The Rest of the Film

It is important for me to know what the rest of the film is going to be like, so that I can use this to my advantage in my film opening. I want to instigate clues in the opening as to what the audience is about to watch, therefore I have looked into this in a lot of detail.

The beginning of the film shows events that happen in the beginning of the film – to give the audience an insight into what is about to happen. It is clear that the mother is very depressed over something; there are flowers, teddy bears and cards everywhere instigating that something bad has happened. The audience are then told that there is a case about Helen’s daughter/Lucy’s sister, and that the police have found a body.

The film focuses around the family life of the Miles’. They are a normal family with their regular family problems, but are generally very happy. They are preparing for an upcoming family holiday to Spain, and are very excited. Everything seems to be going on like a regular family. However, one day, Helen has to rush into work for an important meeting, and asks Lucy to drop Mollie at school on her way, as they are around the corner from each other. The whole way, Lucy feels like someone is watching her. She calls her mum to say that she thinks someone is following her, but she doesn’t answer so she leaves a voicemail. They rush on, and the audience see that there is definitely someone following the girls. Then all of the sudden, a man grabs both of the girls by the arm and tries to pull them into a van. He gets Mollie into the van and one of their mums friends see the man trying to abduct Lucy and screams for him to stops. He slams the door shut and drives away without taking Lucy.

Helen reads the voicemail and begins to get very worried, she tries calling Lucy and there is no answer. She immediately leaves the meeting and rushes to the school. On her way, she is getting a call from the head master and she is told that she has to come down immediately as there has been an incident with Mollie. When she gets there, she is told of the events and immediately begins to blame herself.

Key:

Helen Miles = Mother

Lucy Miles = Daughter

Mollie Miles = Missing daughter

James Miles = Father (although not seen in film opening)

The story then focuses around the case of Mollies kidnap and what has happened to her. It shows how the family are coping with what has happened. The mum has been diagnosed with severe depression and she is turning in on herself, constantly blaming herself and not being able to forget about what happened that day. She doesn’t want to go to work anymore so she can look after Lucy, and pushes her husband away due to constant arguing and financial difficulties, and eventually they have to split up.

Then we get to the part of the film we see in the opening, where the detective says that there has been a body found. They had investigated the place that the body was found and found lots of clues to suggest it was Mollie’s body. However when Helen goes to identify the body, it isn’t Mollies. Although what she has seen was horrific, it wasn’t her daughter. The clues however help identify the man who took her. They uncover that he was working with someone else, and they wanted to keep Mollie for themselves. When they turned up at their house, they found her locked in a cupboard. The woman says that she just wanted her own child, and had to hide her from her husband in case he killed her. Mollie is returned to her family.