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A screenplay’s theme can be expressed through the main actions of your protagonist, dialogue and imagery. But here’s a great way to really connect your protagonist to the theme and give it that added resonance.

This method is used in many great films: give your hero an object that they carry around or identify with which symbolizes themselves and / or their struggle through the movie. This object—a visual motif—whether it’s a Blackberry or a flower—can be highlighted in certain scenes as a symbol of their growth and therefore the theme.

For example, at the start of the film Lonesome Jim, Jim (Casey Affleck) arrives at his parent’s house depressed having run out of money and nowhere else to go. As they fuss around him, he tearfully asks for some water. Throughout the film there are a few key references to Jim and water as he rebuffs local nurse Anika (Liv Tyler) while waiting to leave town. Significantly, in the last scene, [spoiler alert!] having decided to stay and make a go of his relationship with Anika, her son gives him a bottle of water and we see him, for the first time, drinking heartily.

In other words, the thematic object for Jim in this film is water, which represents his “life force” or “spiritual energy.” At the beginning of the film, his dehydration symbolizes his “emotional de-hydration.” He’s worn out, physically, mentally and emotionally. When he drinks the water at the end, thematically this is saying he’s been “revitalized” by making the right choice in life.

Adding a symbolic object to your protagonist’s world, like Jim’s water, or Ryan Bingham’s (George Clooney) suitcase in Up in the Air, adds an extra thematic layer to your script. Few non-professionals writers utilize it, but it can be an extremely powerful tool.

Of course, these kind of thematic details are usually added after a few drafts when your screenplay is beginning to really take shape. Try it out. Give your protagonist a visual motif which can represent their emotional state throughout the course of the film and watch your script pull away from the pack!

Correctly expressing a screenplay’s theme is often one of the most difficult aspects for a writer to master. It’s also an essential aspect as it gives a script added depth and broader appeal. So, in this post we’re going to demystify some of the confusion surrounding theme and discuss the best way to approach it in your script.

Firstly, what exactly is the theme? In simple terms the theme is the writer’s point of view that they wish to express about a specific aspect of a specific subject, whether it’s love, money, greed, etc. For example, in When Harry Met Sally, the theme is not just ”love,” but the question of whether friends can be lovers. This theme is the writer’s unique, personal interpretation.

A script’s theme can be expressed many different ways—through dialogue, imagery, setting etc. but the single most powerful way to do it is through action. Or, more precisely—the actions of the protagonist against the antagonist.

So, the theme is the writer’s point of view on a particular subject expressed by the decisions and actions the protagonist makes against a strong antagonist. The protagonist represents one side of the writer’s argument, and the antagonist the other. At the climax, either the protagonist or antagonist prevails, winning the thematic argument.

The theme of Fargo, for instance, can be expressed in the argument: “Is money necessary to be happy?” Jerry (William H Macy) and his henchmen with their bungled attempts at kidnap represent the answer “yes.” The police woman, Marge, (Frances McDormand) with her simple outlook on life and uneventful but cozy marriage, represents “no.” All the unnecessary carnage in the film backs up Marge’s point of view. At the end, the bad guys are either all captured or killed, again backing up this side of the argument.

Of course, it’s important to also express the theme through other means, like dialogue. Right after the climax, in Fargo, Marge, having just arrested one of the henchmen, asks him if all the killing was worth it just for a bit of money. The theme that money is not necessary to be happy is stated like this at key moments in the script.

It makes things much easier to think of the theme as a tug of war between two opposing points of view on the same subject between the antagonist and the protagonist. And the winner, at the climax, is the writer’s own personal point of view. Setting it up this way should give your script a clearer direction theme-wise, and make it easier to  drop in the required nuggets of thematic dialogue and images.