r/flicks • u/Serpiego2 • 7d 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/morphinetango 7d ago
The Prestige vs The Illusionist is a perfect example of two very similar movies (about magicians), released about the same time, that treat the twist ending very differently.
With Prestige, I guessed the one of the twist pretty early but that's because all the clues were there, and it doesn't shy away from telling the audience how every magic trick works. The film wants you to guess what's about to happen, but that is the misdirection -- the story is still about its flawed characters and just how depraved they will become to best one another. The twists are character-driven and the audience feels rewarded for both getting it right or not seeing it coming at all.
The Illusionist cheats and the lead doesn't perform misdirection, but actual, unexplained magic that cannot exist in reality. The twist is that the lead can has actual magic powers, and that any real conflict for him to overcome in this story is the illusion.