I watched A Perfect World for the first time this evening, a Clint Eastwood and Kevin Costner film from 1993 that I didn’t know existed until a friend was trying to describe the plot to our confused crowd at Happy Hour. We were a little sure she was making it up.
Escaped convicted takes a little kid as a hostage and then the kid gets Stockholm Syndrome.
Not that I’m necessarily proud of this being known as a trope I would be really into, but I couldn’t believe that a movie like that existed and I hadn’t seen it yet.
So it does exist and spoiler alert, I was really into it. I’m just going to go ahead and throw it out there that movies with a kid and reluctant/pseudo parent figures are my jam. Send them my way. Or books. And yeah, if there’s any kidnapping involved I would like to know about it.
I also watched The Boy and the Beast for the first time last night, an anime film that is also about a reluctant/pseudo parent figure . . . just with magical beast worlds and lots of sword fighting. No kidnapping, though. Well, like a smidge if you squint.
I also realized that my own novel has a lot of these elements as well (though it’s the actual parent who is playing the reluctant parent role). I guess I know what I like?
Now I want to write a hostage situation story. It’s an old problem.
With Love,
Natalie