Small Story

I saw District 9.

Fabulous movie, I really liked it. And the fact that it was made on a relatively modest budget ($30 million) and not from Hollywood just makes it that much more amazing.

It works so well because they understood to tell the SMALL STORY. Get us involved with a character that we get to know and care about. We humans are selfish little bastards. No matter what’s going on in the world, we’re mostly interested in ME AND MINE.

*********** MINOR SPOILER ALERT ***********

In District 9, a gigantic alien ship hovers precariously over Johannesburg. A million dangerous, nasty aliens are forced to live in squaller. A secret government agency is conducting unethical experiments to monopolize an alien weapon technology for profit.

But the movie’s story focuses on one frightened little man caught up in the middle of it all. He doesn’t care about saving the aliens, or the earth, or stopping the government agency. He just wants to save his marriage and go back to his pleasant life.

It’s something that we can all identify with. Let’s be honest, there might be deadly hurricanes, plane crashes and terrorist bombings all in one day. But unless it hits us directly, we’re more upset about that dude that stole our parking spot and then flipped us off than anything else. That’s just the way we are. We’re ungenerous with our concern unless we’re immediately involved. We’re not evil, we’re just a little self centered.

But District 9 works this to the film’s advantage. It gets us involved with just one guy, Wikus, the protag. And HIS story unfolds against this great backdrop of aliens, secret agencies and mass destruction. He’d avoid all of the big stories altogether if he could. But he can’t and becomes the center of the storm. But we, the audience, never stray very far from Wickus’ small story. He wants to get back his wife and his life.

District 9 isn’t the first movie to do this. Saving Private Ryan comes to mind. I’m sure there are plenty of others. But we’re taught, as screen writers to RAISE THE STAKES. So we do. But that’s often were we go wrong. We’ll put the whole town or the whole world in jeopardy. That raises the stakes for more people but NOT for the protag. Endangering a baby daughter or some other loved one raises the stakes for a protag much more than a bunch of faceless townsfolk.

IMHO staying away from Hollywood NOTES saved this film from becoming the usual soulless CGI extravaganza. Those notes would have been full of instructions to beef up the apartheid angle or the sinister government agency or the possibility of alien invasion (and a reason to make District 10).

Focusing on just one man and his small story worked so much better.