unlikethemovies

[unlikethemovies]

OFF SCREEN

When he was a kid, he loved movies for how different they were from real life. He loved it – lived for it – when the hero jumped out of the vents with an unbelievably cool one-liner. All he knew were his own stumbling words, his mom’s bad dad jokes, his teachers’ boring monologues. In movies, the music crescendoed, time slowed, montages condensed the thrilling plot. In real life, he yearned for a skip button.

In real life, he was only QUENTIN – – green-eyed, slim, perpetually vaguely oily-haired – – who spent all his time working through his mom’s DVD collection. In real life, there was only his mom, working late now that his dad was gone. There was only school, homework that was too hard and classmates who made fun of him for being quiet. 

At some point, the DVD supply was exhausted. So, he learned how to go to the library by himself, where to find the DVDs and how to borrow them. After a bit of trial and error (lost pocket money), he also learned to give them back on time.

(Unsplash, Kelly Sikkema / Author)

Once, his mom came home to find him in the middle of a movie marathon. For some reason, she was upset at first. Asked where he’d found the DVDs, how long he’d been going out on his own to get them. Then, she sat down next to him. “Tell me about the movie, Quentin.”

“It’s about an attack on earth.”

“And what did the characters learn? How do their beliefs change?”

“I guess they’re still atheists at the end.”

His mom gave him a withering stare. Finally, she said he’d only get to stay awake that long again if he could tell her what the movie he’d watch meant.

So, he relented. Made it a habit to scroll through reviews after he finished one, and present his results to her. Made it a skill to not need the reviews anymore, but write his own. Made it a point to let her know all about his critiques and lessons learned each dinner they had together. His mom smiled at every word that fell from his lips.

His teacher grew annoyed with him for including movie references in all his essays. He didn’t understand, because others kept referencing wars and history and were never scolded. “It’s fiction, Quentin. It didn’t actually happen, it’s made up. So, we can’t use it as evidence.”

“But when you lecture me when I haven’t done my homework, you say that I could end up failing my exam, then my diploma and then I’ll never get a job. That’s all made up, too.”

“What I’m saying is that movies aren’t there for us to learn about reality, they’re made to distract us from it. And I would like you to get your head back in the game.” He breathed in to answer, but she sighed like she already regretted using that phrase. “Especially musicals.” He let go of the breath again.

He came home that night with a bowed head. When he relayed the conversation to his mom she said, “She’s right.” She laughed when she saw his frown. “At least she’s not wrong about the essay stuff. But you can still watch them.”

“Why?”

“I like you living in other worlds. Getting to know them. As long as you come back to me after and tell me all about them, I like all of it.”

(Before Sunrise, Richard Linklater, 1995)

[unlikethemovies]

TRANSITION

When she was a kid, she played all the characters from the movies. She slipped into them like costumes. So all-encompassing, maybe they were skins instead. She paraded them through her bedroom, and the hallway in school, testing their limits, assessing their potential. Rewriting her scripts to fit their aspirations, their humor, their schemes. She gave it her all to portray them as authentically as possible, down to the way they spoke, moved, saw the world.

She was THE TEACHER’S PET when she learned all the parts of the scene she was in in the school’s play. When the day of the first run-through arrived and each student climbed up the stage with a white-knuckled grip on their script, she left hers on the chair. When up there, the words didn’t come to her, and she told the teacher she felt sick.

THE DELINQUENT when she invented a game of tag in the school’s washrooms that required slipping under or climbing over the dividers between the cabins. When the look on the teacher's face who finally caught them – one of her friends lying on the ground with his body halfway between two cabins – made her mates thump her on the back in laughing congratulations for hours after. When a snapshot of that disappointed pout the teacher gave her kept her awake for two months after.

THE WALLFLOWER when she went to prom and the boy who had asked her out danced with his friends the whole night.

THE HOPELESS ROMANTIC when she still texted him the next day to thank him for the nice evening.

Even THE VILLAIN. When she laughed about her friend behind her back, and that one day in her face, too. 

She hoped she would find a character that would make her feel like herself. Or convince them it was her. Whichever was fine.

But every skin itched, every line seemed clumsy to her own ears. Everyone else seemed to know their lines by heart. They talked so fast, made decisions so quickly, sometimes she wondered if they followed lines at all. She daydreamed and hoped and imagined, schemed and lied and manipulated. And yet, when she was knocked down, she wasn’t surprised. It was the recurring moment, the running gag, the motif of her story — building up to something and never living up to something.

(The Worst Person In The World, Joachim Trier, 2021)

For graduation, everyone received an envelope filled with notes from their classmates – good wishes, insults, promises, inside jokes. She spread the notes she’d received out on her bedroom’s carpet floor. Read through them, one by one. She didn’t recognize any of the persons they were addressed to.

(Unsplash Kelly Sikkema / Author)

In her first uni lecture, she turned to the boy next to her. “What were you like in high school?”

He stared at her for a minute, pushing his glasses up his nose. “I don’t know. Quiet, I guess.”

“Ah,” she said, turning back to her laptop. She didn’t type anything.

“I’m glad it doesn’t matter anymore here.” He was already looking at her when she looked up. “I mean, it’s a new beginning, right? I like to think of it as a new season. New side characters are being introduced. New plots.”

She let out a short laugh. “So you’re the main character in that allegory?”

An amused smile grazed his lips. “‘Course. What’s the point, otherwise?”

(Uptown Girls, Boaz Yakin, 2003)

[unlikethemovies]

DOOMED BY THE NARRATIVE

INT. SCHOOL LIBRARY – EVENING

When he was a kid he dreamed of life like in the movies. He spent hours after school hunched over an ancient computer, queuing up one after the other.

Houses in royal blue and eggshell yellow with wooden beams, five bedrooms, and a home cinema with a popcorn machine. That’s where he would live. That hero with slicked-back hair and broad shoulders. That’s who he would be. When the hero cried, it was a single tear sliding down their cheek, face stoic and somehow compassionate all the same. That’s how he would cry, too. When the crowd thickened around the hero, clapping in awe at what he’d accomplished, he smiled for the first time. That’s how his story would end, too.

Growing up, he learned he’d never get that kind of happy ending.

INT. COLLEGE DORM – NIGHT

He ate Ramen from plastic packaging four times a week. He cried about missed deadlines. He couldn’t afford to take out that boy in his class for dinner, so he never even asked if he could. His mom called him two times a week, and, even worse, he called her two times a week too. He picked a major so boring it seemed his life was all laid out for him, the credits already rolling.

This was his curse, put upon him all by himself. He had gotten so good at finding the clues, unriddling the spoken dialogue, the unspoken and even the unspeakable, that no plot point could make him sit up from the sofa anymore. Predicting his life wasn’t fun at all, because it wasn’t like the movies at all.

(Lady Bird, Greta Gerwig, 2017)

INT. STAFF ROOM – MORNING

His class respected him, but they didn’t love him. Nothing like Dead Poets Society, of course.

After two weeks at the school, he learned about the movie club. He had sat down next to the History teacher barely a minute ago – asked two or three questions about the club, since when he’d been in charge of it, what the kids were like – and suddenly he was the new teacher in charge of the club. His colleague squeezed his shoulder in thanks so tightly, he wondered if he’d made a mistake by saying yes.

INT. MOVIE LAB – EVENING

The kids had filtered out at five, leaving him behind his desk, looking through their short film pitches. They were a weird bunch. There was too much gore in some drafts, too many cheesy monologues in others. Still, he would let them make them however they wanted, like he always did.

Somewhere along the line, he’d made friends with the art teacher. She talked about her students like they already were the stars of their own biopic, each one of them. Somewhere along that same line, he’d realized that what made for a happy ending was usually decided by the audience.

One kid was still sitting in the back, hunched over one of the computers, ears squished by the too-small headphones, face close to the screen. When he left, he ruffled the kid’s hair but didn’t disturb him, leaving the keys to the lab by his side. They were a very loveable bunch.

(Dead Poets Society, Peter Weir, 1989)