It can be tempting to regard the entire third quarter as a string of betrayals, reversals, and assaults, but it’s important to remember that this is all happening now for a good reason: The hero is finally tackling the problem head on.
- After pretending to be poor in the first half of Sullivan’s Travels, our hero really loses everything.
- Max in Rushmore learns to struggle through public school.
- The prince in The King’s Speech finally agrees to talk about the troubled childhood that caused his stutter.
- The heroes of Fatal Attraction and Silence of the Lambs both admit they lied their way through the first half of the story and try to reestablish trust.
- The heroes of Some Like It Hot, Tootsie, and The Talented Mr. Ripley, on the other hand, continue to lie throughout the third quarter but have to deal with the steadily increasing consequences of those lies.
The 40 Year Old Virgin | YES, he pursues a relationship with Trish. |
Alien | YES, they try to kill it. |
An Education | NO. She ignores evidence of further criminality and becomes more delusional throughout the 3rd quarter. |
The Babadook | YES. She brings her husband’s violin back upstairs. |
Blazing Saddles | YES. he decides that he must really save the town to win them over. |
Blue Velvet | YES. he admits his secret investigation to Sandy’s father, admits his voyeurism to Sandy. |
The Bourne Identity | YES. It’s somewhat reversed in this movie, as he spends the second quarter solving the mystery and the third quarter on the run from his investigation, but he’s definitely more grim and resolved in the second half. |
Bridesmaids | Barely. She mostly quits and cocoons, except a half-hearted attempt to bake for the cop. |
Casablanca | YES. he takes control of the situation. |
Chinatown | YES. He looks past the surface of things, demands the truth out of Evelyn and others. |
Donnie Brasco | YES. goes full mobster, freezes out wife. |
Do the Right Thing | YES. Somewhat. He actually visits his son and Tina, he confronts Pino more directly, etc. |
The Farewell | YES. She confronts Grandma’s doctor and tries to convince the family to tell her, but the doctor and her family talk her out of it. |
The Fighter | YES. He finally tries to make it without Dicky. |
Frozen | NO. No, Anna becomes passive, than she tries another easy way (kissing Hans) |
The Fugitive | YES. he determines to find the one-armed man himself. |
Get Out | YES. Well, he can try, but he’s pretty powerless. |
Groundhog Day | YES. First suicide, then honesty with Rita. |
How to Train Your Dragon | NO. Not really. He was really trying the hard way (doing it all himself) before, and now he’s trying the easier (and better) way, working with his classmates. |
In a Lonely Place | NO. He remains in denial until almost the end. |
Iron Man | YES. Goes and disarms the guys himself, then comes to deal with Stane, but it’s too late. |
Lady Bird | YES. but this is the sort of movie where “the hard way” is also “the bad way” She drops theater and her best friend Julie, pursues a bad friend and bad boy, through subterfuge. |
Raising Arizona | YES. They take off to get their baby back. |
Rushmore | Yes and no. He’s still pretty delusional, but he starts working harder. |
Selma | YES. He puts out the call for activists from around the country, though he knows he’s putting them in deadly danger. |
The Shining | YES. everybody takes everything more seriously from this point on. |
Sideways | YES. Eventually. He finally goes to the restaurant to ask about her, but misses her, but she reaches out to him the next day. |
The Silence of the Lambs | YES. She tells Lecter everything about her past |
Star Wars | YES. Infiltrates the Death Star |
Sunset Boulevard | Not at first, he becomes an aimless gigolo, but then he reconnects with Betty and begins to sneak out to see her at night. |
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