Dream Scenario: Passive Main Characters

Dream Scenario: Passive Main Characters This week, we are going to be talking about the new Nicolas Cage movie, Dream Scenario, by writer and director Kristoffer Borgli. This will be a fascinating discussion, because we're going to talk about the strength of the screenplay, as well as the screenplay’s weaknesses.  We’ll use the strengths and weaknesses of Dream Scenario’s screenplay to understand one of the most important concepts in screenwriting: the difference between writing passive and active main characters.  Most screenwriters think their characters are active. But the truth is, we're often writing passive main characters without realizing why the character is coming out passive. So that's what we're going to be looking at here: how to recognize if your main character is a passive main character or an active one. We’ll look at the effects of a passive main character: what that does to your movie and to your audience. And we’ll look at some ways to transform passive main characters into active ones.  If you look at the Rotten Tomatoes TomatoMeter scores for Dream Scenario, you’ll see something that rarely happens – critics loved this film and audiences really didn’t.  It’s quite common to see critics dislike a film that audiences loved but here the exact opposite happened. Among critics, 91% loved this film but only 68% of the audience liked Dream Scenario.  Now, that is a really interesting phenomenon. So let’s look at why this might be happening.  If you look at the overall concept for Dream Scenario, it is totally fascinating. And this is part of the reason the critics love it. Sociologically, politically, this film is taking on some huge concepts and saying some really interesting things. And quite frankly, from a Hollywood perspective, this Dream Scenario also has a really interesting hook and a really clear execution of that hook.  Not only that, it has a really stellar cast in Nicholas Cage, Julianne Nicholson and Michael Cera. It's well directed. It’s well performed. And it's fascinating. So why aren't audiences connecting with Dream Scenario the way that critics are?  Simply put, critics look at movies differently than audiences.  If you're a screenwriter or you've studied screenwriting, in college or in grad school, or even if you've just read books about screenwriting, there's a really good chance that those books are written by professors. They're written by critics. And critics look at films in a different way than audiences (and producers) do.  The things that are actually important for the success of your film may be different than the things that are important for the critics to love it. That doesn't mean you can't do all the things that the critics love. Sure, if you want to make a really fascinating, critically acclaimed, complicated film that asks some really big questions about the world, yes, absolutely do that.  But you also have to make sure your craft is perfect. And there's a tiny little craft issue in Dream Scenario that's getting in the way. So let's talk a little bit about it.  Spoiler alert: There are going to be some major spoilers ahead as we discuss the structure of Dream Scenario. Dream Scenario is looking at one of the primary socio-political problems of our day: the desire for fame and the effects of that on our society.  To go even deeper, Dream Scenario is exploring the effects of the desire for fame for fame’s sake,