Despite strong performances all around, the sequel to Top of the Lake disappoints because of the ridiculous contrived coincidences powering its plot.

## SPOILER ALERT ##

Teenaged Mary, (Alice Englert) is the long lost daughter given up for adoption by Robin (Elizabeth Moss) the cop investigating the “China Girl” murder.  Mary just happens to be sexually and romantically involved with the killer, nicknamed “Puss” (David Dencik).

The brothel Puss helps run, where “China Girl” worked, is also an illegal surrogate “farm”.  It caters to Australians so desperate to have a baby they don’t really check the girls’ backgrounds.

The supervising cop on the investigation just happens to have used one of the brothel girls as a surrogate for the child his mistress wants to have.  He KNOWS his surrogate is a prostitute because he has frequented the place.

His mistress, Miranda (Gwendoline Christie) just happens to be Robin’s partner on the police force investigating the China Girl murder.

This is too much coincidence to sustain credibility.

When is coincidence a good thing?  K.M. Weiland describes it beautifully:

“At some point in almost every story, there is going to be something coincidental that kicks off the plot. What is it that first brings the protagonist and antagonist into opposition? Often, it’s a coincidence:

• Roger Thornhill accidentally hailing the page boy who is looking for a government agent in Alfred Hitchcock’s North by Northwest.

• Harvey Cheyne falling into the ocean and being rescued by fisherman Manuel who just happened to be there in Rudyard Kipling’s Captains Courageous.

• Katniss’s sister Prim just happening to be drawn as a tribute in her first eligible year in Suzanne Collins’s Hunger Games.

• D’Artagnan just happening to insult Athos, Porthos, and Aramis on his first day in town in Alexandre Dumas’s The Three Musketeers.

• Flik catching just the end of the circus bugs’ Robin Hood act and believing they’re really warriors in A Bug’s Life.

All of these things just happen. Although there are some causal dominoes leading the protagonists up to a few of these examples, there’s not enough cause in play here to let any of these moments avoid being coincidences.

And yet they still work. Why? Because they only make things harder–and more interesting–for the characters. You’ll also note these major coincidences are pretty much the only major unexplained coincidences in their stories. It’s not on Pixar’s list, but we could add to their above rule:

Only one major coincidence per story: early in the story.”

That’s a rule to live by.  For another of my blog posts on coincidence click HERE

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The Rabbit Proof Fence of the film’s title bisected Australia from East to West and North to South during the 20th century.  It was built in an attempt to separate the wilds of the “bush”, infested with rabbits and other agricultural pests, from valuable farm land.

It’s also a metaphor for the divide bisecting Australian society– the aboriginal people who must be contained and kept at bay and the more valuable white society which must be preserved and protected.  Particularly offensive to white Australian society were the half-caste children, often fathered by the itinerant white workers who build the rabbit-proof fence.

The rabbit isn’t native to Australia (and has no natural predators there).  Rabbits were imported to provide a “bit of hunting sport” for white farmers. Once introduced, the species flourished and over-ran the countryside doing extensive damage. Rabbit infestation has resulted in the extinction of countless native Australian plants and other wildlife.

The children depicted in The Rabbit Proof Fence were separated from their aboriginal mothers and trained as domestic servants for white settlers.  This resettlement and re-education program existed from 1910 to 1971 and resulted in “stolen generations”.

The half-caste girls in these camps were prevented from marrying aboriginal spouses in order to “breed out” their native characteristics.  White unions were promoted and the domestic servant girls were often forced into sexual relations by their white male employers in the lonely underpopulated outback.

Kenneth Branagh plays A.O. Neville Chief Protector of Aborigines, in Western Australia.  He is a classic Power of Conscience character gone to the Dark Side.  (How much evil are you willing to do in the cause of doing what you believe is good?)  In the movie he says, “In spite of himself, the native must be helped.”  In real life he said:

“they have to be protected against themselves whether they like it or not. They cannot remain as they are. The sore spot requires the application of the surgeon’s knife for the good of the patient, and probably against the patient’s will.”

The heroine of the film, 14-year-old Molly, escapes from the Moore River Native Settlement Mission where she and her sisters being held.  She walks (often carrying her 8-year-old sister) across the bush and the desert back to their mother 1,500 miles away.  The Rabbit Proof Fence serves as her guide.

Molly is a young woman with incredible grace, dignity and solid sense of self.  Her journey is mesmerizing, heroic and nothing short of amazing. She evaded white army officers and an expert native aboriginal tracker, all sent to find her and bring her back.  The film is based on real events and the book Molly’s daughter, Doris Pilkington  wrote about her mother’s journey home.  Christine Olsen wrote the screenplay.

One of the most interesting things about this Lenten Project of viewing a movie a day and writing about it– is the number of strong female heroines I’ve discovered.  Their strength is evident in their intelligence or sense of humor or humility or tenacity or rebellion or dignity or wit or sacrifice– or sometimes a combination of these characteristics.  They are very different than most of the male heroes in films today.  This project has been a great start to a list of films every woman should see.

When I was in my Master’s Program at the UCLA Film School I got a handout with a copy of a wonderful poem published in a book by Jean Houston, A Passion for the Possible. For me, the poem definitively sums up what the audience is looking for in the characters of a screenplay.

In my discussions, workshops and consulting I had been crediting the poem to Houston.  One of the writers I worked with in Melbourne knew the poem and told me it was, in fact, titled The Invitation and is attributed it to Oriah Mountain Dreamer.

She sent me Oriah’s Website and I Googled further and sure enough.  There the poem was.  Copyright © 1999 by Oriah Mountain Dreamer.  Apparently, it was just reprinted in Houston’s book.

It is a wonderful poem and I am sure the book based on the poem must be extraordinary as well. I have it on order.   You might want to check out the book as well.

Here is the poem from the book The Invitation —  And the best description I’ve ever found of what the AUDIENCE wants to know about your characters.

The Invitation
(by Oriah, Mountain Dreamer)

It doesn’t interest me what you do for a living.
I want to know what you ache for
and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart’s longing.

It doesn’t interest me how old you are.
I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool
for love
for your dream or
for the adventure of being alive.

It doesn’t interest me what planets are squaring your moon…
I want to know if you have touched the centre of your own sorrow
if you have been opened by life’s betrayals
or have become shrivelled and closed
from fear of further pain.

I want to know if you can sit with pain
mine or your own
without moving to hide it
or fade it
or fix it.

I want to know if you can be with joy
mine or your own
if you can dance with wildness
and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes
without cautioning us
to be careful
to be realistic
to remember the limitations of being human.

It doesn’t interest me if the story you are telling me
is true.
I want to know if you can
disappoint another
to be true to yourself.
If you can bear the accusation of betrayal
and not betray your own soul.
If you can be faithless
and therefore trustworthy.

I want to know if you can see Beauty
even when it is not pretty
every day.
And if you can source your own life
from its presence.

I want to know if you can live with failure
yours and mine
and still stand at the edge of the lake
and shout to the silver of the full moon,
“Yes.”

It doesn’t interest me
to know where you live or how much money you have.
I want to know if you can get up
after the night of grief and despair
weary and bruised to the bone
and do what needs to be done
to feed the children.

It doesn’t interest me who you know
or how you came to be here.
I want to know if you will stand
in the centre of the fire
with me
and not shrink back.

It doesn’t interest me where or what or with whom
you have studied.
I want to know what sustains you
from the inside
when all else falls away.

I want to know if you can be alone
with yourself
and if you truly like the company you keep
in the empty moments.

Along the way we got to talking about the emotional status quo of characters.  Too often characters seem to have emotional amnesia, especially when off stage for a couple of scenes.  What’s a character’s emotional status quo?

It’s the emotional temperature of the character when he or she enters a scene.  What has happened to the character in the previous scene?  How does that event drive the character into the next scene?  If, for example, the character’s internal Fear is activated how is that made external in action in the next scene?

Where on the Character Map does the character move?  Does the Fear drive the character to act against his or her self-interest by lashing out with a Trouble Trait?  Or does the Fear drive the character to retreat into his or her Mask?  Perhaps the character tries to cope with the Fear by pushing forward with the Strongest Trait.

Each scene must build on the emotion of the previous scene.  Each scene must be propelled by cause and effect. In other words, your character does something, which causes something else to happen or forces the character to try a different tactic.  This has an effect on the character’s emotions which causes your character to do something else, etc.

Each and every scene must have conflict, conflict, conflict. Without conflict there is no way to struggle toward a character’s inner truth.  Without conflict, the audience has no edge-of-the-seat eagerness and excitement to see what will happen next.

Your principle character must drive the action in each individual scene and in the cumulative sequences.  His or her actions must set off the chain of events that propel the story forward.  If all your main character is doing is reacting to the actions of others, rethink the scene or sequence.  What can your character do to set events in motion?

Here are some examples from Erin Brockovich:  Erin’s vulnerability and Fear is activated by the disapproval of the office staff.  That leads her to lash out with her confrontational and defensive Trouble Traits. When she needs help the staff rejects her.  That activates her Strongest Traits. She takes on the problem alone and her determination and moral concern leads her to investigate the toxic spill.

INT. MASRY & VITITOE – RECEPTION AREA – DAY

Morning. Erin walks in, wearing her usual garb.  She passes
the coffee area, where Jane, Brenda, and Anna are milling.
Brenda sees her, gives Anna a nudge.  They both check out her
short hem.  Anna nudges Jane, who looks as well.  Erin
glances over just in time to see all three of them staring at
her judgmentally.  She stops in her tracks and stares back.

ERIN
Y’all got something you wanna discuss?

The women go back to stirring their coffees.  Erin walks on.

INT. MASRY & VITITOE – ED’S OFFICE – DAY

Ed is walking into his office with a coffee cup in his hand
when he trips over the same box of files again.

ED
Damn it!
(calling out)
Brenda!
(no answer)
BRENDA!

INT. MASRY & VITITOE – FILE ROOM – DAY

Erin is alone, filing as she talks on the phone.

ED
Where’s Anna?

ERIN
Out to lunch with the girls.

ED
Oh. Huh.
(beat)
Well, look, I have to open a file. Real
estate thing. Pro-bono.

He plunks the box of papers & files on her desk.  She stares
at it, with no idea of how to go about that.

ERIN
Oh.  Okay.

He sees her staring at the box.

ED
You do know how to do that, don’t you?

ERIN
Yeah.  I got it.  No problem.

ED
Good.

Ed heads out, but pauses before leaving.

ED
You’re a girl.

ERIN
Excuse me?

ED
How come you’re not at lunch with the
girls?  You’re a girl.

ERIN
I guess I’m not the right kind.

Erin goes back to work. Ed starts out then stops.

ED
Look, you may want to – I mean, now that
you’re working here – you may want to
rethink your..wardrobe a little.

ERIN
Why is that?

ED
Well…I think maybe..some of the girls
are a little uncomfortable because of
what you wear.

ERIN
Is that so? Well, it just so happens, I
think I look nice. And as long as I have
one ass instead of two, like most of the
“girls” you have working here, I’m gonna
wear what I like if that’s alright with
you?

Ed hides a smile. He nods. As he exits, Erin returns to work
and remarks, without looking up….

ERIN (CONT’D)
You may want to re-think those ties you
wear..

Suddenly self-conscious, Ed looks down to his chest…

INT. MASRY & VITITOE – FILE ROOM – NIGHT

Erin is at her desk, staring bewildered at the files from the
box Ed gave her, which are now spread across her desktop.
She sees Anna packing up her things to leave.

ERIN
Anna?  With this real-estate stuff —
could you remind me, cause I’m a little
confused about how exactly we do that.
Why are there medical records and blood
samples in real estate files?

ANNA
(exasperated)
Erin, you’ve been here long enough.  If
you don’t know how to do your job by now,
I am not about to do it for you.

I came across this item and found it to a perfect recipe for a terrific creative life.

.

To live content with small means;
to seek elegance rather than luxury,
and refinement rather than fashion.
To be worthy, not respectable,
and wealthy, not rich.
To study hard, think quietly
talk gently and act frankly.
To listen to stars and birds,
to babes and sages,
with an open heart.
To bear all cheerfully, do all bravely,
await occasions and hurry never.
To let the spiritual, unbidden and unconscious,
grow up through the common.
This is to be my symphony.

William Ellery Channing
(1780 – 1842)