The issue of protagonists not being likable or making obviously bad decisions comes up a lot in movies discussion. Oftentimes they're used as evidence of bad characters or bad writing. We want to like a character and yet sometimes they make mistakes so obvious that were left frustrated and disappointed in them.
SPOILERS FOR GOOD TIME
In Good Time, we're ostensibly led into a story about Robert Pattinson's character 'Connie' saving his brother after a botched heist. It slowly becomes apparent that the true story is about Connie himself. He's a criminal and not a very good one. He's resourceful and good at getting out of situations but only because he's always getting himself into them in the first place. We feel bad for him at first, but are then given numerous reasons to hate him. He manipulates his girlfriend and a young girl he meets. He steals from and latter hurts innocent people. He does all this in pursuit of that goal to help his brother -- a goal that was originally so noble.
We don't get what we originally want and instead are left hating the person that we wanted to and thought we were supposed to like. And that's okay! That's not a mistake or bad writing. Those conflicting emotions are very intentional. It's a challenge to sympathise with a character like that, but it can be well worth it!
Sympathizing doesn't mean that you agree with or support him -- just that you understand his screwed up thinking and feel bad for him. Yes, he's foolish, arrogant, and selfish. The goal is to get you to feel pity or sadness or melancholy or whatever because his flaws and mistakes are pretty dang sad even if most of them are partially or fully his own fault.
Being arrogant, selfish, and foolish don't on their own make him a bad character. They might very well make him a bad person, but some of the very best characters are terrible people.
You can hate a character as a person and still like them as a character.
Submitted September 04, 2017 at 04:48AM by DontGetBit http://ift.tt/2eUFIX1
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