Analysis of Tickets-James

The film is about the quick assumptions we make when we can’t see the whole picture. Part two seems to follow the traditional 3-act structure of rising action climaxing around the end of the second act. However, at the end of the second act, after the final conflict has taken place, there seems to be little resolution for the characters and the audience. In this way, the film deviates from the normal structure.

The directors quickly establish the personalities of the main players but they are vague about their roles in the film. At first, the old woman appears to be the antagonist as she bosses around the young man who we assume is her son. Because of the reputation she has gained in the first minutes as a bitter old hag, we assume that the man who has lost his phone is in the right and that the young man is really going to take on the role of the hero later on. After the conflict with the stranger who mistook the old woman’s phone for his own, we gain some sympathy for her despite how rude she appears. Also, the fact that the young man would allow the woman to treat him as she does and because she keeps alluding to the notion that he did something disappointing beyond being unhelpful, the audience is lead to believe that he has perhaps done something to deserve his current position. Later on, as the woman continues to act unreasonably, we lose sympathy for her and begin to see the young man as the victim of the situation. However, as we can also see her struggle and change of heart after the young man has left her, we again see her in a different light. It is because of these uncertainties that remain throughout the film that part two of “Tickets” strays from the established structure of most movies. Aside from using unconventional methods of establishing character roles, the filmmakers also used an unusual method for presenting the pattern of action, again drifting from the more common archetype.

Conflict is evident even from the first shot. The tension rises and the audience grows more interested in the central conflict between the young man and the old woman. However, after the climax of the tension in their relationship occurs when the young man leaves her helpless at the station, there is no resolution of events. As the aforementioned states, the roles of the characters are unclear, thus the audience cannot readily assume that there is resolution in the fact that the young man escaped his horrific duties catering to the old woman’s every whim as the audience can sympathize with both characters’ situations. Had she been portrayed as a more two-dimensional character who the audience could not sympathize with, the ending would have been more aligned with the traditional structure of most films.