All About Eve, released in 1950, focuses on the Broadway-admirer, Eve who dreams of performing on a Broadway stage. With such a setup, this movie seems to be a typical idealistic, somewhat boring, black and white movie. Within the first 15 minutes, however, something starts to seem off about Eve’s character and what exactly her intentions are. She is portrayed as innocent and naive but seems very suspicious and gives off an uneasy feeling to the audience while the rest of the characters (with the exception of a few) are completely unaware to Eve’s strange manner.

Somehow, Eve manages to associate herself with the famous Broadway star Margo Channing and starts acting as her assistant. Often apologetic, Eve is able to become more and more involved in Margo Channing’s career until suddenly… Eve has completely replaced Margo Channing and made her irrelevant. Margo Channing wonders what had happened for this to occur and is left with her career shattered in pieces.

What had started off as a dreamy and romantic movie developed into the story of a clever scheme of leeching and manipulation to destroy another woman’s livelihood. A young main character, presented as the protagonist, is revealed to be a sinister and greedy antagonist with an elaborate and sneaky plan.

What had happened in the course of this movie to have changed the outcome this much? How had this unforeseen twist been executed so efficiently? The writers had definitely put as much thought into the plot as Eve had in her manipulation.

The introduction

The story started off presenting a cliche. In this case, it is a woman who dreams of performing on Broadway. Similarly, the movie Nightcrawler introduces Louis Bloom as a man trying to support himself financially and gets into the business of filming car chases, crimes and other timely events to sell to news corporations. Eve and Louis are both young people looking for a better life. Their dreams seem innocent and driven by pure goals.

Something is off

After the “protagonist” is introduced and we, the audience, are set up to root for them, we start to notice that something about the main character is strange. With Louis, it’s his almost aggressive determination but passive and calm manner. He seems incredibly controlled, smooth and charismatic but all in an unsettling way. With Eve, it’s her overly apologetic and subservient tendencies. She’s very nosy and manages to find her way into anything, acting like everything occurred accidentally.

Their true intentions, their scheme and the greed linking it all together

Eventually, the main character reveals their true nature. Eve reveals herself when she successfully takes the lead role from Margo Channing and blackmails her into submission. Louis reveals his true nature when he bribes a news agency, starts inciting crimes, does nothing to stop them and withholds information, leading to the murder of an entire family. Eve and Louis have very different intentions (Eve steals the career of an actress and Louis allows crimes to happen so he can film them and sell them to news corporations), but they both are driven by greed and ruthlessly achieve their goals even if it means that it occur at the expense of others.

The ending

The end of this type of movie is the most important and arguably best part because this is where the results of the main character are finally revealed. In both All About Eve and Nightcrawler, Eve and Louis got what they wanted. Eve became a successful actress and Louis became very wealthy and expanded his business. Whilst some suffered in their paths, both Eve and Louis got their happy endings, whether or not they really deserved.