Passive protagonist

In The Graduate, Dustin Hoffman starts out very passive and as his character arc builds, he becomes quite active and claims Elaine as his true love.

In Collateral, taxi driver Jamie Foxx starts out passive, allowing hit man Tom Cruise to murder people. But by the end of the film Jamie Foxx becomes an active protagonist, no longer a coward and a sell out.

In Rocky Horror, Brad and Janet are passive protagonist victims of a kidnapping for much of the film. But eventually they become active protagonists, when Tim Curry's henchmen turn on him.

In Severance the office workers are highly passive for many of the episodes. And then they become active protagonists and rebels, to great dramatic effect.

In Casablanca Humphrey starts out as a highly passive protagonist coward, saying, "I stick my neck out for nobody". But by the end of the film Rick has returned to his original state of being a courageous active protagonist freedom fighter. Rick is redeemed.

The secret to making a passive protagonist work is simple: The protagonist can only be passive at the beginning of the film. But then they go through the character arc of becoming active protagonists. Audiences LOVE this.

In Borrowed Boy the character of Billy is initially an active protagonist, when he tries to go to second base with his girlfriend. But after being refused, Billy gets a date with the much older Irene, becoming a passive protagonist for quite a bit of the film. But after a strong character arc, Billy becomes an active protagonist again.

Billy realizes that although the sex is great with Irene, he only has real feelings for his girlfriend Jennifer. So Billy actively decides to leave crazy Irene.

Later, Billy makes the controversial moral decision to not turn Irene into the police, because Billy sees crazy Irene as a victim of her being a rape victim herself. So Billy is slowly becoming an active protagonist. And then Billy helps Irene escape from the police, because Billy sees Irene both as a mentally ill criminal and also as a victim of domestic abuse.

Billy also has a huge character arc when he realizes that his long time girlfriend Jennifer has been cheating on him for some time. So Billy, as an active protagonist, powerfully confronts Jennifer with her duplicity and dumps her, in favor of the honorable girl Scarlett.

There is also a huge character arc in which Billy is the catalyst for redemption in Richard, the rapist father. Richard, in deep mourning over the death of his wife, has been raping his innocent daughter Irene for ten years. But because of Billy, Richard redeems himself by turning himself into the police. But controversially, Detective Lansdale takes mercy on the now repentant rapist Richard and lets him go free, saying, "You've suffered enough".

Borrowed Boy contains many other wonderful epiphanies and character arcs. It is about the life changing growth of a passive protagonist, into an active protagonist.

Angel Elusive is not about a passive protagonist. Angel is an active protagonist half the time and a passive protagonist for the other half. Her vacillation between these two states is at the heart of her character arc and growth as a human being.

The final scene in Angel Elusive is a real tearjerker, a bittersweet funeral scene where a special recording of Desperado is played for the mourners.

So we see that a passive protagonist can be a profoundly successful screenwriting technique, as long as the hero eventually transitions into being an active protagonist.