Characters are some of the most memorable things about movies. We either love them, or we hate them. 

Or we don’t find them very believable. That’s right–even for movies, characters have to be credible to some extent.  Sadly, that’s not always the case. 

Below are my top picks for characters who reacted in ways that weren’t very believable.

1: Bartleby the Scrivener (2001) – when a little girl noticed Ernest eating the doughnut her mom bought for her, but did nothing

This movie is a modern-day retelling of the short story By Herman Melville in 1853. It focuses on a man who has a job but will not do what he is told. His common catchphrase is, “I would prefer not to.”

There is also a character named Ernest. He is heavy and loves to eat. 

In one scene, there is a woman ordering a jelly doughnut for her daughter at a café. Ernest takes her doughnut and eats it. The little girl sees him. But she just stands there quietly, presumably waiting for Ernest to stop eating. Then her mom takes her to go sit down. 

That is not believable at all. No child would just deal with some stranger taking their food and eating it. Even if the child couldn’t talk, they would still get their parents’ attention and the parents would see the person eating their food–and get mad at them.

Assuming that the girl could talk (she looked somewhere between 9 and 11), she would have gotten mad when she saw Ernest take her doughnut. She would have said that it was hers, told her mom, and then the mom would have yelled at Ernest. Not only would she have lectured him about how he shouldn’t take other people’s food, but she would have also reported him to the manager. 

2: It Chapter 2 (2019) – when the “losers’ club” screamed curses at a little boy after experiencing something horrific, and his family did nothing

This movie takes place 27 years after the first. The “losers’ club,” made up of several boys and one girl, reunites at a Chinese restaurant. While they are eating, maggots come out of their fortune cookies. Of course, that scares them. 

Not long after, a young boy talks to them. And they scream curses at him. The boy’s family is standing behind him, and they do nothing about the strangers yelling swear words at him.

That is absolutely unbelievable. The family would have yelled at the main characters for talking to their son that way. They might have even threatened them to have them kicked out by the manager. 

3: Osmosis Jones (2001) – when the hospital staff mistreated Frank’s daughter, Shane, when she was worried about losing him

This movie centers around a widowed zookeeper named Frank who eats unhealthily to cope with losing his wife. His daughter, Shane, constantly warns him against doing so. 

But at some point, Frank has to go to the hospital. Shane is so scared that she will lose him. She freaks out while he is in critical condition. Unfortunately, the hospital staff are not nice to her about it. They make a nurse take Shane outside, and the nurse tells her that there’s nothing she can do about it. 

What heartless jerks they were! The poor child was worried about losing her father, and this is how they treated her. What they should have done instead was to calmly say to Shane that they were doing everything they could to save her dad. They also should have let her stay.

Did they not receive that type of teaching in medical school? Shouldn’t they have been taught how to properly respond if a patient’s loved one is freaking out, because they are worried about losing them?

If I were in that position, I would file a complaint against the hospital, and state how rude and even unprofessional it was to be treated that way.

I’m not going to say how the movie concludes. But I sure hope the hospital staff wrote an apology to Shane sometime after the events of this film ended. 

Conclusion

No movie is, or will ever be, perfect. That means that this isn’t the end of characters being too flawed or not believable enough.

What do you think? Let me know in the comments if you’d like.