Lily:
Amy Adams in Junebug. Not as ditz but as endearingly sweet, good natured and full of love towards Stan. Not in an annoying way, but just the way you feel when you first get it together with someone and you're both brimming with excitement at finding someone who loves you as much as you love them.
Lily is a symbol of good, innocence and purity. She has to charm the audience, so that the impact of her demise is what hammers home the message of the film. Because she is the victim, the sweeter and purer she is, the more we feel for her when she is engulfed by all the wickedness around her.
But even before, Lily’s infatuation for Stan and her desperately doing anything she can to please him, is very painful to watch when we know what he has done. I also want to get across that Lily is so in love with Stan that if she had discovered his betrayal, she would be beyond crushed. Lily ultimately embodies the tragedy of the story.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XYItCjVQ_JQ
Sasha:
Linda Fiorentino in The Last Seduction. But silent until the end. Playfully ignorant, oozing sexual energy. Darkly beautiful, sultry and with air of all knowing-mystery. Though at first she seems to not understand, just pleasantly amused, but we soon see that it is all a ruse. She can own a room without saying a word.
When it comes to sex with Stan, she is totally dominant. She not only takes control, but starts taking this control too far. As she grips, pulls and scratches Stan, the line between impassioned and violent becomes blurred.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XebCRnT8ks8&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7bjucyft55A
Stan:
Haven't got a reference for Stan. Going for young, mid-twenties, fairly good-looking. He's very much a product of his condition - i.e. massively hungover. Well spoken, but also considers himself a lad (of the most middle-classed kind)
Stan’s character is a tough one to pin down because, as much as I hate the phrase, he is the ‘every-man’. He is Harry Potter, he is Frodo Baggins. He is the character that has a very straight-forward agenda - to deal with everything thrown his way. The other characters are more clear-cut because although the audience can sympathise with them, they do not identify with them. Though the audience may not like Stan because of his actions, they do identify with his plight. In the audience wanting to know will happen, they are invariably positioning themselves beside Stan, whether they agree with him or not.
For that reason, the every-man character is the best means to get the audience to align themselves with him. Where Lily is the innocent sweetheart, Dave the useless foil and Sasha the malevolent seductress and puppeteer, Stan is the audience.
Having said that, there are also certain characteristics within Stan that guide his actions, and the story, in a certain direction. He is not, at his essence, a bad person. He is irresponsible, careless and impressionable. He is stupid and lacks a massive amount of foresight. But there is not malicious intent behind his actions. He lies to Lily in part because he is a coward, but also because he really does not want to lose her. Though he lies to her face, we see that it is cutting him up, full of remorse and regret. That may not absolve him, but it does show an inherent compassion in him.
Stan loves Lily, but ultimately, he shouldn’t really have a girlfriend. Regardless of how fond of her he is, he cannot show the same level of commitment as Lily does. This is the story or Stan’s carelessness catching up with him. He is the cat that, on its ninth life, still runs into the road.
Dave:
Ed in Shaun of the Dead.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t0ifol66gus&feature=related
Dave is the foil character whose purpose is to provide comic relief, but also to ground the story in the real everyday world. He is Stan’s best mate. They live on winding each other up. He is naturally quite useless but he is also putting it on thick because he loves to watch Stan squirm. He makes it very difficult for Stan to get any help out of him, pretty much wanting him to beg. Furthermore, when he finally submits to helping Stan, he then throws Stan a curveball by calling to Lily when she arrives, just because he is going to enjoy watching Stan panic.
Having said that, when it comes to it, he has Stan’s back covered. He plays it ice-cool and totally gets Stan out of the spotlight of suspicion. This suggests that they are well practiced at this. There is an unspoken trust between them - a bros always come first ethos. Dave was always going to help Stan out, but he wasn’t going to make it easy for him because Dave has to use this opportunity to get one over Stan.
He would expect nothing less had been the other way round.
