The Hangover Analysis Part 6 – Wrap Up

(SPOILERS: The Hangover)

So here’s what I’ve learned by my in-depth analysis of The Hangover (written by Jon Lucas & Scott Moore):

First and most surprisingly, the movie uses far more character based humor than broad raunchy comedy. It’s definitely a hard-R comedy, with graphic nudity, drugs and “adult situations.” And it delivers on the outrageousness of the premise. This is no small thing. You are promising the audience something with your hook, so you better deliver. I’ve seen many disappointing movies and even more disappointing scripts that don’t live up to the promise of their premise.

The central concept of The Hangover – three groomsmen lose the groom after a wild bachelor party in Vegas – promises that the events of the bachelor party will be wild. If it was just a normal drunken bachelor party we would be disappointed. But the movie delivers: marriage to a stripper, stealing a tiger and a police car, throwing a gangster naked into the trunk of a car, date rape drugs, Mike Tyson, a baby in the closet, a missing tooth… definitely not your average bachelor party.

Yet most of the laughs come from the characters’ reactions to these events. The core of the humor is three very different guys reacting to the wild situations in very different ways.

Stu’s uptight dentist character is a great source of comedy. Craziness happening to a crazy guy is expected; when it happens to a mild mannered guy it’s hilarious. Add to that Alan’s man-child with his bizarre but emotionally vulnerable view of each situation and you get more humor. (Phil is less funny. His role is to provide an element of “cool” so the group doesn’t come off as a bunch of losers… he’s the straight man that makes them relatable.)

My second big observation is that the movie spends a lot of time making us care about these guys. I think this is a key reason why The Hangover rose above so many raunchy comedies – even ones that had more outrageous humor – and found love from a broad, mainstream audience. And it probably also explains why a completely uninspired sequel also succeeded.

The way The Hangover gets us to care about the guys is no mystery: strong dimensional characters, clever character introductions, and ample scenes of preparation and aftermath to let us check in with the guys’ emotions.

The movie’s structure was more interesting, particularly creating an early catalyst to keep the audience hooked during a long status quo section. This allowed for unusually deep character development.

Also, the use of a mystery structure (and advertising, planting and payoff) to move us through an episodic concept was an inspired technique. The movie would not have been nearly as enjoyable if we followed the guys through their wild night in a more traditional way. The amnesia effect of the drug allows us to see the characters’ reactions as they find out what’s happened to them. And in a way, not seeing the events allows us to imagine something even more crazy than anything actually shown. It’s a bit like Jaws – the shark is scarier when we don’t see it.

So that wraps up my analysis of The Hangover. I’d like to also let you know that my sister, young adult novelist Chris Eboch, has published a book on plotting. It includes a tool she uses for identifying and fixing plotting problems in the rewrite or outline stages, as well as essays and articles on plotting from a variety of other writers – including one on three act structure from yours truly! It’s designed for novelists, but if you replace the word “chapter” with the word “scene” it’s also useful for screenwriters.

It’s called Advanced Plotting. It costs $9.99 in paperback but until September 1st is available for a mere 99 cents as an eBook.

The Hangover Part Five – Preparation and Aftermath

(SPOILERS: The Hangover)

Last time I talked about the set pieces in The Hangover (written by Jon Lucas & Scott Moore). Today I want to look at some of the scenes of preparation and aftermath that surround them. Scenes of preparation and aftermath are important in a movie because they allow us to touch base emotionally with the characters and “lay the pipe” for the bigger scenes.

The most obvious aftermath scene actually rises to a set piece in its own right: the scene where the guys wake up with their hangovers. They discover all kinds of strange things – Stu’s missing a tooth, there’s a tiger in the bathroom and a baby in the closet. It’s all hilarious, but we also see Stu’s panic and Phil’s amusement, letting us connect with their characters’ emotions.

One of the things I think made The Hangover so successful is we really care about these three guys. That emotional attachment comes in the down time between the big comedic moments where we can see the characters react to what just happened and express their expectations of what’s to come.

One of the best examples of that is the scene where the guys are waiting for their car in the impound lot. Stu is pissed off at the way the cops have just treated them. But Alan is worried. He confides to Phil that he fears something really bad may have happened to Doug. Phil comforts him, and then Stu tries to reassure him with a new plan – to search the car for clues.

It’s neither a particularly funny nor particularly memorable scene, but it is important because it reminds us that there’s a person they care about who might be in danger. This gives the story emotional stakes. We care about the outcome because we care about these guys.

I mentioned the interlude in the Tyson/tiger set piece last post, when Stu plays piano and sings. It’s a goofy moment, but it does remind us of those emotional stakes, particularly with the last line: “But if he’s (Doug) been murdered by crystal-meth tweakers, well, then we’re shit out of luck.” The moment plays for emotion, not laughs.

Each time we pause for these reactions, the guys’ fear has escalated. In the breakfast scene Stu’s a little worried, Phil and Alan less so. But they assume it’ll be pretty easy to find Doug. In the aftermath of the wedding chapel scene, and the attack of the bat wielding thugs, they’ve started to realize things got more out of control the previous night than they thought. In the impound lot Alan worries that Doug might be dead, which spreads to the other guys in the musical interlude of the tiger scene. Finally, after they discover Mr. Chow’s hostage is not their Doug, they’ve given up all hope.

Aftermath scenes are also useful to give us the closure of the happy ending. We end the movie with the guys at the wedding looking at the pictures on the camera together and reveling in their adventure and friendship. It’s not a plot scene, it’s a scene that gives us a resolution to the emotional journey.

Preparation and aftermath scenes can serve another function – setting up the bigger set pieces. They give you an opportunity to plant things you will need and perhaps deal with some exposition. For example, the waking up scene plants many of the clues that the guys will need to piece together their lost night.

The waking up scene is followed by the breakfast scene where the guys start making their plan to find Doug – a scene of preparation. They lay out their plan to follow the various clues, starting with the hospital. These scenes are the mortar between the bricks that are building the story.

Different kinds of movies need different things from their preparation and aftermath scenes. Because it’s a broad comedy, The Hangover uses its preparation and aftermath scenes primarily to connect us with the characters as human beings so we care about the outcome of the slapstick comedy.

The Hangover Part Four – Set Pieces

(SPOILERS: The Hangover)

The term Set Piece is generally used in the film business to mean elaborate action scenes or elaborate comedic scenes. I believe you can extend the idea to all genres. I define set pieces as the scenes that pay off whatever genre you’re in – the scary scenes in horror movies, the emotional scenes in dramas, the romantic scenes in romances.

The Hangover (written by Jon Lucas & Scott Moore) is a fairly broad, raunchy comedy. Often these types of movies rely on five to eight wild set pieces. Much of the rest of the movie is devoted to building up to these scenes – and to the character’s emotional storyline, of course. The big, hilarious set pieces are what really give the movies their impact.

For example, Bridesmaids (written by Kristen Wiig & Annie Mumolo) has the wedding shop set piece and the bridal shower set piece among others. There’s Something About Mary (story by Ed Decter & John J. Strauss, screenplay by Ed Decter & John J. Strauss and Peter & Bobby Farrelly) has the hair gel set piece and the pork and beans set piece among others. These are what we talk about with our friends after the movie.

Thus I was surprised to find that The Hangover doesn’t have the same kind of elaborate, contained set pieces. It tends to operate more like a softer romantic comedy or buddy comedy, mining most of its humor from the character interactions. Considering the rather outlandish premise and how funny the movie is, I wasn’t expecting that.

The Hangover does have set pieces. But rather than build into escalating physical comedy like I anticipated, they tend to move quickly from concept to concept, getting a few gags from the characters in each situation.

Here are the scenes I identify as comedic set pieces, in order: Waking up in the morning, the wedding chapel, the police station, Mr. Chow in the trunk (short but hilarious), taking the tiger to Tyson, Mr. Chow arriving with the hostage, and the race back to L.A. That’s seven set pieces, in line with my general feeling that movies need from five to eight.

So let’s examine one of the bigger ones in more detail: the police station. This consists of several connected scenes. First, we get the guys handcuffed in the lobby. Phil makes a call to the bride and lies to her so they can stay another day. Meanwhile a group of kids are being given a tour and warned not to end up like our heroes. Humiliation and lying – comedy staples.

Next we go into the interrogation room with a couple of nutty cops, and Phil tries to talk their way out by pointing out how embarrassing it will be for the cops that they lost their patrol car. This leads to a twist where they are freed in return for being part of a Taser demonstration. These kinds of twists are critical to effective set pieces.

The whole sequence builds nicely to a physical comedy climax. The final scene itself escalates from Stu getting shocked (the surprise reveal of what the demonstration is), then Phil getting shocked in the groin, then finally Alan getting shocked in the face and then needing a second shock before he goes down.

We also get a nice call back (a type of plant-and-payoff) – the kid who shocks Alan is the one who took a picture of him in the lobby, and whose camera phone Alan kicked out of his hand. That moment shows the value of suspense in comedy. We’ve seen the effect of the Taser on the other guys so we’re afraid of what will happen to Alan. As the kid walks slowly forward, steely eyed, and the cop narrates the intensity, the delay helps build anticipation that leads to a big laugh when the Taser finally hits.

See what I mean about the set piece moving quickly from situation to situation? Rather than develop the interrogation, for example, into a long scene, the writers glide quickly from the waiting room to the interrogation room to the classroom, landing a handful of gags at each stop and moving on.

Other set pieces demonstrate some different comedic techniques. For example at the end of the wedding chapel scene, Stu takes a call from his girlfriend who he’s lied to, saying the guys are in wine country. As he tries to maintain this lie, a couple of thugs come out of nowhere and begin beating the car with bats. The creative lie is a comedy staple and the key is to throw increasing obstacles and increasing elaboration.  Layering the phone call over the bat attack increases the hilarity of both.  The Hangover comes back to Stu's lie repeatedly for comedic payoff.

As I mentioned, The Hangover gets a lot of its comedy from the differing character reactions. So in the scene where they’re drugging the tiger, we get Stu’s anxiety because he lost the rock-paper-scissors contest and Alan’s funny bit about how tigers like pepper but hate cinnamon.

That sequence also demonstrates a couple of good examples of preparation in opposition. They’ve drugged the tiger so of course it must wake up (a twist). We probably anticipate that, but to make it work they have Alan ask a stupid question about Haley’s comet. We’re chuckling at Phil and Stu’s reaction when the tiger sits up behind them – and that contrast gives us the big laugh.

We see that again when they’re watching the security footage at Tyson’s. Phil is trying to smooth things over by talking about how majestic the tiger is, and right then on the security tape we see him simulate sex with the animal. That visual is amusing on its own, hilarious when set up by his pretentious speech.

It’s a little dangerous to over analyze humor. People try to create a formula for funny all the time, and it never seems to work. You have to go with your gut and hope your gut is funny. However, understanding things like preparation-in-opposition and plant-and-payoff as general writing techniques can help you strengthen your innate sense of humor by integrating the jokes more artfully into your story line.

The Tyson/tiger set piece also has a nice scene of preparation/aftermath in the middle. You need these kinds of scenes to build up the set pieces. I’ll take a look at how The Hangover uses preparation and aftermath in my next post.

The Hangover Part 3 - Elements of the Future

(SPOILERS: The Hangover)

Last time I discussed how the mystery structure and the “ticking clock” of the impending wedding helps pull you through what could be viewed as a rather episodic series of comedy situations in The Hangover (written by Jon Lucas & Scott Moore). There are a couple of other techniques I notice that the movie uses to help maintain forward momentum.

The first is advertising. Advertising is a technique we use to keep the audience looking forward in the story and to build up the big set piece scenes. It’s not much more complex than that – let the audience know something important is coming. The wedding is an obvious example of that in The Hangover.

Each time the heroes call the bride or talk about their roles as groomsmen, it’s a reminder that a wedding is planned. It builds anticipation – what will happen when the time for the wedding arrives? Of course we wonder whether the guys will find Doug and get back to L.A. in time. But whether they succeed or fail, we expect some kind of big payoff scene. The only thing that would be disappointing is if we never actually got a scene at the wedding!

Another example is Mr. Chow demanding the return of his purse for Doug, whom the characters (and we) believe he is holding hostage. He gives a deadline and a location for the exchange. Now we have something to look forward to as the characters set about trying to come up with the money that is supposed to be in the purse.

In a way, many of the clues in the room advertise future events. We know that certain ones will need to be explained – the baby and the tiger, obviously, must be dealt with. This again gives us things to look forward to. And as the guys follow the trail, many scenes advertise the next scene. For example, the doctor tells the guys they came from a wedding. We’re interested – who got married? When we learn it’s Stu and see pictures of him with his wife, we wonder what will happen when he meets her - the next scene.

The clues and their eventual explanation are also examples of planting and payoff. This technique helps tie the pieces of the movie together. For example, the ring belonging to Stu’s grandmother is planted in Act One when he tells the guys his proposal plan. It’s paid off when he sees it on the stripper’s finger. And then paid off again when she gives it back to him. This kind of connection running through the movie knits the scenes together so they feel like part of a coherent whole.

Planting and payoff also helps with believability. We see Alan reading a book on card counting in Act One when the guys are driving to Vegas. It’s emphasized because Doug has been warned not to let Alan gamble. Then when the guys decide to count cards to raise the money they need for the ransom, we don’t question their ability to do it. It was planted way back in the beginning.

The mystery structure, ticking clock, and advertising give The Hangover a sense of energy and momentum. The various plants and payoffs knit everything together. Then the writers are free to throw in all kinds of wacky shenanigans without losing story focus.

I’ll continue my analysis of The Hangover next time by discussing set pieces.

The Hangover Analysis Part 2 – Structure

(SPOILERS:  The Hangover)

The concept for The Hangover (written by Jon Lucas & Scott Moore) is pretty straightforward, so it’s interesting that the structure is a bit unusual. 

The Dramatic Question of the movie is “Will the guys get Doug to his wedding on time?”  You might first assume that it’s “Will they find Doug?” but that’s really only the question of the second act.  Finding him is a big goal, certainly, but the key is to get him to the wedding.  This is nice because the wedding provides a strong ticking clock to the story.

From a plot standpoint, the catalyst is when the guys discover Doug is missing.  But this comes late in the movie – about a fourth of the way in.  Normally it would be tough to sustain audience interest for that long without revealing what the crux of the movie is.  However, this plot catalyst isn’t actually where the audience is made aware of the dramatic question.  That comes just a few minutes into the movie during a flash forward when Phil calls the bride and tells her the wedding “ain’t gonna happen.”  We then go back two days for the set up.

Now, in linear form this phone call actually takes place late in the story.  But from an audience perspective it becomes, in effect, the catalyst.  We have some characters – though we don’t really know who they are yet – and a dilemma – the wedding may not happen.  The context of the phone call is vague so we don’t know that it’s from late in the plot.  But we do understand what the movie will be about, and thus this becomes the catalyst.

The next question I would ask is “does this help the movie?”  I think it does.  It allows the filmmakers to then unroll a lengthy status quo period where we get to know the groomsmen.  Then when the true catalyst comes about twenty-five minutes into a movie that only runs ninety-six minutes, we haven’t lost interest.  We know right off the bat what the conflict of the movie will be.

From here the three-act structure is pretty straightforward.  The end of act one is only a few minutes later when the guys go to breakfast and decide they have to assemble the clues of their lost night to find Doug.  The midpoint is when they get the car back – a seeming high point with an added complication in the form of naked Mr. Chow.

The end of act two is when they discover that the hostage they’ve just ransomed back is not the Doug they’re looking for.  All the clues have come to a dead end.  Phil prepares to make the fateful phone call to declare the wedding is off.

The epiphany comes very quickly after that – before the phone call is completed.  It’s when Stu realizes where Doug actually is.  This is a bit unusual.  More often we have a period of extended aftermath after the act two turning point.  But The Hangover doesn’t seem to suffer because we know how devastating this development is.  The whole movie has prepared us for it.  The resolution, of course, comes when they get Doug to the wedding in the nick of time.

There’s another structural construct that the Hangover takes advantage of – a mystery.  Just like any regular detective mystery, the guys follow a series of clues, from one to the next, trying to unravel what happened.  This is a great device because it pulls us forward through the comic set-pieces without a lot of plot manipulation on the part of the writers and without it becoming episodic.

The key to making this work is that one clue really does lead to the next.  They know Phil was in the hospital so they start there.  The doctor is able to point them to the wedding chapel.  From there they learn about Jade and get her address.  And so on.  Each stop along the trail allows an opportunity for a comedic set piece.   The irony is that all these clues end up being red herrings.  The one real clue that solves the mystery is the mattress.

Actually, I don’t really like how Stu comes up with the solution:  he hears the word “roof” and it jars something in his memory.  That seems like one of those movie devices that don’t happen in real life.  But since this is not a movie relying on its mystery, but a raucous comedy using the mystery to pull us forward through comedic set pieces, we don’t really mind that the solution isn’t very satisfying.

Though the structure of The Hangover is not particularly radical, it does demonstrate how you can manipulate standard three act concepts to serve the particular story you’re telling.  As I often repeat, these concepts are not “rules” to fence you in, but tools to help keep your story focused and dramatic.  In other words, structure serves story, not the other way around!

The Hangover Analysis Part 1 – Characters

(SPOILERS: The Hangover)

As promised, I’m going to start my in-depth look at The Hangover (written by Jon Lucas & Scott Moore).  The first thing I want to talk about are the characters.  Since this is an ensemble piece, it presents an interesting structural question:  who is the main character?

Traditional three act structure dictates that there is only one main character.  In an ensemble, you typically pick one of the group to be the structural main character.  They make the major decisions that drive the story.  Even though the other characters may be involved, everything hangs on that one main character.  But one thing that’s pretty unique about The Hangover is that once the gang heads to Vegas, our three main guys – Phil, Stu and Alan – are always together.  Always.

They also all have the same overall want – to find Doug.  Since they discuss all their decisions and are acting in unison, you could easily argue that they are all the main character in combination.  And if you were the writer you could probably write the story this way without much problem.

If I was determined to identify the single main character, though, I would say it’s Stu.  Phil might seem the obvious choice since he’s more take-charge and since Bradley Cooper is the top billed actor.  However Stu is the only one who has added stakes in unraveling the adventure – he’s gotten married to a stripper and given her his grandmother’s ring.  For him it’s more than just finding Doug, he’s also got to fix a horrible mistake that affects his own life.  And he’s the only character with an arc (Phil pretty much stays the same from beginning to end.)  Finally and perhaps most importantly, Stu’s the one who ultimately figures out where Doug is. 

So Stu’s want is to find Doug.  What he needs is to stand up for himself.  This arc is dramatized in his submissive and humiliating relationship with his girlfriend.  Throughout the story as Stu starts to assert himself more and more, the guys get closer and closer to solving their problem.  Look how he takes over the situation when they’re handing off the money to Mr. Chow.  It’s Stu that insists on seeing Doug before tossing over the money.  At the beginning of the movie he would not have had the guts for something like that.  And at the end Stu dumps his cruel girlfriend.  The story has materially improved his life in a way that isn’t true for the others.

As I’ve said, want drives the external story – here it’s the race to find Doug.  Need drives the internal story.  Occasionally you find a movie where the character wants and needs the same thing, but making these two things different adds depth, as it does in The Hangover.  In this case, the depth it adds is heart.  I don’t know if we really care what happens to Phil or Alan that much, but we definitely care about poor Stu.  The movie could be just as funny without this element, but it would feel much more disposable.

If you think about it, you could almost do the whole story with Stu by himself.  Stu could be taking his best friend to Vegas for one last night of fun.  Obviously Phil and Alan add a lot of humor, but from a story standpoint Stu is the critical one.  (You would have to figure out a different mechanism to get them drugged, though.)

So what does the movie gain with the ensemble?  Well, most obviously, it allows the characters to talk to each other.  We know what they’re thinking and how they feel about the events.  It’s tough to do a story like this with a single character.  And we also get more opportunities for humor by having three very different characters to react to the situations.

Which brings me to a very important point about the characters in this movie.  All three of our guys are different.  Stu is meek and dorky, Phil is confident and full of swagger, and Alan is a socially inept man-child.  And they are all fairly extreme versions of these types.

Consider the simple scene of checking in.  Cool and carefree Phil wants to upgrade to an expensive suite.  Stu is concerned about the cost and that his girlfriend will see his credit card statement.  Alan wants to know if the hotel is pager friendly and if this is where the real Caesar lived.  Three different personalities, three different reactions, three different ways to mine humor from a mundane situation.

I think this is the key tool to creating good character driven comedy.  If you give your characters strong attitudes, and put those attitudes in conflict, then the jokes write themselves.  If you don’t have characters with strong points of view then you are reliant on your ability to craft one-liners.  Few writers are good enough to sustain a feature that way.