Tag: Arthur Cortez

Melbourne: “Thanassis”

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Considering the other group member’s characters, I decided to go for someone who was less relatable to me. I took inspiration from various people in my life, hopefully crafting an interesting character who is out of the norm of a young, white and educated Australian.

manolis_the_slap_episode_6“Thanassis (67) is a widower and father of three. His wife passed away from cancer four years ago, bringing him to a new understanding of loneliness. He comes to a realisation that he spent his youth working, and as a strict father, he feels that he had pushed away his children in the process. In an attempt to find purpose in his new life, he tries to get closer to his three kids, despite all of them having their own families and living away from home. He discovers a second chance for redemption by bonding with his middle child’s daughter, Sophia (5), nurturing her like his own.”

Undoubtedly, my character was influenced by Manolis from Christos Tsiolkas’ The Slap. (What can I do, I just love Tsiolkas’ work). It would’ve been relatively easy for me to write about someone who was of Filipino heritage, considering my background, but I thought that Greek families were more dispersed and assimilated into Melbourne communities.

Without revealing too much of my personal circumstances, this character, his motivations and particularly his family were inspired by people close to me. This will make my writing easier and hopefully give me the opportunity to grab raw content to transform into story material.

Gone Girl

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Despite being a young ‘un living in modern Melbourne, I often find myself lagging with trends and this one in particular is the positivity surrounding David Fincher’s Gone Girl, adapted from Gillian Flynn’s novel. Having seen it last night with a fresh mind and a happy belly, I gone-girl-DF-01826cc_rgb.jpgwas absolutely absorbed into Nick Dunne’s plight, battling the media frenzy accusing him of murdering his missing wife. The plot’s Psycho-esque turnaround halfway through the film, during which Rosamund Pike’s Amy reveals her whereabouts and her psychopathic methods of spicing up her marriage, leaves the audience flabbergasted by the audacity of her character’s pure evilness. For once, paying customers are batting for the happiness of an Affleck character, no longer criticising him for performance (cough Daredevil and Batman?). Although yes, one would roll their eyes at Nick’s naivete smiling for the cameras, taking selfies with random female strangers and continuing her adulterous relationship with a student; on second thought, these moments of stupidity are somewhat realistic for the modern married man. Despite leaving the theatre very content with what I had just taken in, I was left wanting more with the cliffhanger ending, and though I haven’t read the novel myself (and trust me, I’ve downloaded the audiobook right after seeing the film), I was hoping for more than a one-sided manipulation game between wife and husband. I wanted to see Nick and Amy go into a sociopathic showdown destroying each other’s credibility. I cannot wait to begin the audiobook experience, not just to compare and contrast the adaptation differences between film and novel, but to clarify uncertainties that would’ve been left out deliberately such as Amy’s baby’s paternity–the only humane reason why Nick Dunne wasn’t going to kill his wife. Despite my thirst for content, I was satisfied with the ending, as it was the only way to preserve the characters’ motivations. A true sacrificing hero, good man Nick Dunne would endure living with his psychotic wife to bear a child which, would inevitably be, the spawn of the She-devil.

FIVE STARS.