Uptown Girls And Stoic Characters
Spoiler Alert – This post will talk about the 2003 movie Uptown Girls and it WILL contain spoilers. If you haven’t yet watched this hit-you-right-in-the-feels movie, you might wish to skip this post.
I’ve been rewatching some of my favorite movies as a coping mechanism during these interesting times.
One of my favorite movies is Uptown Girls showcasing Brittany Murphy as Molly Gunn, a very unusual nannie and Dakota Fanning as Ray, her rigidly self-possessed young charge.
A much beloved trope of mine is when stoic characters finally ‘break’ and show how very deep their emotions run. And Uptown Girls does this brilliantly.
Ray holds her emotions in, not showing her disappointment or grief or even joy.
Until an event happens that emotionally destroys her.
Even at this point, she fights her emotions. Hard. She hides her complete devastation under a calm exterior until it gets too much for her to handle.
Then she puts space between herself and everyone she knows. She isolates herself.
And she continues to try to manage her emotions.
Alone.
When her emotions finally escape, they are first expressed as fury, as a shocking amount of anger. This is expressed in the presence of someone she loves, someone she trusts to see it.
The tears eventually come. And we can physically see the weight of her emotional burden being shared with her loved one.
This scene makes me cry. Hard.
I know how fiercely Ray feels because I’ve been shown how fiercely she conceals her emotions. And I’ve been shown the battle to manage them.
When she finally capitulates to her emotions, it is a well-earned release.
Not only for the character. But also for me, the viewer.
That is the power of the stoic character breaking down.
If you want a masterclass on how to do this well, consider watching Uptown Girls.
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