HITCH - A Moral Premise Analysis

Director: Andy Tennant

Writer: Kevin Bisch

Budget: 70MM, Domestic Gross 177MM

Gene: Romantic Comedy

LogLine: A secretive "date doctor," Hitch, struggles to find his game when smitten by a gossip columnist, Sara.

WILL SMITH - Alex 'Hitch" Hitchens

EVA MENDES - Sara Melas

KEVIN JAMES - Albert Brennaman

AMBER VALLETTA - Allegra Cole

JULIE ANN EMERY - Casey Sedgewick (Sara's friend)

ADAM ARKIN - Max (Sara's boss)

As in road stories and buddy movies, Romantic Comedies match-up a man and a woman as both protagonist (of their own story) and antagonist to the other's story. Usually one or the other ends up being the lead, but in HITCH things are well matched. In the interest of space and time, this analysis will focus mostly on Hitch and the 13 MAJOR BEATS discussed elsewhere in this blog and various other books, including The Moral Premise.

1. Life Before:

We begin with Hitch lecturing us on the principles behind male-female relationships. He's telling us the secrets of his success as a date doctor.

And, we discover that Hitch and Sara are happily single and that they have their reasons. Notice that neither of them think they WANT a significant other in their lives. Yet, we can see they both do need someone in their lives. They're incomplete. Notice also that their jobs are as opposed to any union as are their personalities. She tells secrets (she's a gossip columnist with a name to promote), he keeps secrets (he's a date doctor with no name). This sets up the Nicomachean moral premise for HITCH:

(The vice) Keeping too many secrets or exposing too many secrets

leads to

(The negative consequence) distrust and isolation; but

(The virtue) Sharing the truth in confidence

leads to

(the positive consequence) trust and companionship.

Hitch lives at the absence of the virtue (he doesn't share much of anything). Sara lives at the excess of the virtue (she shares everything). She spills the beans; he hides them. She thinks men hate women, he only works with men who love women. Hitch is trying to get men and women together, Sara is excited about helping them to split up.

Notice also during this sequence of Act 1A it's made clear to us that they are two people that have "convinced" themselves that they don't need another. Hitch is wrapped up in helping guys succeed with girls while telling his brother-in-law that such relationships are not "meant of everybody." And Sara makes it clear "I don't have time for a boyfriend."

2. Inciting Incident

Hitch discovers is challenged to hit on a girl in a bar. He goes home without her, however.  (Ideal 14 min. Actual 12)

3. Hitch Rejects the Journey...

...of going after a girl (the journey he's called to at 2.) He embraces the idea that with "no guile, and no game, there's no girl." But we sense he's unhappy about that. Yet he helps Albert, who is born without a game. (At 19 min Hitch decides to help Albert on his journey, and in that process we hear arguments that suggest Hitch should go on a journey for himself. One such line that reflects that happened at the Inciting Incident is Albert telling Hitch, "You know what it's like getting up every morning feeling hopeless?"

As soon as Hitch gets Albert to first base (and a first date with Allegra) we can now introduce Sara to Hitch. It begins at 26 minutes when Hitch notices Sara in the bar.

4. Act 1 Climax. 

Hitch crosses the bar (foreshadowing the threshold of the following scene) and approaches Sara with drinks in hand, only to be beaten by an amateur pickup artist that Hitch confronts and dismisses. He gets to know Sara a little bit (that she's a "gossip columnist at the Standard" but he keeps his real job ("consultant") a secret. (Ideal 28 min, Actual 28 when he first speaks to Sara. We see Hitch's game on in this scene, and a very different game that he uses on Sara in Act 3.  

5. Act 2A - Using the Negative side of the Moral Premise but Not Getting Anywhere.

Hitch goes after Sara, crossing the courtship threshold for real, using the negative side of the moral premise... keeping from Sara who he is or what he does. But he gives Munson his business card, which eventually will break open the veil of secrecy and doom him at the end of Act 2.) He pursues Sara, but there are secrets that don't make their courtship that successful, like who Sara's Great, great, great grandfather was "The Butcher" (it's a reverse of the secret he kept from her and she returns the favor by revealing a bit ore about her family secrets. Bummer!) Had Hitch told Sara where they were going, she might have mentioned ahead of time her relative The Butcher and who he really was, thus saving Hitch's game plan from grand embarrassment on the island. Nonetheless, Hitch assumes his principles of male-female relationships are still true, and he pursues a second date, to make up for the first one.

6. Moment of Grace. Hitch is confronted by Sara's boss at the Food Rave about his relationship to Allegra Cole and Albert Brennaman. Hitch dodges at first, but now recognizes what's going on. Max's next question has to do with what Hitch does, to which the chef's assistant comes by to serve them oysters. Hitch has an allergic reaction to the oysters and, as he's choking to death, manages to say: "You think that I’m in a stressful state...because I’m trying to make a good impression...while also dealing with my commitment issues...trying to avoid all these awkward conversations." Upon which Max's wife (the psychiatrist) says: "I think you're having an allergic reaction, which is exactly right, in two ways, physically to the oysters, and psychologically he's having an allergic reaction to Max's questions. Thus, a beautiful metaphor is made. Notice also that the allergic reaction to the Oyster throws Hitch off his game (as they trot off to the drug store to buy on the story's supply of Benadryl), and it reminds us of the first time Hitch's game was thrown a curve on Oyster Island (Ellis Island) when Hitch introduced Sara to her relative "The Butcher" (whom Hitch thought was like a cook, not dissimilar from the chef at the Food Rave that brings Hitch an Oyster). And finally notice that the allergic reaction has something to do with a woman named Allegra. None of this is coincidence, but 99.8% of the audience will only connect this stuff subliminally. The net result of all this is the Hitch realizes that keeping secrets is NOT getting him anywhere fast. In fact it's thrown him off his name TWICE.  (Ideal 56 min. Actual about 61.5 he knows something is up.)

7. Act 2B, the Protagonist makes progress using the positive side of the moral premise. 

On the way from the drug store, while drinking the store dry of Benadryl, they have this conversation:

SARA: I bet I can ask you just about anything right now.

HITCH: No. I'm a vault, baby. Locked down.

SARA: What is an heiress doing with a CPA?

HITCH: They're going to the Knicks game.

SARA: Yep, Fort Knox.

HITCH: He loves her so much!

SARA: I'm sure he does.

HITCH: I'm telling you, people search their whole lives trying to find the...reasons that we're here.

SARA: I wouldn't know.

HITCH: You would if you saw it.
SARA: Sometimes it's really hard to see the forest through the sleaze.

And that is Hitch (although he's partially drunk) using the positive side of the moral premise and revealing information in confidence. Does it work?

You bet. She invites him to her apartment and puts him to sleep on the couch. Ta! Da!

Later they begin to share more personal information, in confidence... although Sara, remember is a gossip columnist and he's going to be tempted to not stay too long near the center of the Nicomachean virtue... and reap the negative consequences as we'll see.

But at this point they both have turned the corner in their relationship and their romance takes positive steps.  

Later in this part of Act 2, Sara get's Hitch's business card from Munson, although she doesn't know that the card belongs to Hitch (there's no name....secrets...ah, the antagonistic force of keeping secrets is closing in for the Act 2 climax.) In other scenes, Albert kisses Allegra. Hitch gets third date with Sara lined up. In the meantime Sara has her gay co-worker call the "date doctor" and set up a meeting at the zoo, at which Sara watches from hiding to see who the "Date Doctor" is.

8. Act 2 Climax. Defeat at the Hand of the Antagonistic Force.  

At the zoo, Sara discovers that the Date Doctor is Hitch. She looses it.  Sara's boss tells her not to expose Hitch. Their third date is dinner at his place, and she ends up throwing vegetables at him and storms out. He's clueless. She does as front page story on Allegra, Albert, and Hitch; "Coach of the Year: Can this man get you in bed with Allegra Cole? A Sara Melas exclusive."  But she does and destroys the relationship between Allegra and Albert. This is a perfect example of the two vices of the moral premise that slam together and cause the end of Act 2--a near death experience. She leaves Hitch's place at 87 min. Her expose' story appears at 88 min, essentially killing several relationships. Ideal for this Act 2 Climax is 88 min. Actual Act 3 Climax ends at 88.4 min.

9. Act 3 Begins. Dark night of the soul.  

Sara is sad. She doesn't heed her boss' advice. Albert trashes newsstand when he sees Sara's article, and gets arrested. Hitch and Sara go at it at the speed-dating event that he crashes. It's all about "secrets" or trying to unravel them. It's "Hand to Hand combat".

SIDEBAR: Romantic Comedies (as in most comedies) set up an inappropriate goal. The inappropriate goal is the physical hook -- secretive date doctor chases gossip columnist. The hook is the lie that forces everything else in the story to seriously be truthful. This is "the lie that tells the truth". It's "the impossibility convincing told." The hook is the humorous situation, which, when everybody else in the story takes serious, creates humor. I LOVE LUCY worked totally on this premise. Lucy was always trying things with Ethel that we all knew were impossible -- and Ricky told her so. Seeing Lucy taking herself seriously in a stupid situation, and seeing Ricky reacting like we were, was what was funny, especially when Lucy get the last laugh through something that was always there but we didn't see. And the surprise ending was never the hook. It was just kept secret from the audience, and usually from Lucy, too.

This speed-dating scene is a perfect example. Both Sara and Hitch are so serious, they're mad. But the situation is hilarious, because the filmmakers surrounded Sara and Hitch with a naturally funny setting--speed dating for the inept, the insecure and the dating-invalids. It's also a good example of foreground and background action, both reinforcing the moral premise while advancing the story on two levels. Essentially the background chatter is either the inner dialogue of the foreground actors, or an explanation of the metaphors taking place. Example:

BACKGROUND MAN: "I did ice climbing once."

(a metaphor for what is going on in the foreground as Hitch is climbing an iceberg named Sara)

BACKGROUND MAN: "The sun comes up, the ice really starts to fall apart."

(when the truth be told relationships fall apart).

BACKGROUND MAN: "Basically, I like outdoors sports; but indoor sports have their place, too."

(Sara and Hitch's first date was an outside sport on personal watercrafts on the Hudson. What they're doing now uses personal attack-crafts in a small room.)

BACKGROUND MATRON: "This is really kind of distracting. And I haven't gotten laid in a year!"

(Actually, that's true of most everyone in this room. Thank you for that insight.)

END SIDEBAR

Moving along. Part of Act 3A is a Chris Vogler beat called "Resurrection." In HITCH this beat occurs when Sara comes to Hitch to apologize. But he's leaving town. Albert comes to commiserate and challenges Hitch to walk the talk. Albert is in love and he challenges Hitch to that same goal.

ALBERT: "You're selling this stuff, but you don't believe in your own product."

HITCH: Love is my life.

ALBERT: No. Love is your job. (99.7min)

This is something that Hitch began to learn back at his MOG, but now he sees it more deeply. And so, Hitch springs into action.

On Allegra's yacht, Hitch confesses all to Allegra and then Albert and Allegra make up.

10. Final Incident. 

Hitch goes to Sara's apartment and at her front door his game is way off. She enjoys seeing him that way. He asks her to close the door, when he really fumbles. But then she opens it and he see's there's another man in her apartment helping Sara leave her apartment for a trip. This is the final attack by the antagonistic force (KEEPING SECRETS) that Sara doesn't immediately share the truth with Hitch about. (Ideal about 102 min. Actual begins at 104 min.)

11. Final Battle.

Hitch chases after Sara in the street, and almost gets himself killed jumping on the car.

SARA: Are you trying to get yourself killed?

HITCH: If that's what it takes....because that's what people do. They leap and hope to God they can fly. Because otherwise we just drop like a rock wondering the whole way down: "Why in the hell did I jump?" But here I am, Sara, falling. And there's only one person that makes me feel like I can fly. That's you.

12. Victory.  (GAME ON) The kiss...

 And then (and only then) does Sara introduce the man... Tom, her sister's husband. Sara and Hitch kiss again, for real.  

13. Denouement: Allegra and Albert's wedding. Hitch: "The basic principles? There are none."  (see he started out telling us there were secret principles. now he admits that the best policy is not to keep secrets.)  End song, "Now that we've found love, what will we do with it." 

Questions Answered about RomComs

Janet asked some questions in the previous post's com box. I'll answer them here.

Janet Asks: Do all the other main characters struggle with the same MP, but in regard to their own issues?

Answer: Yes. that is how the movie can have multiple story lines but still be about one thing. the principles are the same for a novel or a screenplay.

Janet Asks: I've just bought and read The Moral Premise and learned a huge amount from it. But I'm writing a short romance novel rather than a screenplay...The type of romance novel I'm writing needs two main characters (hero and heroine) but there's no room for an additional significant secondary characters or antagonist. (Each acts as the others' antagonist along with the characters' psychological flaws.) Both hero and heroine have different lessons to learn, so I'm struggling to form the vice and virtue sides of the moral premise.

Answer: Good romantic comedies have two protagonists, the man and woman, who are the antagonists for the other. But there are other characters. Each will have a "reflection" character, and each with have a "nemesis" character. These are like the good and bad angels on their shoulders creating scenes that push the characters one way or the other. Each of these minor characters will have arcs that deal with the same moral premise as the main characters do, but obviously just not in as much depth.

When you say the hero and heroine have different lessons to learn, if those lessons are different sets of virtue and vices, then you have two different stories. Your story will connect better with audiences if the virtue and vice set are along the same continuum for both. See the posts on this blog under the topic of "values" (below and to the right under the Movies & Topics list.)

It is not always possible to squeeze a moral premise into an existing story that violates some of the natural laws of storytelling. I frequently guide students to change their story so it's about one thing, and not dilute the core psychological and moral principle which the story is REALLY about.

Janet Asks: Both characters' lives are out of balance. The heroine focuses on work and has no social life, whereas the hero has made play his priority and isn't into serous relationships. (He's successful in his work so he has no lesson to learn about needing to work harder.) She needs to learn how to have fun while he needs to learn that fun flings won't make him happy. If the story was just the heroine's, then the moral premise would be easier, e.g.: A life totally focused on work brings yearning and and sadness but balancing work with fun brings fulfillment and happiness.' But this doesn't include the hero's issues.

Answer: For this to work, you need to change elements of your story. See the posts on Nicomachean Ethics — "Mean Virtue.  If your heroine is into work and not play, then the hero would be into play and not work. Don't make them too extreme in those areas, but the bias has thrown their lives (with everything in their lives) out of balance. The purpose of the antagonist in a story is to change the protagonist by obstructing the protagonist's goal. Thus your characters are like iron-sharping-iron.  

Janet Asks: Does the the moral premise in story with two main characters (who are both heading towards a happy ending) need to incorporate both arcs?--something along the lines of: 'Both an excessively serious approach to life and an excessively playful attitude lead to unhappiness, but a healthy balance between the two leads to fulfillment and happiness.' Often in romance novels the hero and heroine have similarly opposite flaws as the ones above such as Risk/caution/ or using others/helping others, so I'd love to be able to get the moral premise right for 2 protagonists dealing with opposite issues.

Answer: Yes, you got it. This is the Nicomachean Ethic post, precisely.

Romances and the Conflict of Values

A reader writes with a problem (indented).

Dear Dr. Williams:  Thank you for writing The Moral Premise and frequently updating your blog. I have learnt a great deal from both, and I'm actively trying to incorporate the methods outlined in the book into my own work. I am a novelist, and I can see how this is just as applicable to us as it is to screenwriters. My genre is 'love story' which opens up another can of worms for me as a writer. I'm having some issues when trying to understand how to apply antagonistic forces. I believe you stated somewhere that love stories would involve a co-protagonist setup and that the man and woman would be antagonists to each other. With no clear antagonist practicing the vice side of the moral statement, I am unsure how I apply the vice side throughout a love story and how the two characters should arc. If you are able to provide me with any guidance as to how a moral premise operates in a love story with two protagonists I would be very grateful.  (Signed: G.M.)

Dear G.M.: Tell me a bit about your story and how ends. Is it a love story (someone dies), a romance (a persona dies), or a romantic comedy (two egos die)?  (Stan)

[Following: GM is in black and my response is inbetween in purple. (SW)]

It's a romance as I have not envisioned a tragic ending. The story involves a man and a woman who dated when they were young and fell in love, however his work/career was extremely important to him and they amicably parted ways as she knew how much it meant to him.

Sounds a little like Nicolas Cage's FAMILY MAN.

She did not realize until later that she was pregnant with his child. By then he was career bound, and she had lost contact with him. She decided to raise the child alone but this came at the expense of her own career. When the novel essentially begins, he is driven by his career and money, and he is isolated and lonely. Conversely she has struggled to keep her daughter and herself afloat, and all three (mother, father and child) will somehow come together at some point in the story (the inciting incident and goal that will bring them together is still unknown) and priorities will have to shift if he is to learn to value love over business/money, he is to connect with his daughter, and we are to have the man and the woman fall in love again.

So, it's a remarriage, romance story.

With so many elements to the story, I’m worried that the above will not follow one set moral premise statement, and perhaps I have thought about the story in a backwards manner with the ‘moral premise’ as a step after the above plot brainstorming rather than before it.

 Based on what you've told me so far, there's not too much for even a movie.  Novels, which I have not studied in depth in terms of the moral premise, may well indeed have more than one moral premise... even as some movies do. Some other posts deal with this from some of my other readers.  But I  suspect the different moral premises need to be tightly linked on a value level. Novels can do this more easily than movies, because novels can be longer, have multiple stories interwoven, and transcend eras easier. But the novel will resonate best with readers if the story comes back to one thing about which the story ultimately reinforces.

My idea behind the story stems from putting love first as opposed to money, and as a result I have put together:

Greed and selfishness leads to isolation and hatred, but
Generosity and sacrifice leads to inclusion and love.

Yep, that is what I was going to suggest, or something very much like that.

My difficulty in getting my head around all this is due to the fact that in romances the two characters are typically opposites.

As they are even in successful marriages... opposite in some respects, but not every respect. The drama explores the opposites, not what they have in common. Perhaps you're thinking they need to be opposite in every respect. The story will assume they have much in common, but the drama and the emotional journey of the story will explore how they learn to "love" each other's differences. (I'm thinking of the Fred Astair and Ginger Rogers films. They both loved to dance, but the drama was never about the dancing.)

In a typical non-romance story this would mean one was a protagonist and one was an antagonist. Yet in a romance we have two protagonists who we want to remain opposing for conflict purposes, yet we still need both heading for the same goal with the same moral premise, and all this is with a different type of antagonistic force present. 

Moving the “normal” structure around to fit a romance is proving difficult to visualize. 

Many thanks,
G.M. 

[Now, my in depth response.]

Well, let me help you. It's not that difficult at all.

The simple answer is that each character (the man and the woman) struggles with the vice side of the moral premise in their own way, and becomes the obstacles and the antagonist for the other. 

Jeff Bridges & Maggie Gyllenhaal, CRAZY HEART (2009)

I like the way Michael Hauge explains this. He calls the two moral premise values the character's "identity" and the character's "essence." At the beginning of the story each character has an "identity" that they have given to themselves; that is they have put on a mask and are pretending to be someone they are not at their essence. But the identity, because it is false, has holes, and the romance character can see through those holes to the person's true essence. Each character falls in love with the other person's essence and are repulsed by that person's false identity. In Crazy Heart, the romance sub-plot between Blake and Jean occurs because Jean sees what Blake could be. She falls in love with his essence. But when he can't seem to fall in love with his own essence, she breaks it off.

So when the man reveals or practices his false identity the woman is turned off and repulsed. Likewise when the woman reveals or practices her false identity the man is turned off and repulsed.  But when each practices their essence, there is attraction.

In over simplified terms of the Moral Premise, the false identity is that person's vice, and their essence is their virtue. In more accurate terms, it's the moral premise vice that allows the character to hide behind their identity and camouflage their essence. And it's practicing the moral premise virtue that allows their true essence to be revealed. 

Although the man and woman may have similarities, the story is about how these two characters are different, even opposite in some ways. To be complete and happy and fulfilled, they have to be together so their essences are complimentary. 

Both may love the opera, but one likes to sit in the balcony and the other in the front row. They are both stubborn and demand their own way. Thus the drama comes out of the battle to decide where they will sit to enjoy the thing that they both love. the story is about stubbornness and forbearance --  not the opera.

Now about somethings each needs to be stubborn... justice, for instance, or if they're investors in the opera they can be stubborn about the singers being on pitch and not just looking the part. But about other things they need to drop the stubborn "identity" and be "forbearing."

Each character, at a subliminal level, longs to be complete and whole. In and by themselves they never will be. But with the right mate, they can participate in that wholeness somewhat vicariously, and by virtue of being married and (one flesh) they can participate with the other person that makes them a whole, if only by  proximity.

A personal example: my wife, Pam, and myself. I am not sentimental nor do I value nostalgia in the least. But at the right time I realize that being sentimental and nostalgic has some value. But to this day I could never express such emotion or sympathy toward others. But Pam does it so naturally. So, I can facilitate her getting to a family gathering where she can dole out the sentimentality, nostalgia and sympathy. I'll sit next to her when she does this, and I will aid her by finding money so she can buy the stupid little gifts that others love for their tacky sentimentality. (Can you tell I am not into this.) So, in that way, we are made whole. My vice (hating to be sentimental) is countered by her virtue (sentimentality.)  But my vice (arrogance) can prevent her from being sentimental and putting her down for it.

 

2. The arc from vice to virtue does not need to be wide or long, nor does it need to deal with vile or overly righteous values.  Not shown above, but imagine, the story being about moving from courage to honor (two small arrows at the right would do this). That is the moral arch of THE BLIND SIDE which deals with two virtues (one not as good as the other)  and how any fool can have courage, but not everone arrives at honor. 

In the diagram above the two yellow arrows can represent the moral arcs of a romantic couple. For their peculiar reasons each is deceptive to the other, thinking they need to lie about what they do, where they're going, or why, in order to appease the love of the other. But the other doesn't buy the lie and there's rejection. It's only when they take off their masks, and are truthful to each other that there is acceptance. 

3. Here's a variation on this theme:

The character represented by the left arrow believes (has the false identity) that they have to be deceptive to be accepted. Whereas the character represented by the right arrow is so scrupulous about telling the truth that it sounds like an over the top lie all the time. Both are vices. The virtue is graciously telling the truth. 

In these ways each protagonist becomes the antagonist for the other. So the man's goal and the woman's goal is to get together with the other. To do that he thinks he has to be God's gift to women and be arrogant and controlling. (WHAT WOMEN WANT) But that "identity" he keeps practicing turns off the woman, and thus he's rejected. At the same time she arrogantly believe she has to protect herself from such cads, and defends everything she does and puts him in his place. And that repulses him. So, they become each other's antagonists. 

4. Now, in your case, both the man and the woman have to practice a vice which will block their true essence from being regularly revealed. they are both determined to be right about what they believe, and both have to change to meet in the middle and get together. A very typical virtue and vice scenario for stories like yours is arrogance vs. humility. Or going back to your original moral premise statement:

Greed and selfishness leads to isolation and hatred, but
Generosity and sacrifice leads to inclusion and love.

The man, involved in business, is easy. But,how can you make her greedy about what she is doing? They both have to be imperfect. She can't be greedy about making money, that's his problem.  OR, perhaps she is greedy by virtue of being poor. Perhaps she's a hoarder: or perhaps she is about time. Or she could be selfish and proud about being poor. She could see "money is the root of all evil" but she only believes that because she's never had any. She's forgotten that the adage is "the LOVE of money is the root of all evil". In what ways is she NOT generous? That is her vice, and it blocks the guy's ability to see her goodness. But she does have some and by the first ten pages we know that that is.

But, if you're determined to make her the perfect person, and him the bad guy, then you have a story about HIM, not her.  If you want to make the story about both of them, they both have to be imperfect. 

Watch any Romantic Comedy that was successful in the box office and you'll see this. Take out the wild comedy, and you'll have your romance. 

Hope this helps. Let me know. 

See also this post on the Conflict of Values: http://moralpremise.blogspot.com/2010/02/expanded-conflict-of-values-and-moral.html