People Soup is a 1969 short film (12 minutes) written and directed by Alan Arkin.
It is an adaptation of Arkin's own short story
, and stars his sons, Adam and Matthew. Matthew comes into the kitchen one afternoon and finds Adam hard at work creating some sort of frightening concoction which Adam announces is an "animal serum" meant for a "scientific experiment". Adam has already thrown in flour and onions and all sorts of goop into a bowl, and when Matthew brings the last ingredient, applesauce, the potion is ready. After waiting ten minutes for the potion to sit, Adam gets Matthew to be his test subject, and gets a surprising result.
Tropes:
- Animorphism: Adam makes a potion that turns people into (talking, sentient) animals, with results varying from person to person: Matthew becomes a chicken while he becomes a sheepdog.
- Annoying Younger Sibling: Matthew pesters his big brother into letting Matthew help with the experiment.
- Extremely Short Timespan: An afternoon, as Adam and Matt make a magic potion.
- Forced Transformation: Adam gives his little brother a magic potion without telling him what it will do. It turns Matthew into a chicken.
- Gender Flip: In Alan Arkin's original short story, the Annoying Younger Sibling was a girl named Bonnie.
- Here We Go Again!: The film ends with the brothers planning to build an atom bomb tomorrow.
- Live-Action Adaptation: Alan Arkin adapts his own short story.
- Mad Scientist: Adam turned his little brother into a chicken! And tomorrow, he's going to build an atom bomb.
- Minimalist Cast: The Arkin brothers are the only cast members.
- Non-Indicative Title: Whatever potion they make isn't really soup and definitely doesn't have people in it.
- Off-into-the-Distance Ending: Adam and Matthew walk away down a road, chatting about making an atom bomb tomorrow.
- Stop Trick: The oldest special effect in the movies, used to change Matthew and Adam to a chicken and sheepdog respectively, and back.
