In Chinese, there’s a phrase: “When doing anything, the beginning is always most difficult”. Writing, of course, is no exception. Whether it’s an essay, a novel, or even a movie script, the first line is often the hardest step because it’s the audience’s first impression of the work and determines whether or not they’ll give the story a chance. Heart of Stone, a recent action film starring Gal Gadot, is a perfect example of an opening gone right. While the story itself is a fairly typical action flick, it still manages to hook the audience at the start, acting as a perfect case study for how to create an effective first scene that sets the film’s pace, plot, and theme.
The specific kind of opening that Heart of Stone uses is called in medias res, which literally means “in the midst of things”. When a story starts with this kind of opening, it gets straight into the action without introducing characters or plot - that’s left to be revealed as the story progresses. In the case of Heart of Stone, the film starts with four MI6 agents in the middle of a mission that soon starts going wrong. When one of their team seems to be in danger with no way to contact them, they go rushing to his rescue, only for the titular Stone to trip and tell the others to go on without her - though the audience soon learns that this was all just a ruse to keep her cover as a secret super spy working for a mysterious organisation known as The Charter.
This is the perfect opening scene for this kind of film for three reasons. First of all, by starting in the heat of the action, Heart of Stone immediately signals to the audience what kind of story they can expect. This isn’t a Cold War spy movie with lots of exposition and sneaking around, this is a film that has no plans to pause for even a second, with endless fights and snappy dialogue. The genre is immediately obvious, which might drive away those who aren't interested in action-heavy films but does a great job of catching the attention of the intended audience. If this opening were changed to a flashforward or a flashback, it could still have the same impact as the action scene, but as soon as it shifted out of that the momentum would be lost - what’s important about in medias res here is the promise of constant forward motion.
The start of the film does an effective job of introducing the plot as well. One of the jobs of an opening scene is explaining why this film stands out among others of the same genre. In the case of Heart of Stone, this “hook” is Stone’s identity as part of a top secret international spy organisation - she’s a spy among spies. It’s not the most original premise, but it’s enough to give the audience a reason to choose it over other action flicks. Because the premise isn't terribly unique, though, in medias res is a perfect choice for the film. The audience only gets a glimpse of the story, and because they don't get enough information to realise just how dull the plot is at the start, they're kept watching until they’re already too invested to stop.
Where in medias res truly shines, though, is in showing the relationships between the characters and setting up Heart of Stone's major theme of isolation versus community. Rather than showing us how the team came together and how their relationships grew in flashbacks, we see how they interact and speak to each other now. The strength of the team matters to the film, but the focus isn't the team's story, so flashbacks showing how the characters met would only serve to provide the audience with information they don't need. In medias res, on the other hand, gives the audience the chance to actually see how the team functions as a whole and how close they are. In doing so, the audience gets the chance to both care about the characters and start to see what Stone herself thinks about the film's central theme, whether she's more of a lone wolf or a team player at heart, thereby hinting at what's yet to come.
In medias res doesn’t just work for action movies, of course. At its core, this kind of opening scene works well for any movie that wants to convey a sense of speed, be it literal speed or speed of wit, as well as those that benefit from getting straight down to the business of telling their stories. Is Heart of Stone a spectacular film? No, even within its genre it’s average at best. But what it does do a good job of is showing us how even the most average of movies can teach us something when we examine what they do right.
View replies 1