Seven Pounds Journey essay

Introduction

Before I begin, I just want to let you all know that I’m about to ruin an amazing film for you all. What is a journey?
Journey serves as an effective metaphor because it can accurately portray many concepts from all walks of life without becoming vague. A metaphor of journey manifests both as a process that the protagonists experience, and as an objective that they strive to reach. The film “Seven Pounds” starring Will Smith best illustrates the concept of a journey being both a process and a goal. This film is an emotional journey that portrays a man carrying a very large burden and the actions he takes to lift that burden. The protagonist Tim, acted by Will smith, embarked on an extraordinary journey of redemption by forever changing the lives of seven strangers. Viewers were not given too much information about the film; it was quite ambiguous and puzzling and intended to slowly reveal the plot through subtle hints. Only very few sharp individuals would figure it out sooner but many, including me, did not.

Tim Thomas: “In seven days, God created the world. And in seven seconds, I shattered mine.” This was a quote from the film narrated by Tim and this refers to the car accident which his wife including 6 others died in because of Tim’s mistake of using his phone while driving. He took it upon himself to carefully seek out 7 people’s lives he can literally save with a piece of himself. A lung, part of his liver, a kidney, bone marrow, his heart and his eyes; Seven pounds of flesh he exacts from himself to pay atonement for the unfortunate accident he cannot forgive himself for. He was very despondent and bountiful; he would do anything just to help other people, and would go to any lengths to figure out what kind of person they were. He would only select people who were truly good at heart, and he went on several journeys to figure them out.

Tim Thomas: “It is within my power to drastically change his circumstances, but I don’t want to give that man a gift he doesn’t deserve.” Another quote narrated by Tim depicts his omnipotence to alter someone’s journey. Smith’s plan was almost destroyed by Rosario Dawson’s character ‘Emily’. He started to fall in love with her and had to decide whether or not he will tell her his plan and go through with it. However, he decided to go through with his plan in order for her to survive. If he hadn’t taken this path, Emily would have died. This element of romantic love that Tim unexpectedly stumbled upon made the film’s message even clearer. Tim gave up his desire to live and to fall in love to ultimately save Emily, as well as the others he had selected. He could have taken the other path and had better journey than the one he had chosen.

Upon dying, he planned to give his eyes to a blind salesman named Ezra. He committed suicide by filing a bathtub with ice cubes (to preserve his organs), and dropping in his box jellyfish to kill him. This jellyfish was around him the entire movie. He made several mentions to it throughout the film (which was a good foreshadowing technique) stating that it was the most powerful being on the face of the planet and how much it fascinated him. Who knew it would end up taking his life? Through his suicide attempt, there were flashbacks of the car accident and this gave the audience an understandable representation of why he had taken the journey. Tim’s journey tells of atonement and a reaffirmation of life. Conclusion

In conclusion, the film Seven Pounds was an inspiring metaphorical journey of redemption. The main catalyst for Tim’s journey was exposed at the very end of the film which was the death of his wife. His death by suicide was foreshadowed quite earlier in the movie. However, the reasons behind this are only exposed as we had taken through his journey.