Blog Entry 5: Monomyth in Film

"DUE DATE"

                                                                 CHARACTERS

 

SEPARATION

Peter is separated from his pregnant wife and his home in Atlanta because of his job as an architect. His mission is to be back in time for the birth of his first child. When Peter dream’s about being in a forest with his wife who is in labor, he finds himself unable to reach her and help deliver the baby, but a grizzly bear ends up helping by chewing through the umbilical cord. (This dream helps predict the story line of the movie and gives a twisted interpretation of who the character Ethan is in the movie, dreams can represent a lot). Ethan's goal is to travel to California, Hollywood, (an unknown state for him leaving everything behind) to become a famous Hollywood actor and to find a beautiful ocean where he can let go and throw his father’s ashes. They both must travel to the same place but there reasons of going to California are very different. Yet they stick together and form a “bond” to get to their place of destination.They are both put out of there comfort zone, have to get along and have to adjust to certain changes  in order to survive.

ADVENTURE

The adventure begins once he meets Ethan. Ethan brings and forms of problems and harsh situations into Peter’s life. He makes Peters mission of seeing his baby be born an adventure full of worries and problems. He first meets Ethan due to a car accident, the limo’s door peter was in was knocked off by the car Ethan was in. When he realizes they both took the wrong bag Peter gets blamed for having “marijuana”. It doesn’t stop there after boarding the plane he realizes Ethan is sitting behind him in first class, using the words "terrorist" and "bomb", Ethan gets Peter shot by a Federal Air Marshal and both Peter and Ethan are forced off the plane before take-off. They are forced to travel together by car because they were both put in the No Fly List and have to find another way to get to California. Once they are in the car together bad situations start happening, from losing peters wallet and only having $60 to survive all the drive to California, not being a able to get money because Ethan keeps making mistakes. Ethan also crashes the car and Peter ends up having a broken arm and three cracked ribs.

Darryl (Peters "real" best friend) also plays a big role because he is the "helper" who comes and safes peter from all this crisis.

Ethan’s dog “Sonny” plays his side kick/best friend, since Ethan seems to play a loner character with a lot of emotional baggage, the dog is the only one he feels gives him comfort, love and Ethan seems to be very protective with sonny.

Ethan plays the “know it all” friend that really has no clue of what he is doing. As every attempt to fix a situation he makes it worse. Peter thinks he has everything under control but after attempting to leave Ethan behind he realizes his feeling play a big part of the movie and is not able to leave Ethan behind. He plays the fool.

Peters character almost becomes the victim hero, when he didn't want to go in the car with Ethan. The refusal is to give up his own interests.

 Crossroads, clueless hero (fool), orphan, wanderer, innocent, sidekick, the buddy are some of the Mono-myths that are shown in this movie. Every character shows and represent a different one.

RETURN
At the Grand Canyon Ethan says goodbye to his father and scatters his ashes. Peter confesses that he tried to leave Ethan back at the rest area and apologizes (Show of regret). Peter is able to be there for his wife’s labor. Ethan becomes an actor in Hollywood.They both accomplish their mission and objective of going to California. But if it wasn’t for sticking together they wouldn’t have made it. They realized they needed each other’s help in order for their adventure to pay off. Ethan assisted the birth of peters baby by cutting the umbilical cord, just like in Peter's dream. The two go their separate ways with the promise that Peter will call Ethan to keep their friendship intact.