Tuesday, September 22, 2009

            Jennifer’s Body, the new film from Academy Award winning writer Diablo Cody and director Karyn Kusama, is interesting to say the least, but falls flat on several levels. However, the story structure is worth examining more closely as it is an example of three-act structure with a few minor modifications.

            Jennifer’s Body is a story about “Needy,” an unassuming and nerdy high school girl and her more popular and outgoing best friend, Jennifer. Act one, like any structurally sound three-act film, is about getting to know the characters and sets up the rest of the film. In act one of Jennifer’s Body, Needy is currently in a mental institution, where she recounts the events that ultimately put her there. We first learn about Jennifer and Needy’s relationship. We understand that although she is more popular, Jennifer is very insecure and Needy has accepted herself, partly to thank to a healthy relationship with boyfriend, Chip. After Jennifer drags Needy to a bar to see local indie rock band, Low Shoulder, the bar burns down, but the duo escapes. Jennifer, who previously flirted with the lead singer and hinted that she may be a virgin, leaves with the band in their van. After Needy returns home, Jennifer arrives bloody and beaten. As Needy tries to determine what is wrong with her, Jennifer’s animalistic instincts take over. She barks at Needy and vomits a black substance. Clearly, the story is set in motion at the end of act one. We have been introduced to the characters and are curious to solve the dramatic problem in act two: What is wrong with Jennifer?

            In act two, Jennifer murders and eats the boys in her high school to sustain herself. Needy tries desperately to figure out what is wrong with her best friend and in one scene, after she suddenly stops having sex with her boyfriend because she sees Jennifer eating another boy, she returns home to find Jennifer in her bed. Jennifer explains that the band sacrificed her that night, but because she was not a virgin, she is now only a demon. Needy studies Jennifer’s “condition” and learns that she must be a demon who eats boys to stay alive. In order to save her boyfriend, Needy decides she must drive a stake through Jennifer’s heart in order to stop her. In act two, the stakes rise and the action continues, which takes us all the way to act three where Needy, the protagonist, makes a new decision.

            In act three, instead of trying to help Jennifer or let her continue to get away with murdering high school boys, Needy takes an active role in trying to stop her. Needy and her boyfriend break up because Needy’s obsession with stopping Jennifer has taken over her life. At prom, Jennifer kills Needy’s boyfriend, which leads into the final climactic sequence between the best friends, where ultimately Needy kills Jennifer by driving a box cutter through her heart. The story then returns to Needy in the institution, who later breaks out and attempts to exact revenge on the band that sacrificed her friend.

            Overall, the film falls flat in several areas, like dialogue and humor and is unsatisfying in terms of how scary it is. However, Jennifer’s Body is a classic example of three-act structure. In act one, we are introduced to the protagonist and antagonist and a dramatic problem is set up. In act two, the problem is explored and ultimately made worse. In act three, the problem is solved when the protagonist and antagonist have their final showdown. Jennifer’s Body follows this structure closely, but with a few minor adjustments, like changing perspective between Needy and Jennifer, flashbacks and flash forwards and the use of epilogue as Needy narrates the story from her cell at the mental institution. Overall, a disappointing and unsatisfying film, but worth studying because it follows classic three-act story structure closely.

1 comment:

J. Schneider said...

Sean,
This could have been a strong post with a small adjustment in your thesis:
"However, the story structure is worth examining more closely as it is an example of three-act structure with a few minor modifications."

"A few minor modifications" is the meat of your argument, and yet you busy it in the last paragraph! Don't bury your assertions, put them right at the top so the reader knows what, exactly, you're trying to prove! As it stands, the fact that the film follows 3-act structure is not, in and of itself, noteworthy. Many films do. You do provide a brief list of these "modifications", but you don't elaborate on how these modifications interrupt classic narrative strategies. (Fyi, flassh forward/backs are not true outliers to 3act structure). Your best note is the use of epilogue. Were you to develop this into an essay, I would tell you to examine epilogue as a narrative device in this film, and to ask yourself how it works with or against the more conventional aspects of story structure.