New Year’s Films 10 – New Year’s Eve

It may seem odd that in writing a series of blogs about New Year’s Eve films, I thought about NOT including one titled New Year’s Eve [2011] by Katherine Fugate, because it’s a bit of a hodgepodge of several stories. And I’m not sure it works as a film in total. Similar to Love, Actually, this film attempts to tell several stories that are thematically tied together. But instead of being tied together by an event, they’re tied together by a holiday.

The cast of this film is huge because there are so many overlapping stories being told. But if you’re drawn to these kind of overlapping stories, this film might be worth looking at. Take a look at the trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h_dt27_0vL4

In many ways, this kind of film is like a book of short stories, isn’t it? It’s not a novel where we tell one story and every sub-story relates to it, it’s a book of several stories woven together because of the time in which they take place—in this case, New Year’s Eve.

I think the film comes across as just too busy, and unlike Love, Actually, the stories don’t intertwine as well as they could.

And maybe that’s the key. If you want to tell a series of small stories, you have to weave them together in such a way that they make a movie.

Whether or not you’d ever want to write a film like this that’s a series of vignettes, I’d encourage you to give it a try. You don’t need to write the whole thing, but map it out. Come up with 8 or 9 stories and think about how you could weave them together. Look at New Year’s Eve and note the kinds of stories that are being told. Don’t do similar stories, come up with your own.

For example, imagine a New Year’s Eve during a pandemic. What sorts of characters could you write about? A nurse at the local hospital, perhaps? An anti-vaxer who’s decided to part with his vehement anti-vaxer friends and get vaccinated so that he can spend New Year’s with his grandkids? Maybe a restaurant manager whose wife is pregnant and he’d rather be with her as she’s so close to term, but the restaurant needs him on New Year’s Eve. And how about a teenager who is going to a dance with a guy but she’d rather be going with his sister as she’s realized she’s not into guys.

And on and on and on.

Sit down and come up with 25 possible stories. Then see if you can pick the best 8 or 9 to try and intertwine.

As I say, you don’t have to write the film—but the exercise of coming up with all he ideas could lead you somewhere you never thought you’d go. Give it a try!

Copyright © Diane Lake

06Mar22

Email Diane a question to Diane@DianeLake.com