“If only,” I say loudly to Anna and the fleeing crowds bursting from the cinema, “they had ended the film with a tremendous custard-pie fight. Wouldn’t that have been better? Wouldn’t it have been more enjoyable?”

Anna’a interest in my dissertation is remarkable. She hurries ahead of me to the car, no doubt to hasten toward the time in which we will be alone together at home, and I can exposit at length.

“I should write this down,” I say. “People will be interested to hear this kind of thing. I could write on all kinds of topics - film, books, comics, games - and point out where they went wrong and how they ought to be righted.”

Three-quarters of the way to the car the heel on Anna’s left shoe breaks, and she crashes sideways into a Mercedes Benz, setting off the piercing wail of the car alarm. She struggles to her feet even as I start forward to help her, shucks her shoe, and continues onward ahead, with even greater haste. She appears grim and determined. Perhaps she is annoyed at the shoe shop for selling her a defective shoe.

“Take this situation, for example! Imagine you were fleeing a deranged stalker. What more of a cliche, than to break a shoe and fall?”

Anna, at this point, has reached the car. She fumbles with the key in the lock, obviously getting into the spirit of my scenario.

“Exactly!” I shout (as she is, now, quite some distance away). She drops the keys. “What a cliche! Why do people persist in writing such scenes into films? Haven’t they ever heard of central locking?”

The key finally goes into the lock; she opens the door, and hurls herself in.

“What are they thinking when they approve the budget, when they rehearse the scene through, when they try and shoot it in a way that hasn’t been done a thousand times before?”

Anna turns the key in the ignition. The car, of course, does not start. “Come on! Come on!” she shouts, banging the steering wheel.

“Exactly right!” I shout, approaching the car.

Suddenly, the car starts, and lurches forward, almost striking me.

“Whoopsy!” I say, as I dodge aside.

For some reason, Anna has become so taken with this little scenario that she shoots straight past me and down the ramp to the exit. I sigh. It is so like her, after a movie, to forget that I have not yet gotten into the car. Frequently, she will also lock me out of the house, so that I have to break in (for the doorbell is invariably broken) before I can give her the benefit of my many insights.

I start the long walk home, reliving the movie in my head, rewriting it to my satisfaction. “None shall escape,” I mutter, pleased with the sound of the new dialogue.

I should really write all of this down.