Hello, listener, and welcome to this preview of our latest Patreon exclusive episode.

To continue the conversation and listen to the full episode, head over to the Beyond the

Screenplay Patreon.

The link is in the show notes.

I was kind of feeling as this movie went on that, okay, this is going to be a flat arc movie where Marty is this flawed character.

It's going to get him into trouble over and over again.

He's relentlessly pursuing this goal of winning, playing the best, you know, ping pong player, the Japanese guy, Endo.

So it's like, it's all about him relentlessly pursuing this goal of success,

American success, American dream, something.

And then he's going to barely get it at the end, kind of not even really.

It's not even the real tournament, but he's going to get that victory.

But like, it's like he got it.

Is he happy now?

When he goes home, is he whole?

Is he happy?

And I think the flat arc version of this movie is no.

Like he went through all this chaos for what really?

Like, what is success?

What is this American dream?

But instead, it rewards him with this kind of, like, the deepest happiness of, like, fatherhood suddenly.

So that's where it was so strange is that, like you're saying, Michael, there's the Groundhog's Day journey where you build towards that ending,

where we've seen him resist, resist, resist, but slowly change to realize life is about more than this

...