based on actual events
More so than not, it seems that movies based on actual events have a tendency to romanticize their stories. Or, in the hopes of emotionally prodding their audience, they present an overly sappy version of those events. Thankfully, Spotlight doesn’t fall victim to either of these two trends.
Remember when 3D movies dominated our cinematic landscape? No, not the 1980’s, where blurry red and blue glasses gave way to gimmicky horror films such as Jaws 3D and Amityville 3D. I’m also not talking about the early 2000’s, where 3D was turned over to children’s films, producing flops like Spy Kids 3 and The Polar Express.
From the minute of its inception I had high hopes for Legend. An earlier attempt at a biopic of the infamous Kray twins has largely been forgotten, starring as it did the brothers from Spandau Ballet. But this one, starring Tom Hardy as both Ronnie and Reggie, with a plethora of great British actors in supporting roles, looked promising.
Ever since the glory days of silent cinema, Hollywood has been criticised of running out of ideas. This is why the biopic is the perfect genre for screenwriters and directors. A typical life doesn’t neatly fit into a simple three-act structure, but by highlighting an individual’s greatest successes, and framing them in a way that makes everything else inconsequential by comparison, you can turn something as uninteresting as somebody’s life into a thrilling drama.
I’d be lying if I said it hasn’t lured me into watching a movie or two: the old “Based On A True Story” tagline. The Conjuring, a recent horror release that is based on the true story, involves possessed dolls and physical apparitions and it’s not necessarily something everyone would believe to be true, so how factual can the story be?