The Character Study Fan

Character Study Fans go to the movies to meet someone. Plot is fine, spectacle is fine, but what they really want is a person on screen so fully drawn that they half expect to run into them later at a gas station.

They gravitate to loners, runaways and people who do not quite fit, characters who say less than they feel. A man walking out of the desert with no explanation. A boy growing up in pieces across the years. A teenager rolling her eyes at a world that keeps disappointing her.

They like to be trusted to read a face.

As Mind watchers, they pay close attention to how a portrait gets made. They notice a performance that holds back, a costume that hints at a person's past, a frame that leaves a character small against a wide, empty sky. They like to be trusted to read a face.

They tend to love the celebrated ones, the portraits that critics and friends keep coming back to, and they come back too. A great character study does not wear out for them. Each time, they understand the person a little better.

There is often an ache under it all, a longing for somewhere or someone just out of reach. They find that ache beautiful rather than heavy.