Everyone loves a great plot twist.
Whose popcorn didn't go flying when Bruce Willis realized he was already dead, or when
Luke Skywalker found out who his father was?
Still, there's one thing that shakes up a bucket of popped kernels more violently than
a plot twist — a double plot twist.
Let's see which filmmakers were brilliant enough to pull off this enormous storytelling
feat.
Also, this entire video is about plot twists, so, yeah…major spoilers ahead.
The Prestige
Christopher Nolan is the dark wizard of double plot twists.
Take The Prestige, his thriller about two popular stage magicians, Alfred Borden and
Robert Angier.
Their vicious rivalry intensifies when Borden unveils "The Transported Man," a trick where
he seemingly teleports himself between two wardrobes.
Twist Number One is the reveal of Borden's secret: "Alfred Borden" is actually two twin
brothers who are so dedicated to their magic trick that they pretend to be the same person
at different times.
But Twist Number Two is even crazier.
Angier cranks the Transporting Man trick up to the next level — by creating clones of
himself.
Every night, a clone drowns himself, and the new clone bows on stage.
So yeah, the dude offs himself every single night just to pull off a magic trick.
That's dedication.
Gone Girl
Based on the best-selling Gillian Flynn novel, Gone Girl is one of those films where anytime
you think you know what's happening, the narrative flips, cartwheels, and back-handsprings in
a different direction.
Up until about halfway through, the movie is about Nick, the main suspect in the disappearance
of his wife, Amy, as the police and media close in on him.
The film then reveals that Amy, the "gone girl" herself, is alive.
Nick is just a gullible sucker, while Amy is a cold-blooded sociopath.
"To fake a convincing murder you have to have discipline."
When Amy decides to return to Nick, he's less-than-enthused to stay with her, and wants to publicly reveal
her true colors to the world.
But Amy stunts him with another surprise — she's pregnant, having artificially inseminated
herself.
So even though Amy framed him and nearly got him executed, Nick stays with her.
The end.
This fake happy ending is incredibly frustrating — and that's the dark brilliance of it.
Spider-Man: Homecoming
Not every movie with a double-twist has to be dark and disturbing.
Spider-Man: Homecoming might be a bright, colorful superhero movie, but it still has
some fantastic twists hidden up its webbed sleeve.
Throughout the film, Peter Parker's two lives seem completely separate.
While Peter manages his adolescent social anxieties, Spider-Man tries to take down a
high-tech supervillain, the Vulture.
In his teenage life, Peter is elated when his longtime crush, Liz, agrees to be his
Homecoming date.
But when her father greets Peter at her house...
Boom — Liz's dad is the Vulture.
And the entire audience gasps.
"Business is good."
The film's second major twist happens when Tony Stark finally offers Peter what he's
always wanted: official Avengers membership.
Against all expectations, Peter turns it down, electing to remain a small-time, "friendly
neighborhood" hero instead.
Memento
Now we're back to the dark and disturbing stories — once again thanks to Christopher
Nolan.
Memento is a movie told backward, from the last scene to the first, about an amnesiac,
Leonard, who loses his memory every few minutes.
"I'm chasing this guy.
No… he's chasing me."
Leonard is tracking down a mystery man named "John G.," who's responsible for the loss
of Leonard's wife.
Along the way, Leonard takes copious notes that help him stay on track whenever he loses
his memory.
His main associate is Teddy, whose photo is captioned "Don't believe his lies."
Since the movie's first scene shows Leonard shooting Teddy, it seems like Teddy is John
G.
But at the end of the film — or in reality, the "beginning," — Teddy tells Leonard that
his wife survived John G.'s attack.
Leonard is the one who's guilty.
His amnesia caused him to dose her up on too much insulin.
Teddy then explains that even though Leonard already found the real John G., he keeps getting
rid of men named John.
Furious and desperate, Leonard gets revenge by leaving himself a note saying that Teddy
is the guilty one — which means that when he shoots Teddy, it's not an accident.
Leonard consciously tricked his own amnesia to ensure he'd get rid of Teddy — and not
have to face the truth.
Arrival
At the center of the 2016 sci-fi drama Arrival is Amy Adams' character, Louise: an expert
linguist who works alongside a mathematician, Ian, to decode alien language.
Louise seems haunted by past traumas, as flashbacks show that she's a divorcée who lost her daughter
to an incurable illness.
Louise slowly translates the alien language, but progress halts when, upon being asked
why they came to Earth, the aliens respond with either the words "offer tool" or "offer
weapon."
This presumed threat sets the world ablaze, and Louise boards the alien ship in a last-ditch
effort to save the planet.
She finds out that the "tool" the aliens are offering is their language, which will release
human beings from linear time.
The aliens are giving this gift so humans can come to their aid in 3,000 years.
Louise saves the world, at which point Arrival peels back its final twist:
All those flashbacks to Louise's daughter are actually flash-forwards, premonitions
of events that will occur in the future.
Since she learned the alien language, Louise no longer experiences time in a linear fashion.
Therefore, it means she chooses to begin a relationship with Ian even though she knows
they will lose their daughter and that he will divorce her.
It's an ending both tragic and hopeful, and one of the best double-twists ever.
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