Foundations of Story Blog 4: The Character Arc

A character arc is definitely a great thing to have in a film. It can be very gratifying for the audience to see change in a character that they’ve been following – or to see this character cause change in others. In District 9 (to give a somewhat recent example), we want the unfeeling, selfish bureaucrat to realize that the aliens are just like him, and that sectioning them off (in a parallel to apartheid) is wrong, and we are happy when he puts his life on the line for them. In Citizen Kane, Charles Foster Kane has a character arc in the opposite direction: He goes from being a man out to help the people of America to being just like (or even worse than) every other rich fat cat – He wants everything in his life to be perfect, and even sacrifices his relationship with his wife to help his political career. This arc makes the realization at the end that all he wanted was the true happiness of his childhood all the more effective.

But is a character arc needed in a movie? Can there a movie where no characters change at all be just as compelling as a movie where a character shows noted change or growth? I think the answer is yes, but that it would be a very hard thing to actually do. It’d be tough to have a character remain unchanged in a movie – or to tease change or trick the audience into thinking the character has changed, only to reveal that the change has not happened without making the audience feel robbed of something they deserved. Would The Game have been more compelling if Nicholas stormed into the CRS building demanding the location of his money instead of the location of his brother? Probably not, but it might be if the audience is lead to believe he’s doing it for his brother until, say, the scene on the rooftop. That’s just my opinion, though – I like twists, and I would especially like one that play not just with our expectations of what would happen in that movie, but what would happen in all movies.

I can say, though, that Erin Brockovich wouldn’t have been as interesting if George and Ed Masry hadn’t become more compassionate, or that Seven wouldn’t be seen as nearly as distinctive as it is if John Doe didn’t win in the slightest at the end, and Mills, his wife, and Somerset had gone skipping off into the sunset. So, yes, not including a character arc and managing to make the audience not feel cheated would be a hard thing to do, but it’s possible, and I would like to see someone try it, or watch a movie where someone did (I can’t say I’ve seen or heard of one).