Movie Plots: Doing the Twist

The Usual Suspects' twist at the end: a delight or an insult to the audience?

In a film’s plot, a twist is the revelation of new information, which surprises the audience and makes them reconsider what they know about the story so far. If carefully prepared and executed, a twist can be a moment of great delight.

Plot Twist Placement

One common misunderstanding is that a twist only happens at the very end of a film. In fact, twists appear anywhere in a story.

Both sister and daughter? That's too twisted, even for Jake Gittes.

When Faye Dunaway shouts “She's my sister and my daughter,” several scenes before Chinatown’s finale, she causes a major twist, which becomes the catalyst for the story’s resolution.

Bill Murray’s realisation that he lives the same day for a second time is the film's inciting incident; a twist that happens not far from the beginning of Groundhog Day, setting the story’s major conflict and giving him the whole film to resolve it.

Friday the 13th franchise: Jason keeps coming back to life; a twist that everyone expects.

Supernatural slasher films, like of the series Friday the 13th or A Nightmare on Elm Street, start and finish with the dead killer coming back to life, to continue his murder spree. This is a twist of which the purpose is not to surprise, but to fulfill the audience’s expectations for these films’ genre conventions.

It is obvious that, depending on their placement, twists have different functions in story structure. Nevertheless, the twist at the end is the one with the biggest effect, determining the audience's utter satisfaction or disappointment.

Problems With the Twist at the End

Problematic twists usually appear near the end of films, because it is the most difficult part for the screenwriter to pull off. A twist near the beginning, however absurd, can still be promising and lead to a strong story, as long as the issues that it brings are resolved later. Such, for example, is the case of Groundhog Day.

As a story progresses towards the end, though, the audience knows the characters inside out and expects a satisfying resolution, according to what has happened so far. Anything else feels artificial or random.

Examples of Problematic Twists at the End

The policeman is as amazed -and as fooled- as the audience.

Although many may argue with this opinion, the end of The Usual Suspects is an example of a very problematic twist. However impressive it may be, it comes from nowhere, without any setup that could justify it as meaningful. Moreover, it expresses a hubristic stance that the screenwriter is superior to the audience he has amazed, because he can exploit their suspension of disbelief. He creates and cancels plot as he likes, taking the audience for a ride just as his devilish villain Keyser Söze swindles the policeman. Not only is the twist unsatisfactory, but it also pushes the boundaries of storytelling morals, as the writer gains the impressions, but loses our trust.

How can you be saved, after you have danced with the devil? By introducing an "It was all a dream" twist.

In The Devil’s Advocate, the final twist shows that the whole film has been only a flash-forward and the protagonist has a second chance to make the right decisions. A problematic resolution that causes the audience's empathy for the protagonist to disappear. We, real people, seldom have second chances in life and, unless one is a psychic, even less common are flash-forwards. If the ending of The Devil's Advocate left you a bit dissatisfied, maybe this is the reason.

In Wild Things, there is a series of final twists that form a sequence of false endings. The result is that the story has no real conclusion -and who cares?- as the false endings undermine the power of the real one. The audience’s empathy for the characters and concern for the outcome is gone. (False endings are explicitly ridiculed in Robert Moore's 1976 comedy Murder by Death.)

The Sixth Sense’s Success

The Sixth Sense has a frequently discussed and utterly satisfying twist, the success of which lies on the following elements:

• Its setup and payoff process is a masterpiece, executed without leaving the audience feeling cheated. If we watch the film for a second time, we are satisfied to see that the screenwriter pulls off such a storytelling stunt in an honest and respectful to the audience way.
• It is meaningful: it finally explains Bruce Willis's ruined marriage - he has lost his wife because he is, actually, dead.
• It is ironic: a little boy who can see the dead learns to accept his powers with the help of a dead man.
• Although the twist is meaningful, the story doesn’t rely on it to have meaning. The story's main tension is resolved before the twist: dead or not, Willis helps the kid accept his supernatural powers.

A Twist Steals the Show

A successful twist can offer great delight to the movie-goers. There is, however, the question of whether a good story is helped by an overwhelming twist. It is very likely that The Sixth Sense’s masterpiece twist helped the film’s box office numbers; several people may have watched this $40m-budget film at least twice, contributing to the film's worldwide gross of almost $673m. It may be a little unfair, though, that most people hardly remember anything other than the final twist at the end of a very touching story.