Sympathetic protagonists
January is a great time to catch up on all the award-nominated movies as most of them are year-end releases. January is also a month in which Hwood studios have traditionally dumped some of it stinkers — which in part explains why I went to see Paul Blart: Mall Cop today; that and the fact that my son Luke is 8 years old and wants to see every movie he can.
The movie, which was co-written (with Nick Bakay) by actor and star Kevin James, is receiving, how shall we say, a spotty response from reviewers (current Rotten Tomatoes rating: 28%). The apparent target demo is boys between 8–12 with one caveat: These boys must have a lot of patience because the central conceit of the plot — the mall where Paul Blart works, gets taken over by thieves — doesn’t happen until (by my recollection) minute 35, which by today’s standards for this type of movie is 10–15 minutes late, an eternity, I would think, to modern kids.
So what does the movie do for the first half-hour plus? It spends almost all that time establishing the Protagonist’s character, specifically driving home again and again and again why we, the viewer, should feel sympathy for Paul Blart.
NOTE: I hesitate to say “Plot Spoilers Ahead” because this is the type of movie where everything is extremely obvious, but if you really want to see the movie with ‘fresh’ eyes, you can skip the next part of the post.
The dynamics the filmmakers mine in search of our sympathy for Paul include:
* He suffers from acute hypoglycemia
* His medical condition prevents him from achieving his goal: To become a state trooper
* His mode of transportation, not only at the mall, but from his house to work, is a Segway
* He gets chased and harassed on his Segway by a yappy little dog
* He’s fat
* People, especially Stuart (a bully), make fun of him because he’s fat
* His wife only married him to get a green card, then left him
* He’s a single dad living with his mother
* He’s infatuated with a female mall employee (Amy) who is probably out of his league
* His coworkers think Paul is an overzealous schmuck
* His mother posts an embarassing video of him on an Internet dating service
* Twice he intervenes with customers at the mall and both times they totally disrespect him
* He accidentally gets drunk and makes a fool of himself in front of other mall employees including Amy
Underscoring these elements is Paul’s personality: He’s a decent, sincere guy who doesn’t complain, takes his job seriously, and loves his family. And if all that isn’t enough, there’s even a scene where Paul cries about his miserable romantic life.
Bottom line: It all worked with Luke who did feel sympathy for Paul. But how much is enough and how much is overkill?
By contrast, consider filmmakers Jim Taylor and Alexander Payne. Here’s what they have to say about sympathetic protagonists:
Payne agrees: “I never talk about sympathetic characters. Number one, the truth is sympathetic. Number two, we make comedies so we want the movie to be sympathetic…we’re interested in people, we want to see truthful people…we show our love for people precisely by including all aspects [of a character], as many as we can, in the limited form of a two-hour film.” Payne says that if an exec says your protagonist isn’t sympathetic, just say: “It hasn’t been cast yet. That’s the answer.” The right actor can warm the audience up to any role, even if it appears unlikable on the page. Payne: “Why are we interested in Alex in A CLOCKWORK ORANGE? Why are we interested in Michael Corleone? They’re fascinating. What’s more interesting, a cobra or a kitten?” Beware, Payne says, “especially when you’re talking about likeable. Just avoid those discussions, they’re tiring. Don’t get lured into the turf of those discussions, because they’re moronic.”
Perhaps children need a clearly sympathetic Protagonist for whom to root. Maybe it’s only adults can resonate with more morally and personality diffuse characters.
Thoughts?
UPDATE: Some interesting comments that sparked another question. Along with a sympathetic protagonist, is it equally important — especially for movies whose target audience is children — to have unsympathetic antagonists? In Mall Cop, the Nemesis character (Veck), is pretty much a knock-off of Hans Gruber (Alan Rickman) in Die Hard, even to the point of acting like a ‘good guy’ for a period of time. But we learn nothing about Veck to understand his motivation for the crime, no background to provide any shade of empathy for the character: He is painted in pretty broad strokes as a ‘Bad Guy.’ Is this black-and-white approach to ‘Good Guys’ and ‘Bad Guys’ some sort of requirement for these type of movies?
UPDATE #2: Well, as Jeff projected in comments, Mall Cop is raking in the dough. Per the LA Times, its opening weekend haul is $33.8 and should walk to $40M tomorrow with MLK Day. With a production budget of $26M, the movie will definitely be a strong ROI. Sequels almost a lock.
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