Good Twist, Bad Twist

Sometimes, when we think we have a pretty good idea of where the story is headed, films can choose to pull the rug from underneath us with a reveal that takes the story in a whole new direction. In some instances these can leave us thrilled, in awe, and in suspense at how the reveal will play out going forward. In other instances, it can simply leave us confused, apathetic, or at worst, insulted. So just how do you get it right?

A plot twist is a reveal of unexpected information that was previously unavailable to the audience. To justify its place, it needs to have some impact either on the events of the rest of the story, or in re-contextualising the events of the story it takes place in. To work as a moment, it needs to be surprising enough that the audience won’t have seen it coming. To be effective, it has to be in line with the events of the story, so that the audience aren’t taken completely out of it, and are instead actively invested in what the knock-on effects of the reveal inside the story will be. To make it satisfying, do all of that, time it, and act it really well.

With all that in mind, let’s take a look at some famous plot twists in film & TV and see whether or not they hit the mark and what the reasons for this could be.

and lemme just say…BIG SPOILERS AHEADDDDD

Good Twist: The Sixth Sense

The mark of a very good twist is if you can know the reveal going into the movie and still be surprised by it when it happens. Exposure to general media and Lonely Island songs meant I was very much aware of the twist at the end of this film well before I watched it for the first time, yet it still caught me by surprise when the final act came round.

Why it works is that by the time the twist comes round, enough time has passed that a lot of the audience had forgotten that Bruce Willis was shot at the beginning of the film, meaning the shock is real. Bruce Willis’ relationship with Osment’s character is so close that the audience isn’t inclined to question anything between them, yet Osment says lines throughout the film that match up perfectly with Willis’ situation; “they want my help”, “they’re unaware that they’re dead” etc.

The impact of this reveal is one of melancholy as we learn that rebuilding his marriage with his wife, something which had been a goal for the duration of this film, is something he’ll never get to do.

Bad Twist: Squid Game

     In the final episode of Squid Game’s first season, “One Lucky Day”, we find out two key pieces of information about Il-Nam, better known as Player 001. First, that he’s still alive, and secondly, that he was the secret identity behind the competition that he had just appeared as a competitor within. 

     This reveal is flawed for a couple reasons, the first being that it proves to be inconsequential. Within minutes of the reveal, Il-Nam passes away due to previously alluded to health deterioration, thus we’re already back to where we were prior to this reveal. The main reason for his appearance in this episode appears to be to reveal the motivations behind creating Squid Game. Unfortunately, these motivations fail to expand on anything the audience could have deduced for themselves as we’re already well aware that the mortality risk to the players makes the game more interesting, which is a large part of the reason we’ve watched this far. The motivations provided by Gi-Hun here can largely be reduced to the fact that he had a lot of money and was bored, which is quite frankly, given the graphic and disturbing nature of the resultant events, not good enough.

     The biggest flaw behind revealing Il-Nam is still alive is that it re-writes Squid Game’s strongest moment. In the 6th episode ‘Gganbu’, Gi-Hun pairs with Il-nam in a show of friendship and sympathy, only to find out that they will be in fact competing against each other. With Gi-Hun about to lose, he takes advantage of Il-Nam’s dementia to convince him that he’s in fact winning, and before long, he actually does win the game, with Il-Nam believing he has been beaten fairly. This act serves as the emotional climax of both this episode and the season as a whole, only worsened when Il-Nam reveals that he was aware of the deception all along. The impact of this moment is caused by the dawning on Gi-Hun that there is no ethical way to win a game where mortality is involved, but also by the fate that awaits Il-Nam as a result (he is killed by the competitions guards, albeit off-screen). When the latter is retconned by the reveal in the final episode, the shows greatest moment is ultimately made weaker.

Good Twist: Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back

     Oh to have been in a cinema when this first came out. Very few would have seen this twist coming because…well why would you? The twist doesn’t come from nowhere however, with the audience already aware that Luke never met his father, that Luke’s father and “Darth Vader” crossed paths, that Darth Vader was previously on the light side of the force. Is this twist consequential? Well it fuels the tension that builds up over the course of a whole movie that Luke’s newfound connection with Darth Vader may lead him to be seduced by the dark side of the force.

     Most impressive part of this twist? That George Lucas was patient enough to wait until the second movie to reveal it to the world.

Bad Twist: Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker

     Rey is the grandchild of Emperor Palpatine! Who cares! This Tesco-value Empire-reveal not only proves to be inconsequential on the story that follows, with the tension over Rey being seduced by the dark side having already been played out, but it rewrites one of the trilogy’s somewhat stronger moments, during which Rey confronts the reality that her parents were supposedly nobodies, that she came from nothing, and that she has no divine right to be such a pivotal part of the resistance. Overcoming this realisation is part of Rey’s character building, so learning that she need not have felt out of place at all is a bit of a kick in the teeth.

     One litmus test for a good plot twist is how well one remembers the moment itself. If you’ve seen The Rise of Skywalker, you’ll remember finding out that Rey was the grandchild of Emperor Palpatine and probably having some strong feelings about it, but how well can you remember the scene in which it was actually revealed? On the flip side, no one for as long as they live will forget the image of an injured Luke Skywalker in despair as Darth Vader stands over him and delivers that crushing revelation.

Good Twist: The Father

     A fantastic semi-twist that re-contextualises the preceding material, rather than re-writing it. Throughout the movie, we experience events from Anthony Hopkins’ perspective, in which we believe his mind to be rational, and at times buy into the suspicion that those around him are in on something sinister. This feeling remains as Hopkins’ awareness of himself and his environment seem to be stable. It’s only come the end when Hopkins travels through his apartment only to find himself in a nursing home, with cast who had previously been his friends/family appearing as nurses, do we realise the dementia that has been affecting him has been at play throughout the whole movie and has been the cause of its many inconsistencies.

Bad Twist: Stranger Things

     At the very end of season 4, we see a snippet of a Russian lab, where a guard, while selecting a prisoner to be used for testing, tells another guard “No. Not the American.” This is a thinly veiled way of telling the audience that Hopper, the American who had broken into a Russian facility just this episode, only to die off screen, is still alive. The biggest problem with this twist is in the timing of it. The implication that Hopper had died came mere minutes before this, meaning the reveal that Hopper is still alive has very little impact, because the audience has barely had a chance to live in a world where the opposite is true.

Bad Twist: The Undoing, Glass Onion, others

     There are many other works that could fall into this category, but this encompasses instances where the lack of a plot twist is treated as a plot twist in itself. In these two works, the surprise for the audience is that the guilty person behind a crime was in fact the person they thought it was all along, with the hypothesis being that the audience will be so actively expecting a plot twist that the last person they’ll suspect is the supposed ‘prime suspect’.

     The problem with these types of reveal is that it can make everything that preceded it feel like a waste of time. Particularly with instances like these where the guilty person is discovered and made to face consequences for their actions, audiences can wonder why it took characters so long to come to this conclusion when it was practically made obvious at the get-go. 

Good Twist: Primal Fear

     In contrast to the preceding example, Primal Fear is an example of no plot twist functioning as an effective plot twist. Altar boy Ed Norton is accused of killing an archbishop, something that, for much of the film, looks to have been a certainty, until a neuropsychologist unearths a second personality in Norton’s character, one that’s more likely to have committed the murder, which would also explain why Norton has no memory of the event itself. 

     When this second personality reveals itself during the trial, the judge dismisses the jury in favour of a bench trial, and finds Norton’s character not guilty by reason of insanity. Upon visiting him in a cell, Norton’s lawyer discovers that his multiple personality disorder had been faked all along, however it wasn’t the violent sociopathic personality briefly seen during the trial that was an act, but the stuttering altar boy persona we saw at the start. 

     Why this works as a very effective plot twist is that while Norton was assumed to be the prime suspect from the beginning, the misdirection in the middle of the film justifies its presence because that’s what allows him to be found not guilty. We forgive the other characters for having been fooled by Norton because, for quite a while there, so were we. 

Bad Twist: Lightyear

     What this certainly isn’t is me piling in on the Lightyear hate campaign a year late. Lightyear was a genuinely good film with some great jokes, fantastic montages, and an absolutely killer first half. I didn’t find the second half to have as much edge as the first and one real dent in its armour is the plot twist regarding the identity of Zurg. In essence, the reveal is that the human in control of ‘Zurg’ is a version of Buzz Lightyear from the future, who has travelled back in time to undo the mission from the start of the film. This feels almost like a plot twist for the sake of it, as the information introduced is both over-complicated, and doesn’t have much bearing on the story, as present-day Buzz’s motivations (to evade capture, destroy Zurg’s starship, and return to their base) remain unchanged. Further to this, the aesthetic of Zurg being controlled by a much older and slimmer Buzz detracts from both the imposing physical stature of Zurg as well as the mystery around him that made him such a captivating villain in Toy Story 2 despite such little screen time.

Good Twist: Memento

     Memento is a hard film to write about as by its nature, it feels like it exists in a separate plain to almost every other film ever made. Protagonist Leonard is on a hunt to exact revenge on the person who killed his wife, but he suffers from short-term memory loss, and the story is told from end to beginning to reflect this, ensuring that information unavailable to Leonard is also unavailable to the audience. At the end of the film (beginning of the story), we find Leonard killing his wife’s suspected murderer (something he inevitable forgets), only to be told by Teddy that not only is his wife still alive, but he’s been influencing Leonard to take out people he wants killed, knowing he’ll forget it each time. Honestly, just watch the film because trying to summarise it in just a few lines there was one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do.

     In essence though, this plot twist works for similar reasons to many others, despite the films anti-linear structure. It emotes sympathy for the character of Leonard, as we already know that he forgets this revelation about his wife and continues to torture himself searching for her killer. It doesn’t rewrite anything we’ve already seen as the nature of Leonard’s condition means everything that takes place in this film could have happened even with this confession in the air, but it does further illustrate the sinister nature of Teddy (Ralphie from The Sopranos) whom we know that even after revealing everything to Leonard and having got from him what he wants, continues to show up in his life and deceive him at each turn. Honestly, get that man in more films because he sure knows how to play a villain.