Grim melodrama White Boy Rick dramatizes the real-life travails of Richard Wershe Jr., who was sentenced to life in prison on drug charges at the age of 17, following a bizarre period during which he worked as a teenaged informant for the FBI. If only because of the presence of past Oscar® winner Matthew McConaughey in a supporting role, White Boy Rick will be part of this year’s awards mix, so the picture’s storytelling merits consideration. And if those remarks sound halfhearted, they are — White Boy Rick has strengths and shortcomings in equal measure, though the strengths are considerable.

Ads lead one to presume that White Boy Rick depicts a miscarriage of justice in which the FBI exploits vulnerable young Wershe, thereby putting him on the path to a life of crime. Yet the actual movie tells a more complicated story, and it’s to the credit of the filmmakers — including screenwriters Andy Weiss and Logan and Noah Miller — that the picture doesn’t oversimplify or romanticize real events.

The problem, however, is that Wershe was hardly an innocent when his adventure began. As depicted in White Boy Rick, he was the product of an unstable home led by a father who operated well outside the law while selling guns. What’s more, the film clearly conveys that after his initial encounters with the FBI, Wershe reached a juncture when he could have chosen a lawful path, but did not. (Not portrayed in the movie: After serving 30 years behind bars, Wershe won parole, committed new crimes, and was returned to jail).

Here’s the key consideration for screenwriters: When attempting to tell a sympathetic story about someone whose real-life actions recklessly endangered others, is it possible to tug on the audience’s heartstrings while still telling the truth? Each viewer will arrive at his or her own answer after watching White Boy Rick, but for the purposes of this space, let’s examine some of the tools the screenwriters used in pursuit of their goals.

Father knows . . . best?

By far the most effective element of the picture is the portrayal of the protagonist’s father, Richard Wershe Sr., played by McConaughey. Despite living in desperate circumstances, Wershe Sr. comes across as an indefatigable optimist. In one of the picture’s funniest moments (like the best dramas, White Boy Rick has plenty of jokes), Wershe Sr. gets confronted with the harsh reality that his daughter is an addict and his son is a dealer. Flashing a guileless expression, Wershe Sr. remarks, “I’m a glass-half-full kind of guy.”

The way the writers introduce Wershe Sr. sets up the character well. In the first scene, we meet 14-year-old protagonist Rick (played by newcomer Richie Merritt) at a gun show. Rick spots an AK-47 and tells the vendor the gun is an Egyptian knockoff, not a Russian original. The vendor advises Rick to buzz off. Then Wershe Sr. intervenes, instantly destroying the vendor with expert analysis of the firearm in question and threatening to inform a nearby security guard that the vendor almost sold a gun to a minor. The Wershes play their hand by purchasing three guns for less than the cost of one, exploiting the vendor’s mistake of underestimating Rick.

The whole scene is a twisted riff on the sort of father/son bonding moments we’ve seen in movies and TV shows a million times before, and it sets the tone for all of the picture’s subsequent father/son scenes, which are, generally speaking, the strongest moments in White Boy Rick. And while much credit is due to McConaughey for investing in his performance with humor and pathos, it’s the conceptualization of the character that makes this trick work — with a father so incapable of making responsible parenting decisions, and yet profoundly concerned with his children’s welfare, what chance did Richard Wershe Jr. have of becoming a harmless everyman?

Takeaway: Tweaking archetypes leads to interesting characterizations

In the hands of fate

Just as the script for White Boy Rick suggests that Richard Wershe Jr.’s descent into criminality was inevitable given his upbringing, the script effectively conveys that larger environmental circumstances played a role. Growing up in an economically-depressed section of Detroit, Rick befriends other wayward young men. What distinguishes Rick is his potent combination of cunning and conscience, the latter trait manifesting in protective feelings toward his father and his troubled sister, Dawn (played by Bel Powley).

One vivid moment conveys volumes about Rick’s bleak world: Relatively early in the story, Dawn leaves home to live with a loser boyfriend who abuses her and enables her drug habit. Rick arranges to meet her one evening, bringing along as a gift a filthy stuffed animal that he retrieved from a garbage pile. While Rick and Dawn chat in a coffee shop, Rick notices that the car he drove to the meeting — his grandfather’s — is being stolen, so he rushes outside, drawing a gun and opening fire.

 After the auto thieves escape with grandpa’s ride, cops show up and force both Rick and Dawn onto the ground. Then, with her face crunched against wet blacktop, Dawn looks at her brother and says, dryly, “nice to see you.” It’s a witty moment, conveying that a situation most of us would perceive as a once-in-a-lifetime horror show is simply part of the Wershe family’s everyday reality. In scenes like this, the writers force viewers to feel the texture of street life while still underscoring that the characters are humans with wide-ranging emotions.

Takeaway: Unexpected flourishes help sell the reality of heavy situations

It’s the notes you don’t play

Yet another strong decision made by the writers of White Boy Rick involves elliptical storytelling, the notion of implying moments instead of showing them — literally, creating an ellipsis between one scene and the next. Toward the end of the picture, the circumstances for a major drug sale are established — and then the filmmakers cut to a court hearing resulting from the events of the drug sale. Given the seismic impact on Rick’s life of that particular event, it seems probable that the filmmakers considered showing the drug sale. They were wise not to.

The life of Richard Wershe Jr. could easily have become a limited series, especially if events past his original incarceration in 1987 were shown. But not every true-crime story merits the epic treatment — and not every event in the life of an interesting figure is equally compelling. Had the filmmakers shown the drug sale, they would have lost narrative focus because the suspenseful beats of the drug sale would have been distracting. Additionally, since the filmmakers had already shown Rick being good at hustling, the scene would have been redundant.

That said, it’s worth imagining how traveling down a parallel road — including more story instead of less — might have improved White Boy Rick. The picture ends with teenaged Richard Wershe Jr. in prison, the next three decades of his life relegated to text cards after the final shot. So if you happen to check out the film, ask yourself what the possibilities might have been if the ending of the picture was instead the midpoint. Would it have been interesting to see how the protagonist evolved in prison and what attempts, if any, were made by his father to hold responsible the agents who used Richard Wershe Jr. when he was young?

After all, if one of the film’s virtues is wisely excluding a moment, isn’t it fair to ask what moments shouldn’t have been excluded?

Takeaway: As Detroit’s own Bob Seger once sang, “what to leave in, what to leave out”