196 - The Brass Teapot

     A struggling couple find themselves in possession of a teapot that dispenses money when the owner(s) are hurt.
    This showed up under comedies on Netflix.  I am impressed.  This is a good movie.  While there are comedic elements to the movie, they gradually phase out in favor of more interesting ideas.
    The premise is really pretty simple, although to keep things interesting, new developments keep making the story interesting.  There are some spoilers here.
    First, it's just physical pain that seems to generate a payout.  Then it turns out that being around other people who go through physical pain can generate a payout.  Then it turns out that emotional pain also can generate a payout.  And by extension, emotional pain of others.  Each of these discoveries influences their behavior.
    The movie addresses one of the obvious weaknesses.  It's very easy to think something like "Oh, well, I would just give myself a little burn each day, and that would keep me well-to-do."  The story addresses this problem in two ways.  First, the payout for any type of pain reduces over time.  Eventually, they find that the little forms of small pain they inflict on themselves is producing singles and five dollar bills rather than the hundred dollar payouts they started with.  The other way is by introducing other people that are aware of the teapot.  A pair of Hasidic Jews whose mother was the previous owner of the teapot.  These two people steal the money that has been saved up.
    It's rare that a Twilight Zone-like plot can be stretched out to this length without suffering from script problems.  It really worked well.  (I believe that the story reminds me of Button, Button, or The Box, a story by Richard Matheson.)

    I've been thinking a lot about scripts, and about how the stories get structured.  Tools that writers use to make the story layered well enough that the audience keeps paying attention, and there are notable developments at regular enough intervals.  I was very happy with this script.  Secondary characters played the parts they needed, and they weren't treated as comedic relief.  The comedy came from the situation, not from unrelated wackiness.  I even looked up the screenwriter, but he doesn't seem to have written anything else.