Some screenwriters will tell you that flashbacks or dream sequences are a cheat. And there's something to be said for that--they're basically a way of getting around the challenge of having to reveal character desire, fear (or often backstory) through action.
And as a result they're often a mistake. Next time you're watching a show or film with a lot of flashbacks, pay attention to where your mind goes. Usually that's where the daydreams on wandering thoughts set in. Because usually it means the forward action of the character--aka the thing we've invested in--is taking a break. So we might as well too.
Many of this year's Oscar contenders use dream sequences or flashbacks of one form or another. THE LOST DAUGHTER has many, ever-more-involved flashbacks of the character's life as a mother; DUNE has precognitive dreams--which, let's be honest, are largely a tease so that the trailers can make it seem like Zendaya and Timotheé Chalamet appear on screen together. (Spoiler: They mostly don't.) NIGHTMARE ALLEY has the main character occasionally flashing back to the death of his father.
But the two that really stand out to me are the fantasy sequences in BEING THE RICARDOS and TICK TICK BOOM. In both cases they serve a similar function--to give us a glimpse into the hidden life of the character. And in both cases that goal seems completely unnecessary on the surface. Both Lucille Ball and Jonathon Larsen are highly demonstrative characters who reveal their character consistently and boldly through their word and action. (I'm not a fan at all of Sorkin's take on Lucille Ball, but he certainly does create a well-drawn character.)
Instead of exposition or foreshadowing, the fantasy sequences in BOOM and BEING are used just to deepen our appreciation for who these characters are, the talents that they have. It's cake icing, in a sense, and yet if you asked pretty much anyone what was their favorite moment in either film, 95 out of 100 are going to say those moments. I've watched Larsen's Sunday Brunch reverie probably a dozen times, I know every beat of it and it still chokes me up. It's just such an intimate glimpse into what Broadway (and Sondheim) mean to him.
In the case of BEING, it's the only real time in the whole film that we get to see Lucy being the Lucy we know. Which is the film's biggest problem; who writes a film about Lucille Ball and then doesn't spend any time letting us watch her do her thing?
Actually in that moment we get to see her be more than the Lucy we know, because rather than just doing the bits she's dreaming them up. Those moments not only show us something important about her character, really her greatest skill, they give us material by which to understand her overall drive for the episode to go a certain way. We want Lucy to get things her way in the shooting of the ep precisely because we've been given these private moments where we see what a visionary she is.
There are lots of ways to use flashbacks, dreams, etc. Sometimes they work, sometimes they don't. But I think the lesson I draw from BOOM and BEING is that using these kinds of techniques not for plot or exposition/backstory but to broaden or deepen our sense of a character can be really effective. It really is a kind of cake icing--which I know probably sounds like a dismissal; it's just sugar, right? Ech.
Except what is a cake without icing? In most cases, just colored dough.
It's so often those little extra details, the moments where the writer goes that extra mile with a well chosen flourish that differentiate two fine hours at the theater from something that becomes important in my life.
