Monday 12 February 2018

Stranger Things


There is a short scene in Stranger Things that explains the sheer brilliance of the show.

Having just come up with a bizarre plan (they certainly have those), Charlie and Nancy are at an improvised shooting range. Naturally, Charlie is hopeless at hitting the can, and now the turn comes to Nancy. A girl who has never held a gun in her hands, let alone fired it. But seconds later she fires the gun - and... lo and behold... she bloody hits it.

Well, of course she does. But there's a catch. It's a well-trodden cinematic cliche that suddenly looks like magic, and that's because in this age of cynical filmmaking very few people have the heart and the guts to enchant you with something as simple as that.