I like to start off this part of analysis by identifying four major plot points: The Opening, end of Act One, end of Act Two, the Final Struggle. So here’s my take on the script: The Opening: PP. 1-5 in which we start with father and son hunting scene, driving, then the Dover family heading over to their friends - the Birches - for Thanksgiving dinner. Act One end: PP. 38-45 in which Alex is released, Grace freaks out, Keller tails Alex, Keller takes Franklin to show how Keller has kidnapped Alex, then starts to beat Alex. Act Two end: PP. 104-112 in which Joy, one of the kidnapped girls, escapes and intimates to Keller that she saw him when they were being held captive. Final Struggle: PP. 125-134 in which Loki confronts Holly, then races to the hospital with a drugged Anna A few notes: * The opening also introduces Alex's van. * It's a long first act, however every scene feels important because it has to accomplish two critical things: (1) Go through the process whereby Alex is freed from being held by the cops. (2) Keller's frustration level has to rise high enough so that he would kidnap Alex. * The end of Act One plot point caps the setup. Now a reader knows what the story is about: Alex held captive to be tortured by Keller. The question is will this scheme spiral out of control? * Oftentimes the end of Act Two is a major reversal in a negative way, stopping the Protagonist's advance toward their goal. Here it is a positive reversal. The girls are not dead, they're alive. What's more Keller determines the location: Holly's house. So instead of a more typical All Is Lost moment in which the Protagonist questions whether to go forward or return to their Old Way of Being, here Keller has no hesitation. He goes forward. That said, the end of Act Two generally involves a major question re the Protagonist's self-identity. Here we see that Keller has not learned any lessons based on his previous irrational choices, rather he charges off again, a lone wolf. That choice gets him into trouble. The Final Struggle is a capstone on Loki's journey and lends credence to one possible interpretation of the story: That it is a Dual Protagonist scheme - both Keller and Loki. We can discuss this more, but certainly both characters hold prominent positions in the story and each has a significant page count. Anyone have a different take on these four major plot points? Anything else strike you as you read the script and/or reviewed the scene-by-scene breakdown? Love to hear your thoughts.

Interesting point about Keller at the end of Act Two. He does move forward, which called to mind the hunting scene in the opening. He is a hunter and Alex the prey, until his forward motion makes him become the prey himself (or prisoner). So, is his final epiphany off screen, after he's been dug up? Or does he never change?

Nora, I think Keller does change in at least one respect: He goes down a path following his powerful instinct to handle things, as part of his survivalist mentality. And it almost leads to his destruction. In other words, the story is about him 'walking the talk' and that experience sending him spiraling into a morass of events of his own doing. Here are some salient excerpts from my interview with the screenwriter Aaron Guzikowski:

Scott: I’d like to work through the story, and get your thoughts on some of the narrative choices you make. The opening scene, the father Keller is out with his son, and they’re hunting a deer. How did that come to you, and why that scene for an opening? Aaron: The scene has a lot to do with the fact that Keller’s trying to teach his son to survive. He’s trying to teach him to be ready for anything. The hunting the deer is a very visceral way to start telling a story. Of course, he tries to instill these values in his son, and be prepared to anything. He has a basement stocked with all this survival gear, but at the end of the day, he’s in no way prepared for the fate that life does have in store for him. It comes out of that. ---- Scott: One of the stellar things about the movie is the layers you provide to the characters in terms of their motivation. For example, Keller, in the first line in the movie as he’s talking to his son about his father, says, “The most important thing your grandfather taught me is to be ready.” Aaron: Right. Scott: Then his daughter gets kidnapped essentially right from under his nose. I was thinking about that character and what he would feel, a sense of shame. Then I was reading in the script where there is this accusation by his wife, “You said you could protect us from anything.” Then, in the scene description, you literally have, “He looks sickened with shame.” Could you talk about that as a motivating dynamic for his character? Aaron: Yeah. It’s basically what you said. You have this guy whose whole philosophy is built on this idea of being able to protect his family, being able to provide for them and to be ready for whatever the world might throw at them. Then to have this happen in addition to just the pain of not knowing where his daughter is, there’s this added layer of failure and shame. He is this guy who, on the surface, seems so completely capable and unshakable. Yet, his daughter is gone and his wife is falling apart. All of these preparations he’s made have all been for not. That works really well to just drive him to these extreme places in order to try and get back to where he believes he needs to be.

The big question is one that remains unanswered: How will these experiences change Keller afterward, if at all? He goes through a deconstruction during Prisoners and in some ways reconstructs by fully embracing his 'handle everything' mentality, becoming a kind of monster (i.e., torturer). But then in a wonderful bit of symmetry, Keller becomes the victim - trapped by Holly, physically abused by her (shot in the leg), a helpless victim... his own version of Alex. Will he learn empathy through these experiences? Will he learn to see the world as a morally gray universe rather than the stark black and white perspective he has upon hitting FADE IN? My gut says no. I don't think he'll learn any lessons, at least in any sort of corrective way. In fact, I think he'll continue in a downward spiral. But that's just conjecture. But we can dig into this more thoroughly in our discussion of the story's psychological journey. There we should also discuss Loki's character because, as Aaron says, this story really is a two-hander.

To add to that, the events at the end of Act Two also add urgency and reaffirm Keller's POV. In the scenes p.56-60, Keller says that it's been 5 days and that if the girls aren't being cared for, they (all) will have run out of time. And by the end of Act Two, he seems to have been proven right -- Joy has been found but she's been drugged and hit by a car during her escape. I didn't think it was as clear in the movie, but in the screenplay, the search for Anna felt even more urgent. One of the strongest aspects of this screenplay, IMO, is how smoothly it moves along. It never seems forced, and this is a great example.