Exploring Social Isolation: A Study of Greg Gaines

The opening scene introduces Greg Gaines, the film’s depressed protagonist, which the audience can see through the use of restricted narration. Greg is an introverted high school senior who floats through life by trying to stay unnoticed. He does not belong only to one group, but to all of the groups and none of them at the same time. His survival plan is to be low-key good terms with every separate group in his high school in order to avoid any conflict. We also see Earl, with whom Greg shoots short, animated parody films. These two short movie clips are very central to the narrative, being the clips motifs they tell the audience that they should expect the movies to be a significant symbol in the rest of the film. Later Greg is told by his parents that his old childhood friend, Rachel, is diagnosed with leukemia.

Greg is a socially restricted character who resists emotional involvement and completely lacks self-confidence. He is rather a flat character which means that he does not develop significantly throughout the clip. However, he is a very important character in the film because he does not reveal much about himself. This makes the storyline more genuine than it would be with a confident main character. What makes Greg interesting is the fact that despite being a misfit he has an

Major plot events are the events that are essential for the plot structure. In this particular clip, the major plot events are getting to know that Greg and Earl make short movies and that Rachel has cancer. Minor plot events are less crucial for the plot still telling the audience something interesting about the characters. Minor plot event is, for instance, when Greg goes to school and the audience learns that he is trying more than anything to blend in. Thus, the audience learns about Greg’s personality. The clips nondiegetic elements include the informative texts over the screen and the music portrayed in the