In Blake Snyder‘s book “Save the Cat!: The Last Book on Screenwriting You’ll Ever Need,” he notes how when a character in a film saves a cat or undertakes some other likeable deed, we as the audience are more apt to root for the character and be invested in the film. While dog lovers may beg to differ, I think Mr. Snyder is on to something here. Case in point–Buddy. Here is a film that succeeds to the degree we like the main characters. And we do like them . . . a lot.
Take the character of Kristoffer (played wonderfully by Nicolai Cleve Broch) who is in many ways a self-centered, self-absorbed prat. Yet, with a surprise birthday party for buddy Stig Inge or a slight nudge of his best friend Geir toward embracing fatherhood, we see someone who has a sincere heart even if he gets it wrong now and then. We can forgive the slip-ups because in the savings of the cats, we see someone who at least wants to want to be a great friend.
While Buddy is a Norwegian film, this story about three friends learning to be just that has universal appeal. Certainly, the film has its predictable moments, the cinematography bores, the soundtrack limps along, and the set decoration does little to inspire. A cinematic masterwork it is not; yet, Buddy does engage. I desired nothing more than to watch it to the very end and nowadays that’s saying a lot.
Truthfully, I think we love TV sitcoms, reality shows, vampire novels, and books about teenage wizards because we like characters. We would watch people dig up worms in the mud pits of Maine, if we liked the folks doing the digging. Of course, most of us like our villains and bad guys too, but ask us who’d we prefer to hang out with next weekend and 99.9% of us would pick the Buddy saving the cat.
