When Scott Hatteberg hits the walk-off home run to give the Oakland A's their record-breaking 20-game win streak in the film MONEYBALL, it's the ultimate convergence of Peter Brand and A's general manager Billy Beane's genius reinvention and outsmarting of baseball's conventional wisdom and A's coach, Art Howe, accepting that genius.
For the majority of the film, Art puts up a fight. It's his team. As the coach, the lineup is his decision. But the more Peter and Billy's reinvention works, despite Art, the more Art begins to see its possibility. And when their backs are against the wall, needing a miracle to secure that twentieth win, Art follows the unconventional wisdom and changes the lineup per Peter and Billy's logic, putting Hatteberg in at the perfect moment.
Who knows if that's exactly how it happened in real life when the A's made actual baseball history. But it was Hatteberg who hit that homerun. And Billy brought Hatteberg on in place of star Jason Giambi. Perhaps, in truth, Art was more amenable. But in the film, his character was representative of something. Art Howe's character represented baseball itself and its desire to stay the same.
For the purposes of story, our real-life characters sometimes need to become larger than life -- a representation of a concept within the human condition specific to our story. MONEYBALL is about breaking the mold when that mold only works for a fortunate few. In equal measure, it's about those unfortunate souls who believe that they, somehow, if they follow conventional wisdom, can become a part of that fortune.
Reinvention is not easy. We are creatures of habit, even when those habits no longer serve us. MONEYBALL tracks this painful process of changing people's minds by pushing realism such that we see, with complete emotional clarity, the Moral Dilemma of taking on such a feat. As is said in the film, "The first one through the wall always gets bloody."
What characters in your film represent something far grander than their individuality? What is it, exactly, that they represent? If you allow yourself to let go of your ties to realism with regard to such characters, what do you find that they can become for the whole of your story?