Dead Poets Society is a coming of age drama released in 1989 starring Robert Sean Leonard and Ethan Hawke as Neil Perry and Todd Anderson. The film takes place in 1959 Vermont at Welton Academy and the story is told chronologically. It uses music and zooming in to create suspenseful moments while the action happens in silence. The biggest instance of foreshadowing takes place during the students’ first lesson with John Keating, played by Robin Williams. Before the infamous “Carpe Diem” lines, he informs the students that all of them are “one day going to stop breathing, turn cold and die.” While he says this, the camera is focused on Neil, who later commits suicide. In the opening scene, Welton is beginning a new semester and holding a ceremony for the boys and their families. The headmaster, Mr. Nolan, introduces the new English teacher, John Keating, at this ceremony as well. The movie introduces viewers to Neil’s father as well as Neil’s relationship with his father by having him visit the dorms and demand Neil forfeit his position as assistant editor of the school newspaper. This obviously creates tension, as Neil does not want to resign from the newspaper, but he cannot disobey his father and agrees to step down from the position. Neil’s strained relationship with his father is a possible factor for his depression. In a later scene, it is established that Todd’s parents are neglectful of him, most likely attributing to his character’s anxiety. Charlie Dalton, a friend of both Neil and Todd, finds Keating’s old yearbook, and the group of boys discovers the Dead Poets Society. After asking Mr. Keating what the society was, they decide to reconvene the meetings. This leads to the boys living their lives “deliberately,” with Todd letting himself be more carefree around his friends and Neil learning he loves acting. Neil finds out about a production of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and Todd workshops a play for Keating’s class. In class, Todd says he has no poem for the assignment, prompting Keating to help Todd create a poem in the moment and to not worry about the reaction from his classmates. Neil is casted as Puck in the Henley Hall production of A Midsummer’s Night Dream and acts in it against the wishes of his father. When his father finds out that Neil still is in the play against his wishes, he plans on taking Neil out of Welton and sending him to military school. Neil, unable to deal with the prospect of living his father’s life for the next ten years, kills himself after his parents are asleep. The film ends with the iconic shot of the remaining Dead Poets Society members standing on their desk in support of Mr. Keating, even after Keating is fired and blamed for Neil’s suicide. The main conflicts are Neil and his father, an external conflict in which Mr. Perry has Neil’s life planned out for him ten years into the future; the internal conflict of Todd and his anxiety, wherein Todd is unable to see himself as up to anyone’s standards- including Neil’s and Mr. Keating’s; and another external conflict of Mr. Keating against Welton, where Keating is repeatedly told off for telling the kids to think and live for themselves, whereas the school does not believe the boys can be free thinkers at the age of seventeen. The characters are multi-faceted and believable, integral parts of an iconic, emotional film.
Community is a television series beginning in 2009 and ending in 2015. It is a comedy created by Dan Harmon with each episode following its own plotline. Danny Pudi plays the fan-favorite character Abed Nadir, a Palestinian with Asperger’s. The show takes place in present-day Colorado at Greendale Community College, and as each episode is its own story, there is no “main” conflict, rather a myriad of smaller conflicts solved by the end of each episode. In one of the more popular episodes, “Abed’s Uncontrollable Christmas,” Abed has a nervous breakdown and begins seeing his surroundings, along with the people in them, as claymation figures. This is an internal conflict caused by his mother not returning to spend the holidays with him. Abed speaks in pop culture references to better relate to the people around him and through consuming popular media, he feels as though he has a common ground with most people. Though he still has problems picking up social cues, even telling his friends that he “need[s] help reacting to something,” his love for his friends, passion for filmmaking and his perfectly timed pop culture references help him make it through community college in more than just one piece- as part of a set of six
The Double is a 2013 psychological thriller/dark comedy directed by Richard Ayoade starring Jesse Eisenberg as both Simon James and James Simon. The movie events are chronological and it takes place in the metropolitan hub of an urban dystopia where items such as rotary phones and jukeboxes are common, yet seem to exist in a futuristic society. Suspense is created with a repeating song as well as the use of primary colors becoming especially bright in high-tension situations. Every sequence in the film is a parallel of a previous sequence, down to the very first line of the movie being a passenger on the train informing Simon James that he is “in [his] place.” Early on in the movie, a man in the apartment across from Simon commits suicide by jumping off the ledge of the building. When detectives from the fictional suicide division arrive, they inform Simon that if the man had just jumped a few feet to the right he would have bounced off an awning and landed on the ground “horribly mangled, of course,” but able to save if the ambulance arrived in time to stop the brain swelling. Near the end of the movie, Simon does just this. He jumps off the ledge and lands on the awning. The opening scene is Simon sitting on the train on his commute to work. He works in an unnamed corporate company for a man referred to as The Colonel. He is the only person in the subway car, and yet someone stands in front of him and tells him to move. When Simon reaches his stop, he is unable to exit the car because boxes are being moved into it. Simon’s introduction showcases his social anxiety and allows the audience to view him as a pushover. Simon’s love interest is a girl by the name of Hannah. She works in the company’s copy center and lives in the apartment across from him. He watches her through his window with a telescope, but one night, a man is standing on top of the ledge above Hannah’s window and he jumps to his death after waving at Simon. At work the next day, he meets the new employee, James Simon. James is Simon’s exact double, a perfect clone, even. They are the same physically, yet act like polar opposites. Simon’s coworkers treat him as though he is struggling with substance abuse problems, and no one realizes the similarity between Simon and James at first. When Simon asks his coworker, Harris, if James reminds him of anyone, Harris takes some time to admit James looks exactly like Simon. Shortly after, James and Simon begin to take advantage of the fact that they have the same face, with Simon doing most of, if not all, of James’ work for him and James taking over Simon’s responsibility of babysitting their boss’ daughter Melanie. James begins coaching Simon on being more confident, leading to a heart-to-heart on the subway in which Simon reveals he feels as though he is “permanently outside [himself]. Like, like you could push your hand straight through [him] if you wanted to.” Simon’s crush on Hannah turns out to be a fruitless endeavor when she reveals that she would like to go on a date with James. After hearing of this, James has Simon take his place on the date up until it crashes and burns and James has to step in to save it. James then kisses Hannah while Simon is stuck in the bathroom, watching his mirror image kiss the girl of his dreams. Later on, Simon’s mother dies and James attends the funeral. This results in an altercation between Simon and James, leading to Simon learning that any injury to his doppelgänger appears on him and vice versa. The revelation plants an idea in Simon’s brain, an idea of how to be rid of James Simon. Permanently. Simon handcuffs James to his bed and calls the paramedics, urging them to “come quick; he is about to jump,” and Simon does. He jumps off the ledge and bounces off the awning, leaving James helpless in his apartment to die of the injuries coinciding with jumping off a building. The main conflict is both internal as well as external: Simon’s exact copy is living the life Simon has always wanted to live for himself. Simon is anxious where James is narcissistic, leading to Simon’s eventual nervous breakdown in which he exclaims that he “[is] a person! [He exists]!” to his boss and coworkers. Simon’s anxiety hinders his ability to feel like anything other than “a wooden boy. Not a real boy,” whereas James’ narcissism helps him excell in the workplace as well as in Simon’s life. James is teaching Simon how to live a real, meaningful life while also setting rules he doesn’t follow himself, and when Simon points this out, James explains that it is different because “it was [him].” James’ narcissism causes him to be manipulative and controlling, to the point where it is nearly impossible for Simon to function as he once did. The characters are insecurity and overconfidence personified, with audiences being able to identify with one or the other- a wooden boy versus flesh and bone.
Black Panther is a 2018 action/superhero film directed by Ryan Coolger starring Chadwick Boseman and Michael B. Jordan as T’Challa and Erik Killmonger. It features an all black cast and is set in present day in the fictional country of Wakanda. The movie is predominantly chronological save for a few flashbacks. It opens with an animated history of Wakanda to fill in audiences on the backstory of the Black Panther and follows with the murder of Erik Killmonger’s father, and then flashes forward to T’Challa’s current activites and later his coronation, in which he proves he is worthy of being the King of Wakanda following his own father’s death. After a side mission in Korea, a U.S. FBI agent is shot and brought back to T’Challa’s sister, Shuri, to be healed in record time. Simultaneously, T’Challa is fighting in the coronation circle once again, but this time he is fighting Killmonger and loses the battle, leading Killmonger to ask the Wakandans “Is this your King?” After recovering in a separate area, T’Challa fights Killmonger a second time, this time as the Black Panther, and he wins. Killmonger dies watching the sun set over a country he was never able to call home. The accents, rituals, beliefs and the monarchy of Wakanda coexist with their urban society, allowing for modernization to exist alongside sacred traditions. Every character in the film has a far reach, mostly among young audiences. Younger audiences, especially black children, are finally able to see themselves as the hero rather than a harmful stereotype.
The Half of It is a 2020 coming of age romantic comedy directed by Alice Wu and starring Leah Lewis as Ellie Chu. Ellie is a Chinese-American lesbian in the small town of Squahamish, and she runs a ‘buisiness’ writing essays for the other students attending her school. Paul Munsky is on the football team and is harboring feelings for one Aster Flores, but he does not know how to capture her attention. He asks Ellie to write a love letter to Aster in exchange for money, and originally Ellie says no. Ellie also has feelings for Aster and does not want to help Paul with his letter, but the power in her house will be turned off if there is not a minimum payment in the account. She offers to write the letter, and eventually moves on from letters and begins texting Aster while still posing as Paul. Even though Aster is dating a wealthy boy named Trig, she agrees to go on a date with Paul; however, it does not go as planned because Paul is nothing like Ellie, who Aster has been texting. Ellie breaks off the arrangement with Paul after the date because it was a disaster, but continues to be friends with him after she realizes they have actually become friends through their Aster-related activities. After Paul defends Ellie from bullies, Ellie continues to text Aster, and she agrees to a second date with Paul. The second date is just as horrendous as the first one, but Ellie saves it by texting Aster when she tries to leave. Aster then kisses Paul and kickstarts a pseudo-relationship with him. When Paul is not home, Ellie and Aster bond over sharing personal stories in a hidden hotspring Aster leads her to. Ellie has been posing as Paul while talking to Aster for an extended amount of time when Paul kisses Ellie and discovers she is a lesbian. This results in an almost argument between the two where Paul is angry with Ellie because he believes “being gay is a sin.” Paul apologizes to Ellie after spending a day cooking with her father, and he realizes he loves Ellie regardless of her sexuality. Trig proposes to Aster at church, and Paul and Ellie interject at the same time for the very same reason: they love Aster. After Ellie gives an impromptu speech, Aster very quickly realizes she has been texting Ellie the entire time. Not Paul. She slaps Paul and storms out of the church while Paul and Ellie are left with the tension they have created. Ellie apologizes to Aster for lying and Aster reveals she has been keeping feelings for Ellie a secret for quite some time. Ellie kisses Aster and promises to see her in a couple years. Paul sees Ellie off to college and they remain best friends. Each character has their own distinct traits and background story, from Ellie moving to America from China and still speaking to her father in Mandarin, to Paul’s overly-religious family that almost costs him a best friend. The differences in the characters’ cultures creates opportunities for shared traditions, such as cooking and eating together in Ellie’s household.