The Hunt For Red October contains exactly one implausible event: a Russian submarine commander deciding to defect to the US. The rest is, if not realistic, then at least procedurally efficient and psychologically plausible; the film details the step-by-step process of people trying to do their jobs properly as a massive wrench has been thrown into their day. What this means tonally is that the film sits perfectly in the middle of a scale between ridiculous and dry – the situation is extreme enough to feel novel and the plausibility of the consequences makes it more thrilling. There are stories in which ridiculous implausibilities happen as a matter of course, and at their best they’re delightfully weird but never thrilling. There are stories which are thoroughly plausible but contain no spark of life that makes them fun to watch. Aristotle said the probable impossibilities are to be preferred to improbable possibilities; perhaps it would be more true to say that a great story must have a single implausibility – must be built on a single implausibility. Music & Lyrics is another great movie in which the only implausible aspect is the premise – an ageing pop star whose star has faded teams up with a woman who takes care of houseplants for a living to write a pop song – and the rest is allowed to play out with straightforward psychological plausibility. The implausible premise is the only spark of life a story needs and it needs it desperately.