The Plot Structure in the Film Our Time is Up - Assignment Example

The film “Our time is up” is a short 14-minute movie, which was Oscar-nominated in 2006. It describes a few days from the life of thriving psychiatrist Leonard Stern.
The aim of the current work is to analyze the film “Our time is up” from the position of its plot structure. Thus, the definitions and the main functions of exposition, inciting event, rising action, climax, falling action, and resolution will be given and exemplified by the scenes from the film accordingly.

Exposition is defined as “the background material that the reader or viewer needs to understand the rest of the plot. The reader meets the main characters, learns key pieces of information” (Burns, 2014), and “tells the reader WHEN & WHERE a story takes place” (Tiffany, 2010). The exposition of the film “Our time is up” shows the usual routine of Dr. Stern's life. He wakes up at 7:00, chooses a suit, makes coffee at 7:15, picks the daily newspaper “National Psychiatrist”, reads it while drinking coffee, and starts his sessions with patients. The following scenes of the film depict these sessions. The interviews are connected with doctor's ordinary impassiveness phrases such as “Well, say more about that”, “Interesting. Why do you think that is?”, “How does it make you feel?”, “This seems to cause you a great deal of distress”, “That must be difficult for you”, which indicate that doctor is not deeply involved or interested in his patients' problems. The question “Why do you think that is?” is heard twice, though in reference to different clients.

The exposition part of the film finalizes with the following dialogue:
Patient: … Is it gonna work?
Dr. Stern: All at due time. (“Our time is up”, 2004)
The described scenes coincide with the nature and function of exposition as they introduce the main actors and settings of the film.
Inciting moment (inciting event, inciting incident) was deemed by Freytag as a part of the exposition. It is defined as an event that performs the “key conflict”, which sets the story in motion (Burns, 2014). Dr. Stern receives a call from Dr. Williams, who tells him the results of CT scanning: there are only six weeks remaining for him to live. The inciting event is enforced with the following scenes highlighting that the phone call was a “turning point” in the doctor's life: he did not wake up at 7:00, did not make coffee, or picked the newspaper as usual, but was only helplessly sitting on the floor. Inciting moment denotes that from this point protagonist's life will dramatically change and things will never be as before. Thus, in “Our time is up” the call regarding CT scan results is an inciting event as after it doctor reviews his attitude to life and people.

Rising action takes place in the film from the inciting moment up to the climax of the story providing “progressive intensity in a story” (Tiffany, 2010). After Dr. Stern receives a call, he decides to tell the truth to his patients' about their problems or face them with their fears. For example, he tells patient #1 that the latter has low self-esteem and, thus, is afraid to have relations with one woman instead of sleeping with many. Patient #8 is afraid of darkness so the doctor turns off the light and so on and so forth. Thus, these scenes correspond to the main functions of the rising action part, which “often involves the protagonist moving through a series of tasks or choices”, when “relationships between... events become more complicated and tension rises as the story moves toward its climax” (Burns, 2014).

When patient #1 comes to Dr. Stern's home some other day, the doctor is shown wearing a bathrobe and watching TV. Patient #1, who was angry at the doctor's denoting his low self-esteem, tells “thank you” and hugs the doctor. “You were right, - says the patient. - All at a due time”. This scene is also “the due time” of the film itself, the moment of the “highest tension”, when all questions should be answered, which is identified as the climax of the movie. “The climax should be the most exciting part of the story... The protagonist meets his deciding moment, or turning point, at a time of great internal and/or external conflict” (Burns, 2014).

The part of the film which follows the climax is determined as “falling action”: “The falling action deals with the immediate consequences of the climax – the fallout, the cleanup, the movement from a state of high excitement toward a state of resolution” (Burns, 2014). In the film “Our time is up” the falling action is presented in the scenes beginning with patients' express gratefulness to the doctor and finishing with Leonard's acceptance to give professional advice to the young doctor, who wants Stern to learn him “the best way to handle patients” (“Our time is up”, 2004).

Thus, five main structural elements of the movie “Our time is up” were analyzed in the paper. Definitions of exposition, inciting moment, rising action, climax, and falling action were given and exemplified with the proper scenes from the film.