Split personality movies...Argh

Jared Meyer

Jared Meyer

Veteran
This type of plot is really starting to drive me nuts.
These movies usually set up an elaborate situation with numerous complex characters, but in the very last scene you find out that one or all of the characters are all really different ASPECTS OF THE PROTAGONIST'S FRIGGIN' PERSONALITY. Usually, the good guy IS the bad guy and doesn't realize it until the end because he's insane.

I'm trying to make a list of movies that utilize this modern day version of "it was all a dream."

A Beautiful Mind doesn't count because that revelation was not the sole purpose of the movie. :)

Anyone?

So far I have:

Secret Window
Identity
Hide and Seek
The Machinist

I know there are a ton more but I can't remember them....
 
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Dont' forget:

Jacob's Ladder
Fight Club (not "all a dream," but two characters who are really one person)
Stay

And of course, the Twilight Zone ep./short French film "Occurrance at Owl Creek Bridge," from the Ambrose Bierce short story, that inspired many of the "it's all a dream" stories since.
 
Ah, right! That's funny that you said "Stay". I just finished it about 20 minutes ago and it inspired the post...

I didn't include it because it almost deserves its own cliche (or quickly becoming so) genre...And I believe the "Ocurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" typifies this also: Where the entire movie takes place in the last few moments of a person's life, the medics, the killer, the people hovering around become characters in a hazy 2 hour dream sequence.

I forgot about "Owl Creek", but after watching "Stay" I immediately thought of "November." These flicks are virtually identical! I can't believe how a movie that's SO plot twist dependant can use the same exact plot twist as a dozen other movies all made within a few years of each other....

It's as if after "6th Sense" we had gottten 20 flicks about how the main character is really dead the whole time. Maybe we did, but I don't remember them. Whatever. They're all classified as "it was all a dream" movies in my book. And therefore not held in very high regard.
 
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I'm afraid I have never seen Psycho. Ouch.

Rope, Vertigo, The Birds, North by Northwest, Rear Window, Dial M for Murder, Notorious, Strangers on a Train, To Catch a Thief, yes.

Guess I'd better see it. :)
 
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The Ed Norton flick where he plays "dumb" with Richard Gere (?) as the lawyer. He snaps later to show he's not crazy.

Oh snap...Ed did the same thing with De Niro in the Heist flick set in Montreal.

He was conscience of himself in one of them...I think.
 
Right, but that's different. I'm talking about flicks that explain any number of characters as aspects of the protagonist's personality. The characters exist only in his head. The protagonist is insane, and realizes this at the climax.
 
Wizard of Oz had that all a dream thing too.

Trailers for Identity made the film seem a lot cooler. Strangers holed up with the same birthday...ok, I'm hooked. I think this film deals with the split personality thing in the end a lot better than most though because there's still tension after you find out.

I think a lotta films would do better if the filmmakers thought they could tell a good story without that huge twist at the end. I'm looking at the Village. That movie would have blown me away if Night had told the story I wanted to see: There's a town in the middle of nowhere with monsters in the woods. But he railroaded his movie b/c he's known for the big twist in the end. I think one of his best movies, Signs, played on this in a great way by having the big twist be: there is no big twist...we set up aliens and there ARE aliens. Cool.

Ain't tryin to hijack the thread with M. Night...just going off the deus ex machina idea of the twist that sinks the whole movie...
 
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