17 Again Film Analysis

The Journey 

Ordinary World: Mike O'Donnell has a dead end job and does the same thing every day. He doesn't have a good relationship with his kids and his marriage is rapidly coming to a close.
Call: Mike does not get the higher position at his job, which should cause him to take action. Not to mention the fact that his marriage has fallen apart.
Refusal: Instead of doing something to change his life, he merely goes back to his old high school and looks at pictures of what he used to be.
Mentor: Mike talks to his "spirit guide" who is disguised as the school janitor. The janitor is the one who decides to shove Mike in the right direction. Ned Gold, his long time best friend, is also Mike's mentor throughout the whole journey.
Threshold: Mike sees the janitor about to jump off of a bridge. Mike goes to help him but he is already gone, when Mike looks over the bridge he falls over, literally crossing the threshold and turning seventeen years old again.
Tests, allies, enemies: Mike's enemy throughout the story is his own blindness to what he did wrong and Maggie's boyfriend, Stan, who is the school bully and is preventing Mike from getting close to his daughter.
Approach: His approach is just as he gets closer to his kids. He gets Alex, his son, a girlfriend and gets Maggie to understand that Stan is not a good guy. He learns to care about Scarlet, his wife, again and they fall in love again.
Ordeal: The ordeal is similar to the approach, really just the same things. Also, after the basketball team's first game, Mike throws a party at his house that the whole school is invited to. When Scarlet comes to find Alex, Mike kisses Scarlet. Unfortunately, she slaps him, as he is 20 years younger than her, and the house is in shambles as Ned comes back from his own date.
Reward: Mike gets a kiss from Scarlet and gets closer to his kids.
The Road Back: Mike realizes that he screwed things up and tries to make things better by reading a fake letter to Scarlet at court for their divorce. He decides to really get into basketball to get a scholarship, as he doesn't believe that there is a "path" to follow anymore.

Death: At the final big game where the scouts are coming to watch him, the whole scene from 1989 replays right before Mike's eyes. Scarlet also realizes that the same thing is happening so she leaves the gym, just like she did before.
Resurrection: Mike knows that he cannot make the same mistake again so he drops the basketball in the middle of the game, just like before, and runs after Scarlet, just like before.
Return with Elixir: Mike is a changed person, realizes what he has done wrong and has vowed to make things right again. He has gotten Maggie and Alex back on the right path and his marriage is going swimmingly once again.

Archetypes

Hero: Mike is the hero because he is the one changing to try to get his family back together again and fix all of his mistakes. 

Mentor: Ned is Mike's mentor because he helps him through the whole journey, including help figure out what happened when Mike's age rewound back to seventeen years old. Also, Mike is the mentor to his children and Naomi is the mentor to Scarlet.
Threshold Guardian: The janitor, because he is the one who really shoves Mike through the threshold, knowing what Mike has to do to pull his life together once again.
Herald: Scarlet's friend Naomi because the comments that she makes to Scarlet really wake Mike up, making him understand that Scarlet is moving on with her life.
Shapeshifter: This is Mike when Mike is under the impression that he is just comforting Maggie and she really thinks that he likes her. It is also Maggie when she starts to hit on Mike, not knowing that he isn't actually interested in her.
Shadow: Stan is one of the shadows, as he is just not a nice kid and is what holding Maggie back from moving on with her life. It is also Mike's simple blindness to the fact of what he is doing wrong in his relationship with his family.

Better Early Than Never

 

Scarlett wakes up at 6:38 in the morning, like every morning, happy with her reliable lifestyle. After her shower, that lasts exactly ten minutes, she looks in her closet and picks out her favorite red pumps. She wears red shoes everyday. They make her feel classy- no matter that in retrospect, only about half of her shoes don't look like something a prostitute would wear. Regardless, she gets in the elevator of her apartment building at 7:18 and makes it out of the building, on the bus and off again by 7:33. She is running three minutes late, like usual, when she crosses the street towards the building she works at. In the recesses of her mind, she hears a screech of brakes and then everything goes black. Did someone turn out the lights? She slowly opens her eyes, as if waking from a long, dark sleep. For reasons she has a hard time comprehending, she is looking down at a mesh of metal- a taxi cab, it seems, has careened into a street lamp on the sidewalk. She is surprised that the lamp held up better than the car. Not as surprised, though, as she is at the sight of a familiar red shoe sitting very pristine, almost formally, next to the right, front tire of the taxi.

Questions:

When will Scarlett realize that she is, in fact, dead?

Will Scarlett be able to come to terms with the fact that she never lead a very fulfilling life?

Will Scarlett get another chance? Is it even possible to get another chance?

In Which Evangeline Blurbs

Masochist- Ingrid Michaelson

Forced to suppress childhood memories through blocking out emotion, Charlotte knows better than to let people into her life. Jack is the first person to touch her in nine and a half years but because of a lifetime of habit, she bars herself from feeling any emotions in reciprocation. Jack says that holding her hand is different somehow, but Charlotte doesn't understand- isn't a hand just a hand?

FM Radio- Joshua James

At only seven years old, Adelaide was the one who found her father dead after fighting cancer his whole life. Her mother made sure that the young girl understood that her only duty was to stay strong and not cry. Years down the road, all of the emotions bottled up in Adelaide are taking their toll. Heartache shows in every step she takes, anguish in every song she sings.

Trouble- Joe Purdy

Daniel has been completely without luck for his whole life. He has also been completely without April his whole life. But this summer, there is no way that he is letting April slip out of his grasp again. No, this time it will be him that she is with, not some other stupid guy. Things are about to change- and change for the better. Because now, trouble is on his side, not the world's.