8. Spoiler Alert

What’s Your Point?

Should drama or film critics reveal the ending of a play or a movie in their reviews—especially when the ending is a surprise? Should a review of Citizen Kane reveal the identity of “Rosebud”?

Terry Teachout, the Wall Street Journal’s drama critic, thinks not. In his review of the hit play at New York Lincoln Center, War Horse, he vowed silence twice, citing “critical etiquette” and “the drama critic’s code.”¹

Manohla Dargis and A. O. Scott, the co-chief film critics of the New York Times, disagree, and their opinions about revelations provide an important lesson for presenters. Mr. Scott has no qualms about letting the cat out of the bag:

Anna Karenina dies at the end. Madame Bovary too. Also Hamlet and just about everyone else in Hamlet.

Nor does Ms. Dargis:

Seriously, if you don’t want to know what happens in a film, book, play or television show, you shouldn’t read the reviews until after you’ve watched or read the work yourself. (I rarely do.) Because no matter how delicately a critic tiptoes around the object, she invariably reveals something that someone resents, whether it’s a bit of plot, a line of dialogue or...a shameless finale.²

Other critics hedge their bets by adding a “spoiler alert” to their reviews, advising readers that vital plot information is to follow.

Surprise revelations are all well and good for plays and films because the suspense keeps theater audiences glued to their seats and movie audiences buying tubs of popcorn, but suspense is not good for presentation audiences. They have neither the time nor the inclination for such tactics. The last thing you want your audiences to think is, “What’s your point?”

In the previous chapter, you read about how important it is to state your point clearly in presentations. Here we raise the bar: State your objective at the very beginning of your presentation—within the first 90 seconds. With all due respect to Mr. Teachout, you must be as open about your point at the start of your pitch as Ms. Dargis and Mr. Scott are about endings. A playwright or a filmmaker can wait until the very last scene to reveal that the butler did it; you do not have that luxury.

You never get a second chance to make a first impression.

Get to the point!