FISK KNOWS HOW TO LAY THE GROUNDWORK FAST

Recently Netflix released a six episode Australian sitcom about a Melbourne lawyer called FISK. It stars Kitty Flanagan, who is really an Australian treasure. No one does deadpan humor like Flanagan. 

I happened to see the pilot tonight and I was in awe of just how quickly the writing set forth who Fisk is and what her problems are. The show opens on her doing an interview with a hiring agency, which is actually a pretty genius way of getting a lot of information out quickly. With the very first back and forth, we learn she's a lawyer, she's only just returned to Melbourne after a decade away, and her husband cheated on her. 

With the second back and forth, we likewise learn she has no references, suggesting both backstory to explore and more importantly that there may be something wrong with the way she tries to do her job. 

Then in the third back and forth, which ends hilariously with another lawyer in the office literally sitting on her because she stands out so little, we get really the heart of her problem, which will play out in the way she's treated by the office manager, by her landlord, and by the coffee shop: she's someone no one takes seriously. 

The whole sequence takes less than two minutes. It's breathtaking. 

For me there are two big takeaways: First—and this is something I need to hear over and over—don't be afraid to lay out the central problem or problems of the character right away. There is no need to wait and build to it; in fact it's more likely worth trying to resist that impulse and see how it shakes out. 

Second—The very opening of a story is one of the only times the audience will forgive exposition. I don't think twice about the fact that we start with Fisk literally telling us who she is. Part of that is the interview conceit, which is just such a smart way to start. Part of it also is that Fisk and the woman who's interviewing her don't exactly get on, and what Fisk has to share is embarrassing. So there's a sense of conflict here, which is always a great way to hide exposition. 

But I think it is also true, at the very beginning of a story the audience will forgive a little exposition, just to understand what's going on. You have to do it smart and speedy, or you'll lose them, but it's definitely an opportunity.

ONLY MURDERS IN THE BUILDING UNDERSTANDS HOW TO OPEN A STORY

ONLY MURDERS IN THE BUILDING opened its third season last week. I've written about the show a few times before. (Okay, more than few times. It's a great great show.)

One of the show's signatures is its use of narration. The first season opens with a moment given to each of the three characters which reveals their own unique takes on the universe. In the current season, Steve Martin's character Charles-Haden Savage narrates not his own story, but that of a new character, an actress who was smitten by Broadway as a child and then worked her ass for decades to make her own mark, without success. 

As is always the case on MURDERS, it's a beautifully written narration. So often when a show regularly uses narration, most of it ends up just going in one ear and out the other. But MURDERS really works. And I think the key is that its narration actually matches what we're seeing. Whereas say on GREY'S ANATOMY, Meredith may be dropping some wisdom but what we're being shown is I don't know, people waking up, people hurrying to work, people have uncomfortable (or very comfortable) moments on elevators, here we're watching a little girl fall in love with Broadway as Charles is talking about how people who love the theater usually fall in love early. So we're getting his mysterious character's version of that. (And it's such a lovely scene—the girl who can't see sneaking right up to the stage to watch. Remember that, because we're going to come back to it...)

Then as Charles says, "Once smitten though, then comes the work," we watch her as an older kid, as a young woman, etc., trying to make it happen. And Charles tells us what the dream is, in a really specific and poetic fashion—to have that moment in the spotlight and have someone "really see you, and say those magic words, 'Where you have been?'"

And he follows with a question: "But what if those magic words never come?...How do you keep at it with any hope?", as we watch her facing an endless series of rejections. 

We haven't even met this character yet formally, and yet we know everything need to about her. We know her dream, we know her journey, and we know her problem. It's a perfect set up. 

But that's only the first half of the opening. The second half shows that character, Loretta Durkin now revealed to be Meryl Streep (it's a wonderful choice to keep that bit of information back until now), auditioning for a role in Oliver Putnam's new play. And it basically mirrors the structure of the first half.

First, we get the audition, the moment in which Loretta has suffered so many rejections. Then, we get Oliver, stunned by Loretta's performance, walking down the aisle to the stage, just like she did as a child, and with the same kind of awe. And as she finishes her monologue, she looks toward Oliver, just as the actress on stage looked at her (by the way, that's supposed to be Diahann Carroll, performing in "No Strings," Richard Rodgers' first musical after Oscar Hammerstein died, and also the first musical to involve an interracial romance). And he stares at her, and says "Where have you been?" 

It's a perfect short story, in and of itself.

But writers John Hoffman & Sas Goldberg aren't done. Because there's one more beat to the structure of the first half: the "But ...." question that Charles poses. In the first half it's what if you never get what you wanted; in the second, what if you do. "But when you finally do land your dream, your moment in that spotlight, how far would you go to hang on to it?"

It transforms the fairy tale into something darker—or maybe changes it from a Disney fairy tale to something produced by Grimm (or Sondheim). An entrance into murky woods. Which is what you want at the start of a season of television: not something tied up in a bow, but a question, a mystery, a dilemma. 

As writers, I think there's lots we can learn here. There's the way the writers on the show construct the narration, the way it matches the story and also adds a layer of emotion and later, mystery. 

There's that mirroring of structure. An audience might not even notice that, but in a sense it doesn't matter. As I've written here before, great craft naturally produces a feeling of satisfaction. And even if an audience does see it, it still surprises because it ends not on the happy resolution we expect but on the further question.

Finally, related to structure, there's the choice of beats the writers present. They strip the story back to its purest form: The performance and walk to the stage; the dream with the line "Where have you been?"; the auditions and rejection; and the end question. It's so clean it seems simple, but in fact I'd guess it's the product of many rounds of editing. So often that's the key to a great script, editing and editing and editing.  Editing is distillation. 

Two Other Notes: 

What a great choice to let Oliver be a really tremendous director. All we've ever seen or heard suggests he is a disaster; to see him really locked in like this gives a whole other layer for the show and Martin short to play with.

Also, how great is it that Loretta's monologue is all about whether or she's capable or murdering someone. Every single moment in a script is real estate, and it's all so fucking precious. The writers could have given her some other kind of monologue that also demonstrated her talent, but why do just that when you can also be building out other aspects of your story. 

For me, it's a key writing lesson that my profs would talk about at UCLA.  You want every moment in your script to be serving at least two different ends. 

HOW GRETA GERWIG SET US UP FOR THE POWERFUL DEPTH OF BARBIE

I saw BARBIE over the weekend, and I have to say, I can't really think of the last time that I cried so much in a movie. 

This is not what I expected to have to happen at a movie about Barbie. Even halfway through the film, which was delightful, I did not see it coming. 

But in retrospect, it's all right there waiting.

I've been thinking a lot about how writer/director Greta Gerwig primed us for such a deeply emotional experience without giving away at any point that we were headed there. 

Here's five moments that I noticed which seem like key beats in that journey. 

1) The 2001 Opening

Starting a film about Barbie with a 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY homage is random and hilarious. And the execution is just spot on. It's an absolute delight to watch.

But Gerwig sits on that moment of the girls smashing those dolls a long time, longer than she needs to. And they look truly furious.

In a sense that only adds to the sense of delight. But it also underlines the girls' rage and pain. And I think it's there to open us up to the possibility that that this story could offer more than we might think.

2) The Barbie Land Opening

Gerwig does something similar in the "proper" opening of the film. We are toured through a day in the life of Barbie and Barbie Land. And once again, it's hilarious in a thousand different respects. There is so much here to delight in. (Gerwig loves to use the comedy of the situation, which is really the comedy that we come to this film expecting, to hide where she's really going.)

But Barbie Land is also overwhelming. No one has any privacy. And how many times does Barbie have to deal with people saying "Hi, Barbie!" to her forcing her to respond? I want to say it's over one hundred. (It can't be, can it?) 

Until the dance at the end of that first day, Barbie takes it all in without a note of exhaustion. This is just her life and isn't it hilarious, is what the story is presenting. Meanwhile it's creating in us a sense of disquiet, a feeling that something is wrong. Again, priming us for a different, deeper kind of experience.

When Barbie asks "Do you ever think about death?" in a sense we're back to the laughs, and the film points us to think the story is going to be Barbie dealing with her problems, not her world. But in the end that's all going to come back around. 

3) The Older Woman 

When Barbie and Ken come to "our" world, once again Gerwig gives us lots of funny bits, particularly around Ken and his joy at learning about the patriarchy (and horses). 

Barbie's experience is much more unsettling to her. One of the great choices that Gerwig makes in this film is to allow Barbie to be authentic and present to her experiences. Things impact her; they beg questions that she considers. Why is she having these feelings? Why are people treating her in this way? 

(Compare that with Buddy the Elf from ELF. He, too, is from a fantasy world and enters our world an innocent. But self-awareness and self-reflection is something he learns only very slowly.)

Gerwig and Robbie are careful not to make the objectification Barbie immediately feels too serious. That first section on the beach ends, in fact, with Robbie standing up to the construction workers and saying she and Ken have no genitals.

Then we get this moment where Barbie simply sits by herself on a city bench, taking in what she's seeing around her. She's really feeling things.

Then she turns to look at an older woman, who looks back at her. And it's another one of these moments that goes longer than you would expect, which allows us to really be with them in that moment. (Robbie and the other actress—Ann Roth—are so good.) Then Barbie simply says, "You're so beautiful."

It's all so unexpected and genuine. Once again, it primes us for the depth of emotion that this film is going to deliver.

And also once again, it ends with Gerwig covering her tracks. The older woman stares at Barbie for a second, her face unreadable, and then says, "I know!" They laugh, and so do we. 

4) The Box

At the midpoint, the Mattel execs bring Barbie back to headquarters. And in response to her questions and anxiety, they tell her reassuringly that all she needs to do is get back in the large box they have waiting for her in the corner of the room. 

It's a very funny idea that they would have a human-sized box for a human-sized Barbie. It's yet another of a million ways that Gerwig adapts the ideas of the Barbie doll into the film.

But it's also an incredibly immediate and disturbing metaphor for the experience of women that the film is actually exploring through Barbie's journey. And Gerwig leans into it in wonderful ways: we actually see Barbie get into the box, which is in an of itself unsettling. Then the cords that hold the dolls slowly begin to tighten around her wrists, underlining what a nightmare this is. 

This is a brief moment. The box is never returned to. But the visual metaphor it offers absolutely captures what this film is really about, and where it's going. 

5) The Speech and the Character Head Fake

At the end of Act II, we come to the point that this whole film has been building toward, Gloria's speech about being a woman today.

Even as it begins, with Barbie having given up and Gloria and her daughter Sasha unsure what to do,  Gerwig gives no signal that this is going to be that kind of a moment. 

Instead, Gloria just starts talking about her own life, and the contradictions of it. It's thoughtful, but she's just thinking off the top of her head, reacting to Barbie's collapse. 

Only very slowly does it start to pick up steam. One contradiction leads Gloria to another, and another. America Ferrera as Gloria delivers a master class in how to make a speech feel organic and of the moment. 

And each new thought is put simply and concisely. Gloria is talking about her experience, but the particulars of her life have been stripped away to give us just the essential contradictions, which makes what she's saying immediately accessible and relatable to the audience. Without even knowing how it happened, suddenly we're right there in the middle of it with her, and she's talking about our lives. And the emotion of it all just rises up.

(As someone who wept profusely watching this, I was reassured to read Gerwig's anecdote that when filming the scene she noticed men on the crew crying, too. 'They have their own version of this sense of being trapped,' Gerwig said.)

Part of what makes the scene land so hard is the quality of the writing and performance, that simplicity and resistance to any language or affectation that would make the scene seem artificial or monologic.

And the other part is that Gerwig gives this moment not to Barbie but to Gloria. Given the content,  this moment absolutely couldn't be delivered by Barbie, right? There's just too much life experience behind it. 

But still, in a film called BARBIE, you definitely don't think the big moment is going to come from someone else. And so we don't see that move coming. 

And at the same time, the script has been setting us up to be open to this moment all along. 

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Lots to be learned here. Here's three of my takeaways: 

If you know the expectations of your audience—this movie is going to be silly; the protagonist always gets the big speech/moment—you can use those expectations to surprise them.

Comedy can be a great means of distracting your audience, and a great place within which to hide things.

A visual metaphor can do much work to express the deeper conflicts or themes of your story.

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There are so many great writing techniques in this film. I hope to write about some more over the next week.

(Other things I'm planning to write about soon—GOOD OMENS, Season 2! STAR TREK: STRANGE NEW WORLDS meets LOWER DECKS! OPPENHEIMER!

See you there...)