Beginning, Middle, End

As a writer, my strengths lie in dialogue, characters, and theme. I've never been particularly good at, or fond of, structure. But I know that structure is a necessary, necessary evil. There must be a beginning, a middle, and an end. The middle should be longer than the beginning and end. That's about all the thought I put into structure during my screenplay's first draft, and I always end up where I want to in terms of page count.

I recently watched Meek's Cutoff, a film about pioneers travelling the Oregon Trail. The film looks beautiful, makeup and wardrobe are fantastic. The sound design is spectacular, an eternal wagon wheel squeak effectively conveys the misery that this journey held for everyone seeking a better life out West. For that alone, this film might be worth watching.

What was most surprising was that Meek's Cutoff didn't have a beginning, middle, and end. It only had a middle, which makes for an odd, unfulfilling movie experience.

MILD SPOILERS

At the beginning of Meek's Cutoff, we learn from an etching that our travelling party of eight used to be larger, but we don't know when the other members died or how. Those who have fallen are never mentioned. The remaining group has already realized that their leader, Mr. Meek, has no clue where he's going, so the slow, burning realization moment is non-existent. We're just travelling with the settlers, dum-de-dum.

A couple interesting plot points occur, but it's all just middle-of-the-road stuff. The settlers are miserable and scared. The level of misery and terror doesn't significantly change during the movie, though it does build, slightly. And then it comes time for everyone to make a final choice. We don't know what choice is made because the movie ends.

I'm all for ambiguous endings. The Handmaid's Tale is one of my favorite books. But I think ambiguous endings need to be executed exceedingly well. Remember all the theatre groans at the end of Inception? Didn't quite work, and I felt the same way about Meek's Cutoff. We ended the same place that we started. Yes, the journey was effective, but we didn't go anywhere.