In the Blink of an Eye: Discover Your Theme And Trust Your Audience

Episode Transcript: In the Blink of an Eye

At this year’s Sundance, I got to see an advanced screening of In the Blink of an Eye before it premiered on Hulu. And now that it’s streaming, I’d like to share my observations with all of you.

I want to talk to you about three lessons that you can learn from In the Blink of an Eye by Colby Day.

Three Interwoven Stories, One Theme

In the Blink of an Eye is in many ways an adaptation of a Darren Aronofsky movie called The Fountain. Like The Fountain, it takes place over three different time periods, with three different interwoven stories tied together by a theme.

In the past, we have the story of a Neanderthal family. They’re living during the dawn of the age of Homo sapiens, and they’re dealing with the constant threat of death, of being murdered, of being destroyed. But they end up discovering a different kind of relationship with Homo sapiens than they imagined.

In the present, we have the story of Rashida Jones, who plays a brilliant anthropologist who has discovered, clutched in the hand of the fossilized remains of one of these Neanderthals, an object of art—which doesn’t make sense for Neanderthal people.

The Rashida Jones character is trying to navigate this discovery of her life at the same time that she navigates a new relationship with a professor from a different department at Princeton, who seems like he might just be the perfect guy. But she struggles to let people close. And her mom is dying, and that’s going to pull her away from her career and towards taking care of somebody else. So we have two different levels of somebody dealing with death.

And then on the third level, we have Kate McKinnon’s character. This is not a comedic role for Kate—this is a dramatic role. She is playing an evolution of human beings that age much more slowly, and she is floating through space for hundreds of years. Her only companion is an AI system, and she’s trying to get these fetuses to a new planet—the earth having perished—a new planet that can survive.

So we have three different interwoven stories, all connected around the theme of trying to avoid death in a world that is constantly evolving, and that maybe isn’t necessarily evolving in our favor.

In the Blink of an Eye as an Adaptation of The Fountain

If you’ve seen The Fountain, you probably recognize this. The Fountain is also built in three different time periods, with three different stories, with three different figures, all trying to cheat death.

In the past, we have a conquistador searching for the actual Fountain of Youth. In the present, we have a brilliant researcher who is pretty sure he’s found the cure for brain cancer—but not quickly enough to save his wife. And in the future, we have a monk drifting through space in this beautiful bubble, tending to the dying tree of life.

The Fountain has one of the most beautiful trick endings ever, even though it is not a perfect film—where in a way, all of these characters do find the fountain of youth, but they don’t find it in the way they expect. And it’s a Darren Aronofsky movie, so without giving away the ending, you can imagine that the ending in some way is going to be devastating.

In a lot of ways, you could say In the Blink of an Eye is just a happy version of The Fountain. And you could see that, in addition to being a happy version of The Fountain, the writers are starting to attack some of the challenges in the structure of The Fountain—primarily the structure of the journey of the monk and the tree, where there’s no one for him to talk to.

There’s no real feeling of structure and change for that character. And so even though it’s so visually beautiful, it doesn’t end up feeling like it’s totally connected with the other stories, where we really do have characters who are going on profound journeys and making choices that we can understand.

Lesson One: Give a Movie You Love a Twist

Now, I’m not sure that In the Blink of an Eye is totally successful in this adaptation. But nevertheless, there’s a lesson here to learn.

At the center of this piece is a really beautiful premise—not just about the nature of life and death, and the question of if maybe everlasting life really is not a good thing, but also the idea that in a world that is constantly evolving, maybe there actually is hope, and maybe we actually do contain more than we realize.

So there’s something very beautiful at the center of this movie that’s woven through its premise—and it’s really just a reaction to the beauty, the darkness, and some of the flaws of The Fountain.

That’s lesson number one from In the Blink of an Eye: you’ve got a movie you love, or you’ve got a movie you hate—what happens if you give it a twist? Come at it in a slightly different way, and repurpose its structure for your own purposes.

Lesson Two: Theme Is the Glue That Ties Your Movie Together

Here’s lesson number two from In the Blink of an Eye. Let’s talk about theme.

Theme is the glue that ties your movie together. Theme is the thing that makes your movie matter. It’s the journey your character is going on in relation to the story.

I mentioned earlier that I don’t think In the Blink of an Eye totally lands as an adaptation of The Fountain. And one of the reasons I feel that way is because we are waiting for a trick ending that is going to, in some way, twist or outdo Darren Aronofsky’s ending.

Now, without giving away what happens—I don’t want to spoil this movie for you—it’s not that these writers don’t have an answer. It’s that the writers are spoon-feeding us the answer, and as a result, we don’t get to fully feel the hope at the end of it. We don’t get to fully feel the experience.

In fact, we don’t totally get to feel the reaction to Darren Aronofsky’s ending, because the characters are speaking the theme rather than trusting the audience to get it.

Trust the Script to Show Your Theme

If you’ve listened to my episode about How to Divorce During the War, this is exactly the opposite of how that film is working. In this case, the writers are being so careful to make sure you understand the theme at every level that they’re not actually trusting the script to show it to you.

Theme ultimately doesn’t feel totally earned, because there’s a feeling in the writing that the writers knew what they were trying to say from the very beginning, and they simply said it.

What you really want, when theme really lands, is when you, as the writer, end up discovering something on the other side that you didn’t expect to find. That’s what makes the trick ending of The Fountain so powerful, despite the other flaws of the movie. When you get to that ending, you can feel Aronofsky discovering it. You can feel Aronofsky coming to his own much deeper conclusion about loss and death, and what that means in the grand scheme of life.

So theme is the glue that ties your movie together, that ties your show together, that ties everything you write together. But theme is more than just an idea. Theme is a journey.

It’s fine to have your characters talk about theme all you want. Have them explore a theme, have them hit theme with a hammer—but have them wrestle with the theme.

If you are spoon-feeding your theme to the audience, if you’re saying it for the audience rather than for the character, then there’s a good chance that you’re not actually exploring a theme yourself as a writer. That you are up on a soapbox saying, “Hey, think like me,” rather than down there with them going, “I’m trying to make sense of this. Can you?”

Lesson Three: Dialogue Is Not What Your Characters Say

Here’s lesson number three from In the Blink of an Eye: dialogue is not what your characters say.

Now, that might seem like a crazy thing to say. But a lot of us make the mistake of thinking that dialogue is one of two things: it’s either talk, or it’s explanation for your audience. And neither of those things is true.

And it is a beautiful movie, and it’s a really enjoyable ride, and there are some great performances—there’s a lot that I really enjoyed about this movie. But in the same way that you can feel the writers making sure the audience gets the theme, you can feel the writers trying to make sure that the audience gets the characters.

When Dialogue Becomes Explanation for the Audience

An example of this: we have been watching Rashida Jones with her images. We’ve been watching her excavating this hand, and in the center of the hand there is something, and it’s mysterious, and we don’t know exactly what it is. And we can feel the importance of it.

Even cooler than that: in a cut earlier, we watch one of the Neanderthals fall. And then we cut, and we meet Rashida Jones for the first time, and we see this hand and this body, and we go, oh, it must be him.

Right? We’re telling ourselves the story. And this is a good filmmaker—Andrew Stanton, the director. This is a good filmmaker, and you can feel him using his cut to tell us the story, to pull us in.

But when we come to the dialogue, too often the dialogue is there to explain how the characters are feeling. It’s either talk between the two of them, or it’s talk directly to us to say, “Hey, here’s what’s going on. Here’s what matters. Just in case you didn’t understand it.”

We already feel, with Rashida Jones, how important this is for her, because we’ve seen the action of her doing it. But then we have a phone call with her mom where, purely for expositional purposes, purely for talk, she says, “My work is a really big deal, Mom. I might even get published.”

This is a total misuse of dialogue—because we already know it’s a big deal. We can already feel she might get published. We can already feel that this is important, and we know it’s important because we’ve seen the images.

It’s a line that we’ve totally heard before. So even as exposition, it’s not interesting, because we’ve heard it before. But also, she’s not trying to get anything from her mom at that moment.

Whereas if you just sat with: what does she actually want with her mom on the phone? Why is she actually having this conversation? What’s actually going on? We might end up with more complexity in the relationship between her and her mom—the kind of complexity that we end up getting between her and Daveed Diggs. We might actually understand Mom not just as a symbol of death, but as somebody that we actually care about.

Kate McKinnon, the AI, and the Moment That Might Make You Cry

In a similar way, we actually have the same thing with the Kate McKinnon character.

Kate is drifting through space. And she also, just like in The Fountain, is dealing with the death of the tree of life—just like the monk floating in the bubble with the dying tree of life, except she has got someone to talk to. She’s got an AI, and that AI is keeping her alive. It’s her version of HAL, and they have a really sweet, friendly relationship.

In this case, the tree of life is the plants inside the spaceship that keep her alive by producing oxygen during her journey. Some kind of parasite has come into the ship, and now the plants are dying, and they’ve got to find a way to stop it.

Now, there’s going to be a tiny spoiler ahead, but it’s worth it for you. It ends up not working. And Kate and the AI need to make a choice. They’ve got to get these fetuses to this planet so that babies can be born, so that the human race does not end. They’re trying to cheat death—but not both of them are going to survive.

And here’s the spoiler: ultimately, they end up deciding that it is better for Kate to live—not for any good reason, but for plain old luck. So there’s this moment where she’s going to have to shut down her AI.

Again, the writer and the director have done a great job of building a relationship. We understand she’s alone in this spaceship. This is the only person she has on a hundreds-of-years journey.

But instead of trusting their images, instead of finding what’s the one line she wants to say to the AI, they have her deliver exposition. They have her deliver her feelings. They have her deliver, in other words, dialogue. They have her say, “You’re my only friend.”

And that dialogue is not dialogue with the AI. That dialogue is dialogue with you, the audience. That dialogue is the writer and director not trusting their audience.

And because they’re not trusting their audience, they are not allowing you the actual moment that might make you cry. Because dialogue is not talk. Dialogue is an action. It’s a verb that you’re doing in relation to whoever the other character is in the scene. It’s something you’re trying to get, something you’re trying to do.

Wouldn’t it have been beautiful to see what beautiful choice Kate McKinnon makes? What are the words you say to an AI that’s about to shut down that make it feel different? What is the comfort she’s trying to seek from the AI at that moment?

You could find so much more complexity. And then, instead of trying to get the emotion into the dialogue, you allow the audience member to supply their own emotion and fill that space.

The Neanderthal Test: Proof That Dialogue Is Not Talk

Now, I want to talk about the Neanderthals in this piece. The Neanderthals speak an untranslated language that we will never know. And with the Neanderthals, we have no trouble at all understanding who they are, what makes them beautiful, who they care about, what their obstacles are, what’s hard, what hard choices they make, what journey they’re going on.

These characters are literally speaking a language that we don’t know. But through the actions, and through the cuts, and through the storytelling, and through their performances, we are able to feel who they are—even as they speak an unintelligible language.

So that’s lesson number three: dialogue is not dialogue.

And if you want to prove it to yourself—if you’ve got a scene where you are talking directly to the audience, if you’ve got a scene where your dialogue is just talk and there’s no want underneath—see what happens if you replace your dialogue with some Neanderthal language.

Trust Your Audience to Believe the Movie

Because this writer and director have the ability to land this. They show you they have the ability to land this with a third of the movie—the story of these Neanderthals—and with a lot of other scenes where the characters are really just being themselves.

But these few little moments where they’re talking to the audience don’t have the effect of bringing the audience in. They actually have the effect of taking the audience out—of making the audience believe the movie just a little bit less.

So I hope that you enjoyed these lessons from In the Blink of an Eye.