Nikoletta Sultisz
Dr. Frank Prescott
Advanced writing skills
December, 2016
“What did I do to deserve this?”
The
impact and significance of choices in Mr
Nobody
Some believe in making decisions
impulsively and hoping for the best; others tend to ponder upon all the
outcomes an even tiny choice can result in. Well, Mr Nobody agrees with the latter; the film by writer-director Jaco
van Dormael exploits the idea of the butterfly effect (The Science of Mr.
Nobody), accentuating the influence of choices on a life. In Mr Nobody’s world
humans seemingly do not have much control; their past choices inevitably define
their future.
The nine-year-old Nemo Nobody is
challenged by an infeasible decision; whether to stay with his mother or his
father. He says “you have to make the right decision. As long as you don’t
choose, everything remains possible,” (Mr. Nobody movie script) and he attempts
to do so; while struggling to choose the right path, he imagines every possible
outcome of his decision, thus creating multiple parallel universes in which the
34-year-old Nemo Nobody lives.
Nemo’s lives do not only depend on
which parent he chooses, but also which girl of three he decides to marry:
Anna, Elise, or Jean. If he decides to remain with his father, he can either
choose Elise or Jean. Choosing Elise, he lives three distinct lives; in the
first one he confesses his love to her and gets rejected, his disappointment
becoming fury, he suffers a motor accident and falls into a coma. In this life
there is a prospect for his parents’ reconciliation. In the second life, she
also rejects him, yet he convinces her to give him a second chance and marries
her. From this point, there are two lives in formation; in one, on their
wedding day a car accident results in Elise’s death and the future Nemo travels
to Mars to disseminate her ashes. In the other one, their marriage is a
failure; Elise suffers from borderline personality disorder and depression,
ultimately leaving Nemo and her family.
In yet another life, after the
rejection, his aim is to marry the first girl dancing with him at the school
dance. On the motorcycle with Jean behind him, he sets his goals for the
future; marrying Jean, having children, and becoming extremely rich. However,
nothing happens exactly as expected: even though he acquires everything, his
marriage with Jean is loveless, his boredom with his life leads to depression,
and eventually he leaves his family. Trusting his fate on hap, he starts making
decisions by tossing coins, pretends to be someone else and gets murdered.
Deciding to live with his mother, they
move to Montreal, where he meets Anna. In the life with his father, the crucal
decision-making point was the school dance; here, it is swimming with Anna and
her friends. While trying to conceal his inability to swim, he insults Anna’s
friends and ends up living a lonely life in the future. Alternatively, if he
admits he cannot swim, he and Anna have a family and Nemo becomes a science
show presenter; however, he suffers a car accident and dies.
His life also depends on his mother’s
decisions; she marries the father of Anna, Nemo and her becoming step siblings.
They fall in love nevertheless and are inseparable until their parents get a
divorce and Anna moves back to New York with her father, completely losing
touch with Nemo. As adults, they still hope to accidentally meet each other and
it happens at the train station. However, Anna not being ready to restart their
relationship, gives Nemo her number and asks to meet at the lighthouse later. A
sudden rain smudges the numbers on the paper and Anna does not arrive at the lighthouse,
causing Nemo to become homeless waiting there forever. The theory of the
butterfly effect is inserted somewhat in a far-fetched way into this storyline;
the downpour smearing the numbers is due to a man boiling an egg on the other
side of the world.
Mr
Nobody is for people able to pay attention for 140 minutes, since it is not
chronologically ordered and uses a non-linear
narrative style. Simply put, location and time change scene by scene and for
understanding the film, the viewer has to assemble the puzzle pieces of all the
alternative storylines. There is a great deal of foreshadowing due to the non-
chronological order of the film, hence several times in one life Nemo is already
shown dead, while later in the same life he is still alive. Apparently, these
lives also interact with each other; for instance, when Nemo is in the
spaceship on Mars to spread Elise’s ashes, he meets Anne. As a teenager he
writes a sci-fi story set on Mars, while in another life, he is actually there.
He is a science show presenter in a life with Anne and his face has burn scars,
which he got in a life with Elise during their car accident. Furthermore, in
his dreams as an adult, he can see his alternative lives; once he dreams about
a life with Elise in which she says the sun hurts her eyes and when he wakes up
in his life with Jean, she says exactly
the same.
Jaco Van Dormael uses different symbols
thoughout the film. Water is used several times, for instance, when Nemo is
murdered in a bathtub or when he dies drowning in a lake in his car. Hence,
water is connected with death; it can represent the lack of control humans have
over their lives as they do not have
that in water either. Moreover, swimming can be seen as a symbol as well; we
learn Nemo cannot swim, which can mean his inability to control his life. Colours
also have an importance in the film; the three girls embodying the three
choices wear dresses of different colours; Jean a yellow one, Anna a red one,
while Elise wears a blue one. (Color Meanings) Colours can be seen as a way of
foreshadowing as well; yellow symbolises wealth and caution, suggesting Nemo’s affluence
and death in the life with Jean. Blue stands for depression which Elise
struggles with, and red is for true love that is Anna for Nemo.
Mr
Nobody is said to be overambitious by some critics, (Niels Matthijs) which
might be true. However, I believe we have to focus on what the message of the
film is. For one, it is about the beauty of life with its boundless
possibilities. It is also about the significance of choices. However, it offers
us a comforting thought about their consequences: “Every path is the right
path. Everything could've been anything else.
And it would have just as much meaning.” (Mr. Nobody movie script)
Works
Cited
The Science of Mr. Nobody
Mr. Nobody movie script
Color meanings
This reality's Mr. Nobody
Review
Niels Matthijs http://screenanarchy.com/ 4 10 2010
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