character study

noun

1. a work of fiction in which the delineation of the central character's personality is more important than the plot.

Example Sentences

Ms. Mumenthaler has constructed her character study with subtly expressionistic imagination, deploying an enveloping, finely tuned sound design and finding a transporting musical motif in Holst’s “The Planets.”

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Though all of the film’s events could be recounted in a few sentences, “Anemone” is a vivid character study and an acting showcase for the four lead performers, each of whom gets ample opportunity to show a deep understanding of their tortured pasts.

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On the opening “Destination,” a winding and refracted character study, swooning strings trace the singer’s own sense of wonder, as she describes a fellow musician whose life serves as a mirror to her own.

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Safdie’s film is not really a sports movie and barely a biopic, and to call it a character study even seems generous when the very real people portrayed are written so thinly they threaten to disappear.

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Made in the rush of post-“Pulp Fiction” crime thrillers, the film is a perceptive character study that showcases Anderson’s sensitivity with actors, including early turns by John C. Reilly, Gwyneth Paltrow and a one-scene Philip Seymour Hoffman.

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