The Soft Ones

Despite the fact that the ‘big’ films everyone’s looking for—like Star Wars, Batman and similar blockbusters—will bring millions to the theatres, and millions to their film’s producers, there are still some small films each year that squeak through. Sometimes they’re studio films, sometimes independents, but what they have in common is the desire to tell us a story with some heart.

As I type that phrase, story with some heart, I almost immediately want to delete it—because what if someone thinks I’m overly sentimental or something? But that gets me thinking, why should I even think that liking stories with heart somehow stigmatizes me?

I think it’s because movies are supposed to wow us these days. They’re supposed to be full of action, hard-hitting, adventurous, wild, chock full of special effects… they’re hard not soft… and year in and year out you follow the money on the studio spreadsheets, and it comes from those hard films.

But occasionally some gems sneak through—films that just tell us a story about a family or people just living their lives. There’s no big theme, no big car chase that’s going to bring people to the theatre, there’s just a story.

One film this year that fits the bill, one of those “soft” films, is Manchester by the Sea. The story of a guy who’s holding it together emotionally as he tries to live his life and deal with things thrown at him that he doesn’t think he can handle, this film can’t help but grab your heart. And as a writer, I’d much rather do that than just wow my audience. This is a film that doesn’t try to show off as it tells its story, it just takes us by the hand into a man’s life and lets us watch how he deals with it. But it’s more than that, it’s the understated way the story is told, in a nonlinear fashion that keeps us riveted to the screen.

Another film, completely different in mood, that wins the “soft” award from me, is Hidden Figures. The story of the women in the early days at NASA who were the mathematical whizzes that allowed the space program to succeed, lets us inside their lives, their dreams, and their nearly insurmountable struggles. And did I mention they’re black? As a friend of mine said, why haven’t I heard about these women?

And that—right there—is what film can do: introduce to the world people and stories we want to know, people and stories that reinforce our humanity.

When I was just starting out in L.A. I’d go to every free talk by a writer I could find, wanting to soak up their wisdom. One time the late Fay Kanin, past president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and an amazing writer, told the story of walking into a room of studio execs at one of the networks to pitch a story. It was a TV film, she’d won awards for her TV films, so she was in demand. One of the execs said, after hearing her pitch, that it was a little “soft” for them. They were looking for hard-hitting films.

She then talked to us about that ‘stigma’ of being soft. For her, important films were about feelings and people’s common struggles and she didn’t plan on changing.

And then, I’ll never forget this moment, she leaned over the lectern in this room crowded with wannabe writers like me, and said, “Soft is what it’s all about. Soft is why you’re here.”

Boy was she right.

So go—defy the odds—write something soft and let it do more than just entertain people, let it move them.

Copyright © Diane Lake

05Feb17

Email Diane a question to Diane@DianeLake.com