Your Hamartia is Showing

            It’s the simple story of boy meets girl in high school. Dave’s an average guy who is too shy or uninterested to talk to girls. After an interesting homecoming dance, he has met a girl, Rachel, who he thinks he likes. After dating for a few months, they realize they’re just friends. They continue their friendship until that summer, when Dave realizes he’s in love with her. She just started dating another guy. After a few months of that, she breaks up with him, and Dave confesses his true feelings. She tells him that she likes him as a friend.

            The hamartia of Dave is his liking of Rachel at the wrong time. For the first half of the film, when the two of them begin to date upon meeting, it should feel very fake. The audience should want to tell the characters that they’ve leaped into things much too quickly, and that their relationship needs a strong friendship at the base. This could be paralleled by a close friend to Dave, who is in a successful relationship, as he and his girlfriend were close friends before they began dating. Had he and Rachel taken the time to truly get to know each other before starting to date, none of the mess that makes up the film would unfold.

            The peripetieia of the film is when Dave finds himself head over heels for Rachel. They’ve just spent a few months growing in friendship and coming up with inside jokes. One morning Dave wakes up and realizes what’s happened. He’s obviously too late, as Rachel’s reciprocated feelings for him have come and gone. The audience should be sympathizing with Dave here, as the more time we’ve seen them together, the more they’ve liked Rachel as well. It’s a reversal because prior to it, Rachel liked Dave and now he likes her.

            The anagorisis of the film occurs when Dave finally confesses him feelings to Rachel. They return to the same place where they initially met and subsequently started dating. They go as friends to hang out. Dave awkwardly brings up the idea of who he likes, because he knows that she suspects it. When she turns him down, the audience should be slightly crushed, but hopeful that things will work out and that the two will get together. They do not, however. The scene is the climax of the film and it ties to the inciting incident by taking place where they met.