More than anything, I watch movies and TV to be moved and changed.  But how does one move an audience?

  Films that move an audience don’t do so by preaching philosophy or overwhelming them with a barrage of visual propaganda.  They do so by presenting the film’s agenda using one of writing’s most sacred commandments: “show, don’t tell”, or as I like to say “show before you tell”.  Any message, delivered via any medium, is far more compelling if it is understood before it is stated.    

  Ideally, when you deliver some kind of thesis on life, you want your audience to think to themselves “that is so true”.  They’ll only think that when your thesis is something that they already “knew” but had never put words to before.  If the wisdom is fairly surface-level and relatable, then there’s a good chance your audience has subconsciously internalized it by living their day-to-day lives.  In that case, simply verbalizing the message can be sufficiently enlightening. This is often the case in stand-up comedy; good jokes are humorous observations about everyday life that make you think “haha so true”.  However, if your thesis is more controversial or complicated, more work is required to ensure your audience’s subconscious understands your insight before you try appealing to their conscious brain.  

  Compared to other mediums, film is exceptionally and uniquely apt for subconscious suggestion.  It takes far less cognitive effort for a viewer to absorb information watching film than reading text, and unlike audio, film can stimulate an audience both visually and auditorily.  Because of this, effective film can entrance an audience in a holistic and immersive simulation of life in which they vicariously experience a thoughtfully and authentically crafted character’s relationship with the world.  When this happens, a willing audience can sympathize with another’s adversity, condemn their transgressions, relish in their triumphs, revere their prowess, pity their shortcomings, and feel their hurt.  Walk a mile in their shoes.  And just like we all do during our daily strolls through real life, in these simulations we subconsciously internalize (and, in many cases, revise) truths about the world and human nature.  If later those truths are explicitly vocalized to us, we are far more receptive to them than if they’d been presented prior to experiencing the simulation because now they are familiar–we already knew them to be true, or we’ve at least heard them before.

  If this sounds similar to the concept of Inception, that’s because the practice of hypnotic suggestion was the inspiration and basis for that movie.  But these suggestions need to be structured in order to be effective.  If suggestions go in too many different directions, your audience may leave feeling moved, but without clarity.  I think Everything Everywhere All At Once is a bit guilty of this.  The movie is captivating, and the creators clearly understand how to create an immersive simulation.  They also clearly had a lot to say.  Too much to say, in my opinion.  EEAAO professes a framework for how to live life.  But it’s a nuanced framework, consisting of several principles.  At the framework’s core is the principle that one should not take life too seriously, and try to find solace in simple pleasures.  It also professes the importance of being kind, loving and accepting of others, of treasuring loved ones, and of empowering loved ones’ self-discovery rather than stifling them. They’re all fairly simple ideas, but in conjunction they become more difficult to communicate.  Because the film tries to present all of these related, but nuanced, principles rather than focusing on one, instead of leaving the experience with newfound clarity, the audience leaves feeling touched, but disoriented.  Some of this is by design, I think, as the primary suggestion of the film is that there is no inherent meaning to life, and we should try our best to not let the complexity of the world overwhelm us.  But the tradeoff for this is that the movie’s messaging has less of an impact on audiences’ perspectives.

  Suggestions are most effective when they compose a cohesive argument, employing a framework that I like to call “gradually accumulating premises”, or GAP.  Start with something that your viewer can easily understand or surely already knows, then introduce a logical progression from that premise to another one that is easily reached by the viewer from where you’ve led them so far.  You gradually repeat this until you’ve arrived at your main thesis.  It is important to keep each progression sufficiently incremental or you risk losing your viewer along the way.  Each premise is the foundation from which all following premises are built on, so once your argument has moved somewhere that your audience isn’t yet at, it becomes very difficult for them to follow any of the ensuing progressions.  This requires pronounced empathy to understand where your audience is ideologically, and where they can be reasonably persuaded from that point.

  One movie that I think does this extremely well is Finding Nemo.  The film starts with a widely relatable situation: a young couple that’s excited about starting a family.  Then the ensuing premises go something like this:

• Wouldn’t it be horrible if your partner, and all but one of your children was taken from you?
• Wouldn’t you be cautious and paranoid as a result of that trauma?
  • “I’ll never let anything happen to you.”
• Imagine the resentment that breeds in an overly-sheltered child who can’t comprehend what you went through.
• What if your only remaining child then got taken from you (and because of a rebellious risk they took)?
• Imagine how determined you’d be to find them.
• What if, along your desperate journey to find them, you had life experiences that pushed you far beyond your comfort zone, and exposed you to new perspectives and awe-inspiring marvels of the world.
• Even though sometimes you’d face adversity, those experiences would teach you to be a stronger, wiser person.
• Would you deprive your child of having similar experiences?
  • “If you never let anything happen to him, then nothing will ever happen to him.”
• If you give your child a chance to push themselves, to prove themselves, you may be surprised at what they’re capable of.
• Life is more full and beautiful when you seek adventure, even at the risk of loss.

  This progression is artfully punctuated by the final image of the film.  As we see Nemo riding off with his class, and Marlin emphatically wishing him a day of adventure, it is clear that their relationship is more full and loving than ever.  The scene mirrors the introductory image of their relationship, where Marlin is hovering over Nemo’s every move as he sends him off to his first day of school, which ends in Nemo telling his father that he hates him.  The contrast between these images emphasizes the film’s thesis that by allowing children the opportunity to live freely, not only will they be better off for it, but parents’ relationships with their kids will be better off as well.  Because we’ve gone on Marlin’s journey alongside him, we understand why his perspective has changed, as we’ve seen how he’s grown from exposure to uncomfortable circumstances.  We internalize this truth, and leave the simulation with newfound perspective.