Living In Oblivion – Screenwriting – Tom Dicillo | Senior Film Reviews

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Living In Oblivion – Screenwriting – Tom Dicillo

“Whatever you write, you have to tap into something personal for yourself. I used to have an acting teacher who said to me, “If it ain’t personal, it ain’t no good.” There’s something to be said for that. Even if you’re talking about a character, someone who’s not you, you have to find something that is you that you really do believe and that you’ve really experienced and you have real feelings about, and put it in that character’s mouth and in their hearts and minds.” – Tom Dicillo on Living in Oblivion

The part of a movie I enjoy most is the writing. I love good stories and characters, and that is exactly what I thought Living in Oblivion had, a good story and amazing characters. Ultimately it is about making a no-budget movie and all the problems that can arise, though most of it, specifically the first two segments actually take place in two of the crew members’ dreams. It reminded me of Inception a bit, which is a film that I enjoyed immensely, but resonated with me because of its topic, filmmaking and Murphy’s Law.

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Murphy’s Law is the adage that ‘Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong.’ Tom Dicillo used his experiences on the set of previous films to create the scenarios that would arise throughout the movie: actors walking off, actors forgetting their lines or not saying them correctly, equipment not working, disputes over scripting, discrepancies in scheduling, and the list goes on and on. But the underlying story is actually strung along with a comedic entanglement of relationships, love-triangles, and back-stabbing. This creates a hilarious narrative that drives the film to its finale.

Dicillo does an excellent job in building his characters, and that is because he based all them off of his experiences in the field. Nick the director faces similar issues that Dicillo faced when he directed films. Because of this Nick becomes more than just a character, he becomes a person, someone we, as the audience, can relate to and with, even if we are not going to be filmmakers. And the rest of the cast becomes so as well.

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Every character has their own quirky personality. Chad Palomino becomes the arrogant actor who wants everything his way. Tito is the actor who just wants to be appreciated and respected. Wanda becomes the ‘get everybody into gear’ leader. Wolfe becomes the comic relief and creative insight behind the camera. It is the combination of all these unique personalities that cause some of the eruptions during the filming, while others are mere reactions from things going wrong.

For example, Nick’s rant in the beginning sequence is an eruption of his personality under the stress of what is falling apart on set – Nicole and Cora cannot get their lines right, the light breaks, the set isn’t locked down. Yet later, Wolfe gets in an argument with Chad over Wolfe’s eyepatch being used by Chad in the scene – it is a battle between Chad’s demanding personality and Wolfe’s ‘just wanting to get things done’ mindset. Lastly, towards the end, Tito and Nick are at odds because Tito’s view that the world sees him as a freak since he is a dwarf and the only way Nick can portray a dream sequence is by having a dwarf in the scene.

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I love these hilarious interactions. They keep the story moving along in a semi-fantasy, semi-realistic fashion that can only describe some events. It shows that nothing ever runs smoothly, and that truth can, in fact, be stranger than fiction – and can make a good movie script.