The phrase ‘plot twist’ makes it sound like there was an unexpected development in the series of events in the story. Something startling took place, and now the story direction will go a different way, like running into a road-closed sign and taking a detour.
But I don’t think plot twists usually have much to do with the plot; that is, the series of events in a story. Often the plot twists make us rethink what has already happened. Unexpected things often happen in stories, but we do not call them plot twists. Take jump scares, for instance. Is it a plot twist if we go to a haunted house? I don’t think so.
So if plot twists are not just about the unexpected, do they change the events? Usually not. The past events remain the same, but the reasoning and intention behind the events changes. The plot isn’t twisted, our minds are. So if the plot remains mostly unchanged, what twists? I think I have an idea.
Plot twists are identity twists. That person or object you thought was one thing is really something else. That is the secret. But it’s a bit of a magic trick. You want to ensure the audience does not realize the illusion until it is too late.
So what identities can twist into plot twists? Let’s go through a few famous film plot twists and see where the surprise lies.
Psycho (1960)
District Attorney: Did he talk to you?
Simon: No. I got the whole story… but not from Norman. I got it from… his mother.
Bate’s mother is not the killer, even if we have ‘seen’ her kill. It was not actually her. Norman Bates, dressed as his mother, is the killer. He has multiple personalities.
Multiple personalities are a good way to think about plot twists because even if the medical condition is not part of the story, the audience has to reconcile two unique identities competing. Simon even describes this struggle in Psycho.
Simon: When the mind houses two personalities, there is always a battle. In Norman’s case, the battle is over… and the dominant personality has won.
Is this mental battle between two personalities what a plot twist really is? I think the battle of rethinking identities is what leaves the audience reeling. And there does not always have to be a winning identity.
Star Wars: Episode V – The Empire Strikes Back (1980)
Darth Vader: If you only knew the power of the dark side. Obi-Wan never told you what happened to your father.
Luke: He told me enough! He told me you killed him.
Darth Vader: No, I am your father.
The villain from the first two movies, who Luke thinks killed his father, is his father. Obi-Wan Kenobi misleads Luke.
Family is another good way to twist an identity. That person who tried to kill you? They are really your family. That person who died? Actually, they were your family, too. Family is a unique biological relationship because even if someone is terrible, you have a connection to them that death will not change. Siblings, parents, and children seem to be the strongest in the family twist area. Cousins, aunts, uncles, and grandparents don’t seem to have the same impact.
The Usual Suspects (1995)
Kujan: WHERE IS HE? DID YOU SEE HIM?
Cop: The Cripple? He went that way.
Verbal Kint is Keyser Soze. He does not have cerebral palsy. He was playing the role of a crippled thug to hide his real identity as the dark mastermind behind everything. As Verbal says,
Verbal: A man can’t change what he is. He can convince anyone he’s someone else, but never himself. The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist.
Verbal does not have multiple personality disorder. Verbal is an act and an intentional deception. But the idea of being two people, or having two identities that must fight it out, is still here. We have to rethink everything that happened with this new information. The series of events may not change, but we now rethink everything that happened, knowing that Verbal was probably the mastermind of everything, and very little of what he said is true.
Fight Club (1997)
Jack: What did you just call me? Say my name.
Marla: Tyler Durden! Tyler Durden, you fucking freak. What’s going on? I’m coming over…
Tyler Durden is not Jack’s friend turned enemy. Jack is Tyler Durden. Jack has multiple personalities. Here we have the raw multiple personality disorder diagnosis again. But because it is done well, and we must rethink the story knowing Jack did everything, we put the whole puzzle back together again, enjoying every moment. A little montage often helps us rethink the events. Tyler joins Jack in a hotel room to flip through previous events to help Jack, and the audience, make sense of it all.
Planet of the Apes (1968)
George Taylor: You Maniacs! You blew it up! Ah, damn you! God damn you all to hell!
The planet of the Apes is not an alien planet. It is Earth, years after a nuclear war. The astronauts did not make it to a distant world in their millennia of cryo-sleep. Here, the identity that twists is the planet itself. George thinks he might escape this alien place and get back to earth. But he is mistaken because he is already on earth. This time, it is not a character with multiple identities; it is the setting.
Se7en (1995)
John Doe: It seems that envy is my sin. Become vengeance, David. Become wrath.
John Doe is Envy. David is Wrath.
Se7en follows a serial killer who targets victims using the seven deadly sins as a template. The twist is that the investigator David becomes the ultimate killer completing the seven crimes. John Doe is the killer and a victim of his plot. John Doe must die for his sin of Envy, and David and his wife are who John Doe envied.
The setup for se7evn is more complex than many other twists because you need to understand and expect the final two victims. Identity sharing fits into the crimes. Where every other crime, they find new victims for each of the seven sins at the crime scene; we already know the victims of the final two sins. We just don’t know their identity, until the end.
Saw (2004)
John: Most people are so ungrateful to be alive. But not you. Not anymore. GAME OVER.
That is not a corpse lying in the middle of the room. That is Jigsaw, the killer who orchestrated the whole situation, and he is not dead. Not a victim, but the killer and not dead, but still alive.
The Sixth Sense (1999)
Anna: Why did you leave me?
Malcolm: I didn’t leave you.
Probably the most famous twist in movie history. Malcolm isn’t just a psych helping Cole with his ghost problems. Malcolm is a ghost himself. Malcolm has been dead most of the movie and did not know it. Having two identities compete does not require multiple personality disorder. For the sixth sense, it is living and dead, which most of the movie has dealt with because Cole can see the dead.
Do any of the events change with this realization? Technically no, but as we go through Malcolm’s flashbacks, we see the previous events in a new light. We even get a montage to help us understand it all. Malcolm’s wife was not cheating on him. She was trying to move on after his death. Cole even gives us the reason Malcolm does not know he’s dead.
Cole: I see people. They don’t know they’re dead. They’re everywhere. They only see what they want to see.
Now let’s do a couple of sad ones.
The Mist (2007) – David Drayton’s car runs out of gas, and he shoots his family to spare them from a grisly death from the monsters hiding outside in the mist. What he thinks is an act of mercy changes to an act of horror, when he sees the military arrive. The situation was not hopeless.
The situation, the mist, is what David and the audience misidentify. He thought it was the end of the world, but he was wrong. If it were a hopeless situation, his act might make sense given the horrors he has seen. But because David was wrong, he will never stop screaming.
Chinatown (1974)
EVELYN: She’s my sister— she’s my daughter — my sister — My daughter, my sister—
GITTES: I said I want the truth.
EVELYN: She’s my sister and my daughter!
Here we have another family identity crisis. This time there is not an identity that wins. Both of Katherine’s identities are true. Katherine is Evelyn’s daughter and sister, and Katherine’s father is also her grandfather. Multiple personalities might be the most famous plot twist trope, but multiple identities seem to be the most important.
Let’s end on a happy note!
Charlie Kaufman makes fun of the idea of serial killers with multiple personalities in the semi-autobiographical film Adaptation (2002), where his fictional twin, Donald, pitches a script idea.
DONALD: Okay, but there’s a twist. See, we find out the killer suffers from multiple personality disorder. Okay? See, he’s really also the cop and the girl. All of them. It’s all him! Isn’t that crazy?
KAUFMAN: Look, the only idea more overused than serial killers, is multiple personality.
Nothing like having two personalities talk about how weird it would be to have three personalities.
So multiple personalities are the classic identity twist. Killer’s identities and Family relationships are high up there too. You can twist the setting and the situation.
Some of the strongest plot twists set up their rules in the story and then twist those patterns, like in The Sixth Sense and Se7en. These might qualify as twisting plots and identities because the identities are tied so closely to the story’s series of events and rules.
But twisting identity is not enough. Just because the characters mistake an identity, does not mean the audience will. Let’s look at a classic example of mistaken identity that is not a plot twist.
Star Wars (1977)
Luke: Look at him. He’s headed for that small moon.
Han: I think I can get him before he gets there… he’s almost in range.
Ben: That’s no moon, that’s a space station.
Obi-Wan Kenobi and the crew of the Millennium Falcon mistake the Death Star for a moon. But the audience does not. This is one of the film’s most famous lines. It looks like it could be a plot twist, but it didn’t catch us off guard. We already know about the Death Star and have even seen it destroy a planet.
It’s not just the trick of twisting identities but the audience’s reaction that makes a plot twist magic. The audience’s understanding of identities must change for a plot twist to land a knock-out punch.
Murder mysteries seem to be the genre most prone to twisting, but I’ll talk about that later.
Daniel N. Blair 