No matter how many times I read or see things in shows, there are times when the writers and/or actors nail an emotion so perfectly, I want to stand up and applaud.
(**SPOILER ALERT** I’m going to be discussing the movie Love Actually and last night’s episode of House)
Emma Thompson is, without question, one of the best actresses on the planet, and her character in Love Actually is one that so many women can relate to. There comes that moment in the movie when she opens her Christmas gift from her husband (played by the amazing Alan Rickman), expecting the gold necklace, and finds a CD instead.
Ugh.
You can actually feel her heart stop. You can feel the instant panic that floods through her as she realizes what her husband has done. She goes into her bedroom, on the pretense of wanting to listen to the CD, but once there, we watch her struggle to get a grip as her whole world starts to crumble. She can’t fall to pieces right now – it’s Christmas Eve for goodness sake and she has two children dressed and ready to make their big stage debuts at the pageant. It’s the most heart breaking scene of the entire movie and I’ve often wondered if any other actor or actress would have been able to pull that off. I wonder if the writers had any idea how impactful those few moments would be to their movie.
On last night’s episode of House, we see him go through a horrible detox. And who is there with him? Cuddy of course. He is truly at his worst during this, but thank goodness it sticks it out because he finally rids himself of Cut-Throat-Bitch once and for all. Then, right at the end, we finally get to see him with a tiny bit of his guard down. Did you see it? She says to him “You want to kiss me right now, don’t you?” And House responds “I always want to kiss you.”
For a sappy romantic like myself, that made the whole show. Not the kiss itself, just him admitting that out loud. It was huge. In this instance, I’m certain the writers knew how impactful it would be, and it was.
When we’re writing, we know exactly which scenes are going to pop off the page and slam our readers, but sometimes, it’s the scenes we’re not expecting that pack the most punch. Obviously, every scene in a book is important, otherwise it wouldn’t be there. Each scene must move the story along, do something, create some kind of conflict or resolution, and sometimes, the scene only needs to be a few lines long to make the biggest impact.
Do you have any favourite books that have done this to you? Any favourite shows or movies that left you awestruck over the way the writers handled a particular scene?
Great post. I hate that scene because I adore Alan Rickman and you can just physically feel her pain. I just want to pound him.
Out of Africa – My kids know to flip the channel pronto when it comes on because I can’t make it out of the movie without a good boo-hoo.
Scenes that always stand out: When Karen Dinesen is at Denys Finch-Hatton’s graveside and recites A.E. Housman’s “To An Athlete Dying Young” — a little over the top, but then she reaches down for a handful of dirt to toss into the grave and just can’t. She walks away, clutching the dirt to her heart. That’s when it all works.
Another Streep moment— Bridges of Madison County — she’s got her hand on the car door, watching Robert’s truck sitting at the stop light too long, waiting for her. You can see the indecision, the longing, in the way her fingers twist around the metal handle.
whew.