Chekhov's Molotov

Chekhov's gun: the storytelling principle that says when a gun is introduced in Act 1, it must go off in Act 3. Also referred to as set-up and payoff.

10 Cloverfield Lane is a great example of excellent use of set-up and payoff in film. Almost every object in the movie has a moment early on that establishes it, before it later comes in to play. Like how there's lots of hints of how Mary Elizabeth Winstead's character, uh, Ramona Flowers, wants to be a fashion designer and then at the end that comes in to play when she makes a hazmat suit. The bottle of scotch we see early on in her apartment, they mention that it's in the truck later, and then at the end she uses it to make a Molotov cocktail. Which is also set up when she first tries to escape her room. She is looking around for materials she can use and she finds a book of matches with two matches left. The first is used to light a fire in the air duct, and then at the end when she has to light the Molotov she uses—a lighter? Wait what? Where did that come from?? And what happened to the second match? I thought that the second match might have been used to light the perchloric acid but no, that was the sparking wire from a lamp. So why wasn't the match used to light the cocktail?

In most movies this wouldn't bother me. She finds the lighter in the truck and the scotch was set up earlier so that's pretty good, right? But everything else in this script is so tight that it feels like a mistake. The kidnapped girl's earring is set up early on in her picture, and paid off when Ramona finds it was used to scratch "Help" in the window. They watch Pretty in Pink, which has a plot point where Molly Ringwald creates a dress for herself, (just like Ramona with the hazmat suit), and it also has a love triangle which could be another connection to the main three characters in the bunker. Howard, John Goodman's character, tells Lucy McClane about how you can freeze a lock with canned air, which she does later to escape.

One possibility for this weird un-payoff is how this movie was not originally written to be a Cloverfield movie, and so maybe the third act with the aliens wasn't originally planned. Thus there is no payoff because there was no planned set-up. Except, that the aliens were set-up. Howard mentions the Martians might be behind the attack, and we know there is something strange going on because the infected lady that shows up says that "it" barely touched her. The final moment of the film, where Gwen Grayson decides to help the people in Houston, is the completion of her arc, since she chooses to stand up and fight instead of stand by and watch. And the Gosh-damn bottle of scotch was set up in the first scene of the film!

So why doesn't Royal Pain use the last match to light the Molotov? I don't really have an answer. Maybe it was an idea that was supposed to happen but was lost to rewrites, or reshoots, like that thing in Suicide Squad with the unicorn. (Have you seen that video by Folding Ideas? It's really good you should watch it here.) Maybe some studio executive said "More lighters!" and the deed was done. Or maybe they were just having trouble with the prop on set and said, "Fuck it." Whatever the case it's too bad, because other than this one missed opportunity the movie is nearly perfect in my eyes.

Michelle! That's her character's name! Phew, that was going to keep me up all night.