The 3-Act Paradigm at Work: The Pledge

written by Jerzy Kromolowski and Mary Olson


The Pledge is a low-key but taut, suspenseful and haunting psychological thriller about a retired detective who becomes obsessed with solving the rape and murder of a little girl.

Structural Analysis

  1. Hook (0 min.)
    • A dazed drunken man talking to himself: the image is haunting. Who is this man?
  2. Complication (13 min.)
    • A little girl is brutally murdered on the day the protagonist detective is retiring. He leaves his own retirement party to go to the scene of the crime.
  3. Call to Action (21 min.)
    • The detective promises the mother of the little girl that he will solve the crime.
  4. Act One Plot Point (33 min.)
    • The detective goes to airport to go fishing in Baja, a retirement gift, but doesn't board plane. He is obsessed with solving this crime.
  5. Midpoint Plot Point (53, 60 min.)
    • The department believes they caught the killer, who then killed himself. The detective puts together an alternative theory based on a drawing by the little girl, but the department doesn't buy it. Later he buys a gas station in the area where he thinks the real murderer operates.
  6. Act Two Plot Point (103-114 min.)
    • The detective has married a local woman with a little girl. The girl tells him about meeting the wizard in the woods, who fits the profile the detective has developed. The girl will meet the wizard again tomorrow, so the detective uses the girl as bait and gets the department to set a trap for him. When he is late to show, the department leaves -- and tells the mother what has been going on. The mother then shows and grabs the daughter and castigates the detective, her husband, for using her daughter.
  7. Climax and Resolution (64-5 min.)
    • The wizard is killed in a head-on collision on the way to meet the girl. Is he the real murderer? The detective goes crazy and becomes the drunk of the opening image.

Notes

The Pledge uses powerful visual storytelling to set the mood and build tension and suspense. It's a brilliant character study.


MODULE 4: SCREENWRIGHT: the craft of screenwriting

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