Save the Cat Goes to the Movies (10 page)

Bad Guys Close In:
With the drug run over, real problems start. Kept in a dive motel until they defecate the heroin pellets, the women are
guarded by thugs. In the middle of the night, the men take Lucy away. Maria and Blanca find blood in the bathroom. Scared, they steal the drugs and run. Now real bad guys are pursuing the two women, who are out of their element in a foreign land. Maria takes refuge with Lucy’s sister, Carla (Patricia Rae). She will be Maria’s new mentor. Carla puts Maria up and introduces her to Don Fernando (Orlando Tobon), a stateside troubleshooter for illegal immigrants needing assistance.

All Is Lost:
Don Fernando offers to help Maria find work: Can she sew? Maria sees a man stripping roses on the street and realizes the US is just like Colombia: the problems of job, family, and paying rent are the same. And when Maria learns Lucy was murdered and the pellets cut out of her stomach, the “whiff of death” hits her.

Dark Night of the Soul:
After seeing a sonogram of her baby, Maria talks with Carla about her life in America. Like Maria, Carla is pregnant, but she has a hardworking husband and dreams of a bright future. What will Maria do?

Break into Three:
When Carla learns Lucy is dead, and Maria was involved, A and B stories cross as she kicks the girls out of her house. Maria and Blanca decide to confront the bad guys.

Finale:
Maria and Blanca surrender the drug pellets to the thugs and Maria bravely insists they get their pay. Maria covers the cost of Lucy’s funeral, makes amends to Carla, and both she and Blanca go to the airport to get on a plane home.

Final Image:
Blanca boards the plane, but Maria decides to take her chances in the US. She wants more for her child and will stay. A true Golden Fleece end, it isn’t the outcome Maria wanted, but it’s the one that changes her life. In a final image, a now proud and independent woman walks toward a new future. Synthesis! The hero has transformed her world.

Eddie Murphy realizes he’s had one too many Krispy Kremes in
The Nutty Professor.
His dream of being thin is nigh, as is the lesson of every “Out of the Bottle” tale: The real “magic” is being yourself.

Magic.
That’s
what movies are made of! And movies that specialize in magic are among the most popular of all time.

There is something dream-like about these tales that immediately resonates for us. Perhaps that’s why the genre I’ve named “Out of the Bottle” indulges our fantasies and offers the most delightful of escapes.

This grouping gets its moniker from the legend of Aladdin, in which a genie is summoned “out of the bottle” and all manner of wishes are granted with one fell poof! Stories using magic are found in every culture, across the ages. And whether they’re about flying carpets, magic beans, or witch’s spells, all share this recurring warning that is the real lesson:

Be careful what you wish for!

Deep in the human psyche is both the fantasy of being able to, say, fly — and the deeper-seated knowledge that we can’t. Not yet.

We long to be better than human to overcome what holds us back, but secretly know that being human is a pretty good thing.

Inevitably, in these films is an Act Three beat in which the hero rejects the magic that’s been loaned to him, and solves his problems without assistance — which gives us a clue why the OOTB genre resonates. Life is good, these stories tell us … the real magic comes from enjoying what is already ours.

The variety of “Bottles” — and the many kinds of magic that spill out from them — is amazing! Take a look at the “Body Switch Bottle,” stories where gender, age, or species are swapped to give each participant a lesson in gratitude — as seen in Big,
13 Going on 30
, and
The Shaggy Dog.
Also note the “Thing Bottle” where elixirs,
formulas, or totems bring about a desired transformation in one’s life, such as the wish to be attractive to the opposite sex (as in
Love Potion
#9), to be slim and sexy (The
Nutty Professor)
, or to have a magic remote control that can speed up your life
(Click).

In addition, the OOTB family includes the “Angel Bottle,” those tales of special beings that magically appear, such as
Oh, God!
and its twin
Bruce Almighty, Cocoon
, and
The Love Bug
series (for which I co-wrote, with partner Colby Carr, the first draft of the most recent
Herbie
incarnation). There is also the “Curse Bottle,” films such as
What Women Want
and
Liar Liar
, whereby the hero suddenly finds himself saddled with magic he may not have asked for, but that comes with a lesson he soon learns he needs. And finally we get the “Surreal Bottle,” films with those OOTB
premisi
that change the world by other kinds of magic like a time warp or pseudo-science, where the hero becomes part of a parallel universe — seen in films like
Groundhog Day, Pleasantville
, and
The Butterfly Effect.

In all OOTB films, the “magic” is simply acquired and the “how” quickly forgotten. These include such magic-gaining faves as: knocks on the head
(Peggy Sue Got Married)
, enchanted vending machines (Big), Nordic visors with Tex Avery-like powers (The
Mask)
, and even requests by little boys so their fathers won’t fib anymore
(Liar Liar).
The audience excuses the simplicity of the way these powers are dished out because filmmakers suspend our disbelief once, and thereafter stick to the logic of how the magic is granted that — if we screenwriters make clear from the start — will let us get away with one “leap of faith” per movie.

All OOTB tales, as in the previous genres we’ve discussed, have three handy elements that put them in this category. These include: (1) a “wish,” (2) a “spell,” and (3) a “lesson.”

Shall we take a look at these?

Your wish is my command!

Making the hero deserve the magic that is bestowed on him is what makes the “wish” in any OOTB story more plausible. There is a school of thought that there are only two kinds of stories: an
“empowerment tale” about an underdog who needs help, and a “comeuppance tale” about a bigshot who needs a lesson. Nowhere is this bifurcation (a $45 word) more clear. Whether the hero of an OOTB is a Cinderella type who makes the wish himself — as seen in movies like
13 Going on 30
and
Big
— or some un-evolved, smart-aleck deserving a lesson in humility who has the wish thrust upon him in a “comeuppance tale” (like
Liar Liar, Shallow Hal
, and
What Women Want)
, the dynamics are the same: The hero dearly needs to be the recipient of whatever magic he will be granted.

The actual “spell” that’s cast — no matter how it’s bestowed — must be unique, offering a take on the OOTB we’ve never seen before, and also have limits. So when we screenwriters come up with magic, we need to create a set of boundaries called
The Rules
. Together, the magic and its limits are a one-two punch. In
Bruce Almighty
, Morgan Freeman says it right up front when he awards Jim Carrey his godly powers: “Let me explain the rules.”

Being careful with The Rules is a tough task — but great stuff happens when we stick to them. Look at
Love Potion #9
, where two scientists (one is Sandra Bullock) invent a formula that makes them catnip for the opposite sex. Not only is there a time limit for each dose of the potion, the dose-ee has to speak to the person he or she wants to enchant. Once set up, screenwriter-director Dale Launer holds to this rule, and gives us situations where it’s a handicap. To not take The Rules seriously is sloppy screenwriting. It lets studio executives get out their red pens and start making “notes.” So let’s not give ’em the chance, eh?

Making sure our audience buys into the magic is key. We’re asking them to trust the spell is possible, so if we break our contract with the audience by bending The Rules, we run the risk of losing them. This is a little menace I call
Double Mumbo Jumbo
, which piles one empowerment on top of another and makes the story fuzzy.
13 Going on 30
is an example of DMJ by using two bits of magic: (1) sending a 13-year-old into the future, and (2) turning that tween into a 30-year-old. Once done, the writers must deal
with two sets of “jokes”: (1) 1980 person sent to 2004 jokes, and (2) 13-year-old in a 30-year-old body jokes. But piling on the magic does not make “
Big
with a girl” twice as good.

The most important part of this whole caboodle is the same as it is for any story that we tell: How is the hero transformed by this adventure? In the case of movies that use magic, the “lesson” the hero learns is the realization that what he had at the beginning of the story is what he’s wanted all along. Coming full circle is what most OOTB films are really about. Like existential homing pigeons, heroes of magic tales return to base with their eyes opened. But had it not been for this flight of fantasy, that life-affirming change would never have occurred.

A big part of learning the lesson, and one you will now see in every OOTB movie, is the Act Three beat where the hero
learns to do it without the magic
— a key phrase in my box of tools whenever I develop an OOTB. It’s Dumbo without the feather! In
Bruce Almighty
, it’s only
after
Jim Carrey (as weatherman Bruce Nolan) loses his girlfriend, gets his archrival fired, and quits his job at the end of Act Two that he becomes willing to change. The part of his godly powers he hasn’t picked up on yet is helping others without getting anything in return. When Jim finally understands that, he receives everything he always wanted — the same things he had all along!

Many Out-of-the-Bottle movies feature a character called the
Confidant
, an ally whom the hero can trust with his secret. There is a practical screenwriting reason for this: The hero has to tell
someone
— and us — what’s happening. Yet the Confidant can only watch the hero have fun, often held back by a lack of faith in the “magic.” He might even use his knowledge of it to gain an unfair advantage or harm the hero at a crucial moment. Those deserving of the benefits of the magic are the only ones who can learn from it and, in the end, that’s what all OOTB tales are about: the power of believing in yourself.

Whether your hero is a comeuppance character who needs a lesson, or a Cinderella type for whom magic is a blessing, the model OOTB film must have the following elements:

1. A “wish” asked for by the hero or granted by another, and the clearly seen need to be delivered from the ordinary.
   
2. A “spell” which, in setting up this illogical
   thang
   , we must make logical by upholding “The Rules,” no matter how tempting it may be to use “Double Mumbo Jumbo.”
   
3. A “lesson”: Be careful what you wish for! It’s the running theme in all OOTBs. Life is good as it is.
   

The following films are all about magic. And where OOTB flicks are concerned … there’s always a wish for more!