives somewhere in southern California, and can often be found ranting on his cleverly named blog, Writer on Writing. His first novel, Ex-Heroes, will be released in fall 2009.

Fight Club, X-Men courtesy 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment

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