Can a morally-decent, sane, grounded character still be dramatically interesting?

I'm intrigued by the difficulty of creating a morally decent yet dramatically compelling film character. Not a superhero, not a savior, not a saint.

Just a capable, grounded person who you don't have to give a dark side or some big affliction to in order to make them interesting.

I’ll give some examples: Marge Gunderson from Fargo. She’s granted a degree of vulnerability via her pregnancy and is a bit comic figure at times because of her accent and chipper attitude. But beyond these surface traits, her defining characteristics seem to be her competency and her decency. Yet she’s utterly compelling as the film’s moral center and lead protagonist.

Another example would be Phil Parma, played by Philip Seymour Hoffman in Magnolia. His hospice nurse is empathetic, capable, sensitive. His scenes with Jason Robards are by far my favorite in a film full of otherwise operatic, highly-dramatic characters.

More to add to this list:

Tish in If Beale Street Could Talk, played by Kiki Layne.

Rosa Lee in Tender Mercies, played by Tess Harper.

Ed Tom Bell in No Country For Old Men, played by Tommy Lee Jones.

Max Cherry in Jackie Brown, played by Robert Forster.

Noriko Hirayama in Tokyo Story, played by Setsuko Hara.

---

What makes a normal, grounded, morally decent person dramatically interesting?

First of all, I’d venture that such a character probably has to be in an unusually interesting story. The story is interesting either because of its criminal novelty (Fargo, Jackie Brown, No Country For Old Men), or its universal emotional resonance (Tokyo Story, Tender Mercies), or its intensity (If Beale Street Could Talky).

The character’s decency also probably needs to be an exception. If every character in a story is similarly decent and sane, it’s probably a pretty dry story.

But with, say, Marge Gunderson being surrounded by dumb lunatics, pathetic losers, and arrogant blowhards in Fargo, her decency and sanity shine like a beacon.

Likewise, Noriko’s kindness and generosity to her visiting in-laws in Tokyo Story stands as a contrast to the relative self-absorption of the elderly couple’s natural children.

---

But in addition to being a relative exception in a strong story, as far as I can tell, this type of character also needs to have a certain constellation of traits to help make them compelling. (These are also probably some good practical traits to think about when trying to make any character appealing to an audience member.)

These are the common traits I’ve noticed for this type of character:

1. They are competent.

For the characters in the Tarantino and Coen Brothers crime narratives listed above, their competency is usually one of the first things dramatized. Whether it’s Marge capably sussing out the roadside killing in Fargo, or Sheriff Ed Tom making similar calculations post-shootout in No Country, or Max Cherry being introduced capably handling his business as a bailbondsman in Jackie Brown.

But this also seems to be true outside of the crime genre. Rosa Lee in Tender Mercies capably runs her gas station and roadside motel as a single mother. Phil Parma is clearly a capable hospice nurse in Magnolia. And etc.

Hitchcock once noted his perverse thrill in subliminally aligning the audience on Norman Bates’ side after the shower killing in Psycho. He did this by showing Norman very capably clean up after his mother’s successful homicide. There is something about competency on screen that makes just about any character appealing.

2. They seem to be largely emotionally self-reliant.

That is, these characters tend to be emotional providers more so than emotional needers. They aren’t necessarily stoic — Phil Parma wears his feelings on his sleeves — but when interacting with other characters, they don’t focus on having their own emotional needs fulfilled. In Magnolia, Phil Parma doesn’t expect Jason Robards, Julianne Moore, or Tom Cruise’s characters to tend to his emotions. He focuses on their emotional needs and only gets upset when he’s accused of doing emotional harm by Julianne Moore.

3. They prefer to express their decency through small gestures.

There’s something inherently distrustful about people who make big grand emotional gestures. Especially in a film or TV show. It’s usually in the smaller, less public interactions where a person’s real character is revealed.

This is especially true in a scene where a character’s decency or kindness is only witnessed by the viewer. It creates trust, and interest, but also a degree of intimacy that — as a storyteller — is invaluable to exploit.

4. They tend to be somewhat on the margins.

You can go way back into cinematic history to Charlie Chaplin’s homeless Tramp character being the kindest person to a poor blind girl in City Lights. Or go back to John Ford’s foundation western Stagecoach where it’s the most marginal characters who reveal themselves to be the most trustworthy.

Historically, in the cinematic medium, high status breeds audience distrust. And as Parasite points out, it’s relatively easy to be nice when you’re already rich. It’s more interesting if a character is decent and sane, but somehow marginalized. And this marginalization can come in many forms.

Marge has a socially elevated job as chief of police in Fargo, but the Coens add vulnerability by making her a woman in a male-dominated profession. And by making her very, very pregnant.

Likewise, Sheriff Ed Tom is a respected community figure in No Country For Old Men, but he’s granted vulnerability by his relatively advanced age.

Noriko and Rosa Lee are working class widows. Max Cherry is an aging man in a marginal, often corrupt profession. A great class divide separates Phil Parma and the Robards, Moore, & Cruise characters. Tish in If Beale Street Could Talk is a young working class black woman with a spouse wrongly incarcerated.

They are all given reasons to be bitter, or hateful, or resentful, or selfish. Yet they all steadfastly maintain their decency and generosity. That’s interesting.

If you’re wanting to center a decent, sane character without making them boring, one approach is to make them socially vulnerable but have them choose to quietly focus on the needs of others anyway.

5. They have a code.

It can be a personal code, or a religious code, or (most common) a professional code.

Rosa Lee’s initial kindness to Robert Duvall’s drunken character in Tender Mercies is simple Christian charity; she doesn’t see him as a potential mate at first. The law enforcement officers in Fargo and No Country For Old Men adhere to their civic duty out of professionalism (though Sheriff Ed Tom blinks when faced with the oncoming evil of Anton Chigurh).

Phil Parma’s connection to Jason Robards’ character in Magnolia is merely a professional one, but Parma inhabits his profession with so much generosity and humanity that this professional relationship has a tenderness that outshines Robards’ relationships with his own wife and estranged son.

A character sticking to their code — especially when it’s inconvenient — makes them interesting. Especially if they’re surrounded by opportunistic big talkers who shrink away or fall apart as soon as things take a bad turn.

6. They seem genuinely humble without being self-effacing.

They’re modest but they don’t indulge in the refracted egotism of a self-deprecating demeanor.

7. They appear to be in control of their appetites and desires, though they presumably still have them.

They aren’t drunkards, or addicts, or lecherous perverts. When other people or situations need them, they aren’t distracted by their appetites or desires. They’re ready to serve.

I think this connects to these types of characters being emotionally self-reliant. They don’t need other people to tend to their emotions. But they also don’t resort to addictions, fetishes, or obsessions to give their lives meaning. Which leads to…

8. They are fundamentally whole and authentically know themselves, warts and all.

This is key, and why a character like Jamie Foxx’s cabbie Max in Collateral doesn’t quite make my list. He’s nice. And he’s competent — Michael Mann introduces Max fastidiously cleaning his car, and then impressing Jada Pinkett’s lawyer character with his hyper-competency.

But he’s also living a lie. He’s telling himself that he’s going to start a limousine business when in fact he’s putting it off. And he’s literally lying to his overbearing mother. He’s decent, but stunted.

He doesn’t function dramatically as a beacon of decency. He functions differently: as an incomplete human who needs to overcome Tom Cruise’s antagonist in order to find his way to wholeness and authenticity. Still dramatically compelling, but in a different way.

---

Obviously, I do believe a sane, decent, grounded character can be dramatically compelling. So why do we see them so rarely? Probably because their dramatic worth isn’t obvious at the pitch or development stage. And also probably because they’re hard to pull off.

Doing so takes some clearheaded framing and smart dramatic strategizing. A grounded, decent, sane character probably needs to be a contrast to the characters and events surrounding them. And they probably need to have some kind of vulnerability or lower status marker to make their decency feel earned.

Not an easy proposition in a medium where conflict and novelty (necessarily) rule the day. But I do think these types of grounded characters — if fully realized within an interesting story and if embodied by a compelling performer — can end up being the very characters that audiences most love and most identify with and most fondly remember. When done well, they’re human and appealing and fascinating in a way that our increasingly interchangeably bigger-than-life superheroes and super villains can’t quite manage.