Creed and the Subtle Build of Stakes
I sat down to watch Ryan Coogler’s Creed last night, and immediately started thinking about what a remarkable film it is. Fortunately, I don’t have to, because the inimitable Grant Watson has already written the best review of the film you’re going to see. So good, in fact, that I immediately went back and re-watched bits of the film that he talks about so I could appreciate them all over again. But from a writing point of view, I do have things to add, because there are things that Creed does that are worth learning from. In this case, it’s a film of enormously subtlety, with a script of enormous subtlety. It isn’t afraid to set things up, then let them pay off without you noticing. Case in point: There is a scene, early in the first act, where our protagonist Adonis Johnson tells his mother, Mary-Anne Creed, that he plans to be a full-time boxer. She immediately tries to
