I always use the example of Die Hard. Yeah, you get the big explosion and jumping off the roof of the building with the crashing helicopter behind you, but the crucial emotional moments are a phone call or two, and picking broken glass out of Bruce Willis’ feet. Why? Because the whole movie is about him walking over metaphorical broken glass to get back to his wife. The whole rest of the movie is just the obstacle. In a less bombastic movie, you might well not have had any explosions at all, and yet the emotional connection would still be there, and then you get Sideways, which is just as much a movie about an emotionally damaged man trying to connect with a woman.