The film is told in a ‘linear narrative’; the story is told in chronological order and basic and straightforward.
The film follows Todorov’s Narrative Theory. The film starts with a state of equilibrium. Richie lays in a bath attempting to kill himself. Maggie, his sister, disrupts this state of equilibrium by calling him to ask if he could look after his niece, Sophia as she is desperately in need. Although he is not within the right frame of mind, he reluctantly accepts and clambers out of the bathtub and frantically goes about covering his freshly made cut with a bandage and prepare himself to meet his niece. At this point, we’ve reached recognition. Within this film, the ‘attempt to repair’ is him taking care of his niece. Although she initially pesters him with questions, he brushes aside her curiosity and innocence and begins to connect with his niece and feels happy. The ‘repair’ of the situation is when he attempts to fix his relationship with his sister after his niece Sofia gives him a warm hug as he drops her back to his sister. Once he reaches home, he jumps back into his bathtub to carry on with where he left off which seems strange considering it seemed as those all was well moments ago. As he is in the process to continue where he left off, his sister calls him (interrupting him once again) to ask him if he would like to regularly like to babysit his niece and repair their broken relationship thus giving him a will to live which now becomes the new equilibrium.
Propp’s character theory proposes the idea that every narrative has eight character types: villain, dispatcher, helper, princess/prize, father, donor, hero, false hero. In the short film, the villain, in this case, is Richie attempting to commit suicide to deal with whatever personal battles he’s facing. The hero is Richie who seems mentally distraught. His sister, Maggie is the dispatcher, helper and donor as she prevents Richie from killing himself by calling him and asking him to look after his niece. The princess/prize is his niece Sophia as she brings a shimmer of light and hope into his life and is rewarded with taking care of her.
The Binary opposites in the short film are Sophia and Richie. Richie is depressing and sad in contrast to Sophia who is bright and bubbly.
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