The movie bucket list is a Hollywood movie released in the year 2007. The movie was directed by Rob Reiner and was written by Justin Zackham. The lead characters of the movie are Carter Chambers (Morgan Freeman) who’s a blue-collar mechanic and Edward Cole (Jack Nicholson), who’s a billionaire hospital magnate. Edward and Carter meet each other in a hospital room when they are diagnosed with lung cancer. Edward had all money in the world but he never had a good life and family time, he was never loved but on the other side Carter had a good life despite all the hardships he had in his life, he had a very loving family. Eventually, during the hospital days, they both became good friends and ended up making a ‘BUCKET LIST’. “Life is not a single continuous and unbroken entity with a single distinct beginning and a single distinct end (Darrell, 2018)
‘BUCKET LIST’ and ‘ADULTHOOD’- Analysis of main characters with reference to human growth theories.
1) Edward Cole
As depicted in the movie the character showed adjustment issues because he has never been to a hospital before. It took a lot of time for Edward to accept the reality that he’s been diagnosed with cancer. He showed faced anxiety and depressive features. He also depicted some of the features of a Schizoid personality. Schizoid personality refers to detachment from social relationships. The character also depicted some borderline personality traits as well, like in the movie he says that he likes to stay single at the same time he says that he was also interested in marriage which lead him too unstable relationships and marriages. Evidently, it's depicted that he was unstable in maintaining relationships because he had married 4 times and he was not able to sustain any of those relationships. Also, he didn’t have a good relationship even with his daughter. He had a continuing feeling of desolation, anger, sex, etc. All these traits can be related to Erikson’s psychosocial stages of development. As Erikson says, if any of the stages is not fulfilled, it might lead to hindrance in development which leads to internal crisis and psychosocial regression of distinct character. In this movie, there were two stages that the character failed to fulfill. They are as follows:
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a) Intimacy v/s Isolation- In this, the characters lacked love and intimate relationships which formed an isolated nature in him. Since he was not able to form a good relationship, he depicted Schizoid personality disorder.
During the trip, Carter realized the importance of his family and Edward realized the value of love and thought that the last thing he wanted to do is to meet his daughter. At the end of the movie, Edward and Carter passed away and their remains were buried in two coffee cans at the top of mount Himalayas. The movie showed the bio-social development of aging depicted by Edward and Carter. The theory of wear-and-tear was applied in the movie, it means a process by which the human wears out because of the passage of time and exposure to environmental stressors (Berger, 2012a, p.654).
Death and dying phase were more accentuated in the movie. Edward and Carter showed more death and dying characteristics such as anger, acceptance, denial, etc. In the beginning, they both refused to accept the reality that they both had terminal illnesses and both tried to isolate themselves. “The social dimension in coping with death encompasses a person's surrounding relationships (Fadden, December 18, 2018)”
There is a continuous debate on whether health conditions in terminally ill people should be treated. People argue that the care is expensive and these people will be dying soon anyway, so is prolonging their life a burden to society? The other side of the debate argues that all means possible should be used to keep them alive despite the high cost. They argue that life is precious and what gives us the right as humans to 'play god'. (Cavanaugh and Blanchard-Fields, 2015).
Towards the end of the movie, regardless of all the obstacles they had to face, they both fulfilled whatever they had written on their bucket list and they learned how to accept reality and move forward and do whatever makes them happy. The fulfillment of the ‘self-actualization’ need of Abraham Maslow’s need hierarchy theory is slightly depicted in the movie. Self-actualization is the final stage of Maslow’s theory which emphasizes artistic, creative, and spiritual understanding; portrayed by Carter (Berger, 2012b, p. 686). Carter and Edward at the end were ready to face death because towards the end they believed in this quote “Live each day as if it was your last day”. Erikson’s stage of Integrity v/s despair could be related to both of their lives toward the end. This last stage defines an elder who seeks to integrate their unique experiences with their vision of community (Berger, 2012c, p. 694).
Carter always wanted to be a history teacher, but he ended up being a mechanic and took care of the family. Edward on the other hand, wanted to have someone special in his life because he was unable to sustain any relationship even though he married 4 times, even though he didn’t share a good relationship with his own daughter. He lacked love and care in his life. His life was limited by his work. So, both Edward and Carter have shown anguish in their own lives. But, in the end, they both changed and had a major switch over in their roles from which they both experienced and fulfilled Erikson’s ‘Integrity’ stage.
I personally believe that it is cancer that made drastic changes in their lives, I’m not saying that it’s good that they had cancer, but it's because of that illness that they achieved soul fulfillment in their lives, if they were not diagnosed with cancer, they would end up their lives like the same way before having an illness, they would have the same anguish and all the disappointments they have in their lives even their graves. It is their illness that made them think differently and which motivated them to achieve all their dreams before they die. That decision to break all the barriers energized their soul and mind. The journey to different places made them realize the worthiness of their lives and the beloved ones around them. I strongly stick to the point that it is totally of no use if you live the life if it doesn’t enrich your soul, I do accept the fact that often the realities of life don’t let you what you actually like. But we can definitely put efforts to make our lives worthwhile so that even at our death we can happily say that I’ve lived my life fully and I can die peacefully without any regrets. “emerging adults often explore a variety of possible life directions in love, work, and worldviews. Emerging adulthood is a time of life when many different directions remain possible when little about the future has been decided for certain,” (Amett j. j., May 2000)
The movie ‘BUCKET LIST’ excellently portrayed the challenges one can face in adulthood, the possible tasks of adulthood, the effects of death, how to overcome obstacles, the value of love, the importance of being happy, the value of relationships, the importance of having and fulfilling the dreams one has, etc. It also teaches us the values of life, particularly the development of an average older adult through psychological, cognitive, and biosocial phases.
Experiences from personal life
This movie basically shows the challenges faced by two people in their adulthood when they are diagnosed with cancer. Taking experiences from my personal life, I was able to easily related this movie to that of my grandfather. My grandfather was one the most influential person in my life, in his 70s he was also diagnosed with intestine cancer. Initially, he refused to accept the fact that he’s having cancer. But eventually, he coped with reality and started to do whatever he liked the most. He was a person who was fond of good food, he started to have food that he liked the most, and he asked my mother to take him with her. Since my mother and my family stay away from where he lives, he asked us to take him with us. Also, there were a few places that he liked so much. We took him there and that was when I saw him being so happy and I actually understood how he was living that moment. Although the doctors said him not to travel and had food restrictions, he was actually not very much bothered about that. He said that ‘I don’t want to die as a bedridden cancer patient, I just want to make the most out of the coming days and die peacefully’. The surrounding and the family always tried to restrict him and told him to take rest which he never listened to. I could easily relate the story of the movie to that of my grandfather. Even in this case Erikson’s last stage of development, i.e., Integrity was fulfilled. Till his last breath, he was trying to make the most out of each moment. As Edward says in the movie in the last ‘I’m sure that when he died, his eyes were closed and heart was open (Reiner, 2007)’. This is what I believe in the case of my grandfather also.
“You know, the ancient Egyptians had a beautiful belief about death. When their souls got to the entrance to heaven, the guards asked two questions. Their answers determined whether they were able to enter or not. ‘Have you found joy in your life?’ 'Has your life brought joy to others?' (Reiner, The Bucket List, 2007), This dialogue Carter is the essence of the whole movie.
References
- Amett, j. j. (May 2000). emerging adulthood: a theory of development from the late teens through the twenties. American Psychologist, 469.
- Darrell. (2018, September 15). The Bucket List is Never Empty and the Last Third of Life. Retrieved from 16 personalities: https://www.16personalities.com/articles/the-bucket-list-is-never-empty-personality-theory-and-the-last-third-of-life
- Fadden, M. M. (December 18, 2018). Death and Dying Film Analysis Paper: The Bucket List. UK: Academia.
- Reiner, R. (Director). (2007). The Bucket List [Motion Picture].
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