What: Character Rubrics Part Two

Graham -- One of the controlling rubrics for Graham is that he ages as the story progresses.  He uses clothing, accessories, and changing his hair color to alter his appearance.  He is a man becoming middle-age with a dead-end job he can't find a way out of.  This tragic fate collapses his world.

Imagine Graham as a modern day Paris (from the Greek Helen myth), living into middle age, doing the one thing he knows how to do well -- abduct women -- but since he fell in love with the tattooed woman (present day Helen), he has lost his mojo and he wants to cut his losses.  Each moment and challenge makes him feel older.

At the very beginning, we see him presenting himself as mid 30's:

Then a little older:

Even older:

And for his last, oldest look, a disguise.  A mustache and baby powder in the hair for some grey.  I told him I wanted him to look like a Mexican Willy Loman:

Graham's choices to age in appearance over the course of 48 hours offers a compressed mirror of the responses of someone that age -- denial, resistance, acceptance.  As he moves through those responses his anger and frustration about what he's doing for a living and how it is falling apart around him leads to a murderous rage.

Creating these changes in his character helped develop an emotional arc from beginning to end.  The Russian's desire for revenge of the abduction of Helen, the tattooed woman, is Death as vengeance, judgement with impunity, clearly defining his actions in any scene.  And Bhatia desires a past he never was allowed to experience due to his lowly upbringing.  Now he will possess that dream at any price.

None of the male characters, Bhatia, Graham, or the Russian get what they want in the end.  Bhatia doesn't get the girl.  Graham doesn't get the cash.  And the Russian doesn't get Graham.  They are all trapped in the black hole of nostalgia.  Only Anne's character gets what she wants -- freedom.  Her character develops becoming in the moment with her only two weapons -- patience and speed.