Over the weekend, I went to see Up In The Air. It’s an amazingly timely movie, though not cheerful holiday fare.
The film as far as it goes is absolutely riveting revealing the price of living a life free from the emotional connections and demands of others, and asks whether or not anything really matters.
George Clooney gives a wonderful performance and there are a number of terrific scenes. But without giving anything else away, I will say this: The film’s missing a third act.
Maybe it’s because I’m a script consultant and writer myself but I find myself always analyzing movies after I have seen them, usually with the people I have dragged along with me.
So, after seeing this movie, my pals (also writers) and I retired to a local wine bar and we each laid out a new third act — one where each of the characters are able to resolve their issues and apply what they have learned. I was particularly excited to see that many of our third acts involved the “new adventure” that I discuss in The Four Magic Questions of Screenwriting.
As an exercise:
Take a movie you saw recently and try writing an expanded or different ending that would satisfy you better. Do you change a happy ending to a sad ending? Do you have different characters end up together? Do your characters embark on a new journey?
