From a Hollywood perspective, Brett Favre is a master storyteller and screenwriter. We’re talking William Goldman and Syd Field good. Perhaps there’s a ghostwriter involved, but regardless, Number 4 is spinning the most delicious, Jimmy Stewart-esque tale since It’s a Wonderful Life, and isn’t it just a wonderful life in Viking country now?

The man has mastered the West Coast offense and the three-act structure (your basic storytelling formula straight out of Aristotle’s Poetics).

We’ve got an inciting incidence that plunged the hero to battle. In Favre’s case, one might think it was the call from “Chilly” last Monday. But oh no, the former Big Cheese knows that such a dramatic choice would be predictable and boring (hopeless, unsympathetic coach making a panicked plea doesn’t tug at the human soul).

Favre instead reaches for our heartstrings, and in pristine dialogue shows us he could write for the Disney Channel any day of the week.

From a Star Tribune story on August 19th about a conversation with his 10-year-old daughter Breleigh,  Favre says:

"After the news broke [that he was going to stay retired], she started crying… Anybody that's got children—I can be chased by five defensive lineman and it doesn't scare me, but when my daughter cries, it softens me up. And she said 'Daddy, I wanted you to go back and win one more Super Bowl.' And I said 'Oh, why didn't you tell me before?' And she said 'Well, I didn't want to make that decision for you.' It's amazing what you learn from your children. She said, 'Can you go back?' And I said, 'Well, it's too late.' So I found myself this morning tearing up as I brought her to school and she said, 'Daddy, it's going to be fine. You go up there and do what you've got to do. We'll be up there soon enough.' "

I haven’t been privy to such ripe dialogue since Full House. Sign this QB up for a three picture deal!

I hope you see how Breleigh is setting up a classic literary motif: free will. Clearly Farve is drawing upon his understanding of Kierkegaard and will string us along throughout this saga with the eternal question—Is this divine intervention or does he have the arm to his own destiny? I haven’t been this riveted by a story since that guy got all burnt up in The English Patient.

Favre then wastes no time in raising the stakes and showing his human side after we’ve just heard how he’ll make more money than God over the next two years—a fact that could cause an audience to lose sympathy for our hero.

But Favre refuses to be seen as anything but a Tom Hanks everyman. Case and point: A well-crafted scene from an August 22nd Star Tribune story:

As Brett Favre sat in his hotel room Friday waiting to play his first game with the Vikings, he experienced a feeling he hadn't had in a long time.

A 19-year veteran, three-time NFL MVP and two-time Super Bowl participant, Favre realized he was nervous—for a preseason game. "All of a sudden I started having butterflies," Favre said. "That was probably the oddest thing. I was talking to my oldest daughter and she was telling me good luck and all this stuff. I said, 'I'm nervous.' She said, 'Oh, you'll be fine.' I just don't want to screw up."
 
Can you taste the sweet sweet cinema? There he is at the Super 8, just up from the continental breakfast with an extra bowl of Fruit Loops for later (because we are in recession) and he’s tossing the unused soaps into his bag (because he’s just a little ole kid from Mississippi) when his daughter approaches and he has to admit his true feelings. Then she, in a moment of great revelation, articulates the worry on every audience member's mind: Is he a screw up?

Notice too how Farve uses his daughter to articulate core emotional states. Any dramaturge worth their patoot will tell you that using supporting characters to communicate the lead's emotional state is very sophisticated storytelling.

So where is our story headed as we dive deep into the second act? Clearly Farve is still writing. But so many dramatic questions remain…

Will this become a tragedy wherein he throws so hard his arm turns gangrene (which would be symbolically beautiful) and he dies in Chilly’s arms on the 50 yard line?

Or is he penning a sci-fi thriller, wherein he throws so hard his arm falls off and doctors at the U of M hospital have to graph Tarvaris Jackson’s arm to our champ? His new arm can’t throw a football, but throws a baseball just fine and he joins the Twins middle relief

Or is this another Judd Appatow sex comedy wherein he rents boat on Lake Minnetonka and loses Adrian Peterson on the Big Island.

Only the Lord knows, for we are in the hands of a master storyteller.