How to tell stories

I had recently watched Ctrl (control) on Netflix this past week. I had heard some rave reviews about it. It is directed by Mr. Motwane. Which is all to say, I went into it with high hopes.

The movie is shot in a way similar to that episode in Modern Family where Claire thinks Hailey had gotten married in Vegas. Everything mostly happens on a laptop. Being the techie I am, all through the movie, I kept saying, no, no, hell no. But Ananya's character did give this stupid AI thing root access to her laptop. Bad things happened.

This might be a good reason why Apple needs to control what runs on the iPhone. Most people are not techies.

Stories need to surprise us.

At least the good ones. This story was not a good story in that sense. I knew what was going to happen. Good stories, like Mr. Motwane's last one, AK vs AK, need to surprise the reader/viewer.

There are other ways to tell the stories. Nothing is truly original. So, if the story does not surprise, then the characters need to be memorable enough, that you forget about the story. That's how I feel about Love Story, by Erich Segal. There were no surprises in the story though. It was a boy meets girl, something happens story.

I had cried so much while reading this book.