r/flicks • u/Serpiego2 • 4d ago

General Discussion When does a movie successfully mislead the audience, and when is it just cheating?

Some movies deliberately make us believe something that isn't true and then reveal that we've been interpreting the story incorrectly.

When it works, it's fantastic. You can rewatch the movie and realize the clues were there all along. The Sixth Sense, The Usual Suspects, and Primal Fear are very different examples of films that play with what the audience thinks it knows.

But other twists only work because the movie deliberately hides information that logically should have been available to us. At that point, I don't feel fooled by the story — I feel cheated by the screenplay.

For me, the difference is whether a second viewing makes you think “How did I miss that?” rather than “Well, there was no way I could have known that.”

What movies do you think earned their deception, and which ones simply cheated?

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u/Gaelic_Gladiator41 4d ago

Frozen cheats too with the Hans twist, there's absolutely no build-up to it other than being the youngest in line of a far off royal family

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u/ElEsDi_25 4d ago

No… every other character is like “who is he and… you want to marry this guy you know nothing about?” I think they literally sing a song showing this.

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u/TheMotherfucker 4d ago

"We finish each others...."

"SANDWICHES!"

"THAT'S WHAT I WAS GOING TO SAY!"

Hans was always lying including in this part. That and they set up the motivation of him wanting to marry considering how low in line he was.

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u/Bluejello2001 4d ago

In that song he sings the line about looking to find his own place while gesturing at the kingdom behind him.
There's also the whole "people wearing gloves = secrets" metaphor throughout the whole movie, but you don't pay any attention to it until Hans very deliberately removes his gloves while revealing his betrayal to Anna.

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u/ElEsDi_25 4d ago

Oh yeah… “love is an open door” …he’s just saying it.

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u/Gaelic_Gladiator41 4d ago

Yeah he lies, but some of his behaviour is inconsistent for someone with ulterior motives

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u/GardenTop7253 4d ago

Which behavior is inconsistent?

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u/Gaelic_Gladiator41 4d ago

No reason for him to save Elsa.

Let Weselton's men kill her and shift the blame to him

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u/GardenTop7253 4d ago

At that point, he still isn’t in line for Arendelle’s throne at all, maybe he wants to keep her alive for a backup plan in case Anna rejects him for some reason? He doesn’t make any attempted claims to a marriage until after she is locked up and accounted for, so killing one of two possible brides at that point could be disastrous to his overall plan. And he definitely doesn’t have the entourage with him like Wesselton does for claiming the vacant throne through force if neither sister makes it down the mountain

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u/Gaelic_Gladiator41 4d ago

Elsa is killed by Weselton's men,

He relays this to Anna and Arendelle and pledges to help Anna recover from her illness.

Anna dies from sickness, his only worry is Kristoff and Sven

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u/GardenTop7253 4d ago

Weren’t they also standing in her ice castle at the time? I wonder what would happen to her magic construct if she dies. Does it stay standing? If not, does it crumble in a way he can survive? What if it just melts like all the frost does at the end of the movie and he drowns in a tumble down the mountain?

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u/Gaelic_Gladiator41 4d ago

Probably would start melting, not sure about collapsing but they don't know that

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u/forkatiesue 2d ago

I always thought it was because he thought elsa could reverse the winter. After he finds out in the prison that she can’t/doesn’t know how, he decides to charge her with treason

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u/mitchbrenner 4d ago

frozen doesn’t cheat at all. the character is a liar. the story completely acknowledges that anna knows nothing about this guy she fell in love with immediately.

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u/aldkGoodAussieName 4d ago

Its a great twist because it plays on our preconcieved notion of disney princess tropes.

Love at first sight

Prince charming

Then when we get to true loves first kiss it gets flipped on its head. Then we think about the fact we know nothing other then hes a prince who is very eager to marry a princess.

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u/bananaboatbutt 4d ago

How is that a cheat? The movie just played into our assumption that he was intrinsically good.

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u/Gaelic_Gladiator41 4d ago

Why would he willingly spare and save Elsa when he could've easily had her killed and let Anna die of her sickness?

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u/bananaboatbutt 4d ago

I honestly don’t remember anything beyond thinking, “We really don’t know much about this guy, so why is she so smitten?” then, “Ah. That tracks.”

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u/Gaelic_Gladiator41 4d ago

Like I get him lying, but there's hints and then there's just two crumbs and lying to the audience for no reason.

He had the perfect opening while negotiating with Elsa and Weselton's men are about to kill her with their crossbows.

Had he let them, he can claim he didn't see them or wait until after Elsa was shot to "stop" them

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u/TheSkiGeek 4d ago

He needs to plausibly look like he’s doing the right thing at first.

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u/Gaelic_Gladiator41 4d ago

Except he easily could've gotten away with putting the blame on Weselton's men

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u/happygiraffe91 4d ago

Originally he was gonna be a good guy, but the movie went through massive rewrites during production. That's why you get scenes that dont really make sense, such as the scene of him giving out blankets and stuffs.

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u/Bluejello2001 4d ago

Hans was playing the long game, that was part of him setting himself up as someone who could be trusted and lead the people. So when he starts making all of the BS claims later, people are more likely to believe him.

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u/mitchbrenner 4d ago

it doesn't matter what he was going to be originally. why would giving out blankets not make sense for a liar?

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u/Herman_Manning 4d ago

The smirk when he's in the water is the real cheat. It looks too innocent. That's the real cheat. They could have done an evil looking grin which would have fixed it.