Chapter 4875: Marvelous Shadows, Wondrous Drama (Nineteen)

Unexpectedly, Stark's solo film received a much better response than anticipated. Since it wasn't a family-friendly movie and had a higher rating, box office projections were relatively low. In reality, however, the box office was quite good.

Another pleasantly surprising point was the media ratings, which were quite favorable — mostly upper-mid reviews, with some outright positive ones. Many famous critics who had badmouthed the film before shooting even began also gave good reviews.

Audience praise consistently mentioned one thing: "unexpected." Almost everyone believed Tony Stark would make a superhero-style film showcasing his heroic combat — the main content being him in that armor, leading a horde of robots, defeating the villain, and saving the world.

No one held any expectations of him beyond that. Because they knew exactly what kind of person Stark was. This guy was flashy to the extreme; given any chance to show off his talent, he would absolutely never pass it up.

So most people thought they'd see that kind of pure self-aggrandizing film — simply put, self-indulgence. Many even went in with the mindset of watching a comedy, just to see how Stark would spend an entire movie praising himself, then go on social media afterward to mock him.

But very unexpectedly, Stark didn't do that. On the contrary, he advanced by retreating, and began filming his teenage and young adult years. Especially, he exposed his most vulnerable side; the entire story was built upon his parents' deaths, his whole person plunged into a spiritual prison of extreme pain.

The Stark in the film didn't look like he had any superhero temperament at all. On the contrary, he was very bedraggled, chaotic, scatterbrained. One could even say that if it weren't for that face and those eyes, many people would have thought he was simply too weak.

The performance in the film bore this out. Faced with a suddenly falling corpse, he was at a loss; faced with Shiler, he fled in panic; faced with Strange, he offered no useful suggestions — almost the entire film he was just being chased and running.

He was the quintessential horror movie protagonist, with absolutely no agency, drifting with the tide whatever danger he encountered, only capable of performing terrified screams.

But then again, art is born of precision. The Stark in the film was exactly right — not a bit more, not a bit less. His personality and behavior were unlikable, yet he just happened to have those eyes.

The emotional impact of those eyes was simply too strong, most easily drawing people into Stark's situation, making everyone feel that his behavior in that environment was perfectly normal — because he was too terrified and anxious, it was normal that he couldn't do anything.

This is the importance of acting. If you can't give the audience a sense of immersion, many behavioral logic points won't stand up to scrutiny. But as long as you can draw the audience in, they'll find excuses for the actor's some suicidal behaviors themselves.

Stark was like this. All audiences felt that first came the blow of his parents' deaths, then severe anxiety disorder, then his medication was secretly swapped, and immediately after he faced a murder case head-on — anyone would break down, so naturally they wouldn't nitpick excessively.

On the contrary, this character setup gave many viewers a pleasant surprise. Because they had originally imagined a narcissistic, paternalistic male lead, condescendingly performing for everyone how rich, smart, and powerful he was — but they never expected Stark would choose to dissect his most vulnerable part.

Undoubtedly, this allowed more people to understand him, or at least think they understood him better.

People would attribute his playboy degenerate period to the fact that he was in too much pain during that time, so he used that method to numb himself. Although this wasn't far from the truth, making people understand this point was actually quite difficult.

Stark himself would never come out and say "I have my hardships" or "I had such-and-such difficulties, that's why I indulged myself during that period." Because he felt that would be making excuses for his own mistakes, showing cowardice and avoidance, and he had never been willing to let people think he was cowardly.

And under the coaxing of Shiler and others, Stark accidentally-on-purpose revealed his vulnerability. This diminished Iron Man's "divinity" and added to Tony Stark's "humanity" — and people always make mistakes; a prodigal son's return is priceless.

So even though this film was completely different from the original conception in both content and theme, it actually accidentally achieved the expected effect — even far exceeding it.

Besides the thematic surprise, the film's content was also quite solid. Although Chris hadn't shot a mystery film before — only heartwarming comedies — *Ilvermorny* was already a major blockbuster production, which had accumulated a lot of experience for him.

This film naturally had its clever touches too. Chris chose the simplest way to do the twist, but precisely because it was simple, it let people feel the charm of the twist more than those films that go round and round or deliberately mystify.

Many may have heard that in the mystery novel world, there's a technical term called "narrative trick." This refers to the author using sleight of hand during narration, deliberately misleading readers by switching perspectives or using a character's subjective description, to achieve the effect of a twist when the truth is revealed.

For example. If from a God's-eye view it says "there is an apple here," that can't be overturned later, otherwise logical rigor and fair play can't be achieved. The author says there's an apple here, then there must be an apple here — it can't be an orange, can't be a pear.

But, suppose a person says in first person that he took an apple from here and ate it — then there's room to maneuver. Because all of this is based on his subjective judgment. Perhaps the "here" he refers to isn't the place the reader assumes; perhaps the apple wasn't taken but stolen; perhaps it wasn't an apple at all, but he misidentified it due to poor vision. Overturning this conclusion later is very simple.

So many mystery authors exploit this to play narrative tricks, achieving the effect of concealing the truth early on so readers can't deduce the culprit so quickly, while the late reveal still brings surprise.

Chris also played the simplest narrative trick. At the opening, he directly gave a scene of Stark seeing a mirror full of people. Because it directly filmed the scene in the mirror, many would think it was Stark's first-person view — and human eyes can deceive.

Subsequent flashback segments constantly used various shots to emphasize that Stark had severe anxiety disorder, that he kept having hallucinations. Those hallucinations were bizarre in all shapes and forms. This completely negated the credibility of Stark's perspective, making audiences naturally feel that those figures in the mirror were Stark's hallucinations.

The logic chain was roughly: Stark has anxiety disorder — anxiety disorder causes hallucinations — the ghosts in the mirror are hallucinations.

If analyzed this way, it's not hard to see these three points have no necessary causal relationship. Anxiety disorder doesn't necessarily cause hallucinations, and there's no evidence proving the mirror figures are hallucinations.

However, with this narrative method, it's very easy to make people erroneously attribute the result. This is a common reasoning fallacy, and it served as a very effective misdirection.

Chris had another little clever touch here. That is, using the Rodriguez Manor's retro decor style and Hampton's just-right weather to create a "orthodox mystery" atmosphere.

Same old saying — blizzard, manor, banquet, it's just too perfect for murder. When everyone sees all this, they'll feel this must be another "snowbound manor" style story, roughly set in late 18th to early 19th century, with nobles, servants, celebrities participating, the detective a beret-wearing, pipe-smoking outsider, maybe even with a military doctor assistant.

No one would think in this atmosphere about why Iron Man isn't wearing armor, why the Sorcerer Supreme isn't using magic, where the guests' shuttles should be parked. Because these things completely clash with the manor's entire aesthetic — they simply shouldn't appear.

This further deepened the misdirection, making audiences not think in the supernatural direction at all, single-mindedly believing this was an old-school orthodox mystery adaptation film.

Of course, because the anxiety-hallucination cover-up was too good, not giving the audience any clues would be unfair too. So Strange showed a little skill, displaying his magical attainment — plainly telling the audience, magic exists.

But this was another layer of sleight of hand. Since Strange plays the Sorcerer Supreme in other films, and his levitation didn't serve any plot-advancing function, everyone assumed this was the director playing an actor in-joke.

And later Shiler used a series of very rigorous deductions to eliminate all human suspects. At this point the clues the audience received already far exceeded what was concealed, and a portion of the audience would certainly deduce it.

Mystery novels and films are like this. Some people enjoy being able to deduce the truth, while some people's brains just don't turn that way — they just wait for the final answer reveal, waiting for the twist that will surprise them.

Neither group is wrong, but how to balance is a problem. Give too many clues, and the deduction crowd finds it boring — the puzzle too simple, no challenge. Give too few clues, and although you can better create a twist serving the twist-loving crowd, it's too hard on the deduction crowd. Either way, someone will give a bad review.

Chris balanced it quite well. The deduction crowd can't say he didn't give enough clues. Right at the opening he put the ghost spectacle right in all audiences' faces — those ghosts in the mirror weren't one or two, but a whole crowd, looking eerie and terrifying.

Strange's levitation wasn't concealed by any camera tricks either — he just stood right in the center of the frame, flying straight up from the balcony, plainly filmed flying to the rooftop.

Finally, Shiler's elimination process didn't cut corners either — analyzed point by point very clearly. So those who didn't deduce it can't blame the director for not giving clues — purely their own level wasn't up to par.

As for the twist crowd, they naturally got sufficient surprise too. After all, when discovering supernatural powers actually exist, all the previous clues surface — giving a "no wonder" feeling, many would feel extremely satisfied.

And the final shot, that monster close-up, can be called the climax of climaxes. No one expected the final twist would be just a few seconds of footage, and after giving this shot it ended cleanly, not a word of nonsense. This only made the impact of this shot stronger.