Analysis of the Opening Sequence of 'Just Like Heaven' 2008

Director: Mark Waters

Starring: Reese Witherspoon and Mark Ruffalo

Opening Sequence

The movie starts with the Dreamworks logo and the incidental music over the top of it (not the expected sounds that would accompany the logo), the music is upbeat and happy. The camera then tilts down through the clouds and more titles begin to fade in and then fade back out, they are in bold bright colours (pink, blue, yellow, green and red) to match the happiness of the music. The camera continues to spiral down into a heavenly garden, a sort of 'garden of eden'. Reese Witherspoon is sitting in the center, she is wearing an outfit that makes her look angelic and peaceful, almost like the protagonist in a fairy tale. There are some dissolves to different camera angles, showing a passage of time, as if she could just be sitting there for hours.


We then see an out of context plastic chair and the lyrics to the song say "like a dream" as an arm reaches in and the music cuts as the protagonist is woken up from her dream state. Reese Witherspoon is a stereotypical protagonist for a romantic comedy; an innocent looking, blonde, white, blue eyed girl, with a homely feel. She aspires to get further in her job, we can tell this as she has been working for over 24 hours and says that she won't get intern if she doesn't carry on. Elizabeth is over worked, there is a sequence where she walks down a corridor and everybody is throwing work at her, this emphasises her busy life. Upbeat music begins again as a montage of doctor duties (some comical, some average) start quickly cutting between each other, again to emphasise her busy life and how she has nothing but the hospital in her life. We then see Reese Witherspoon on the phone to her sister who is her opposite in life, a housewife with kids. After this, we see our protagonist speak to a black man who is her senior, he tells her that he likes her attitude and that  she doesn't "kiss his ass" (for comedy effect), and she is promoted. As she is about to leave she is called back by a nurse to help.

Thunder, a storm is coming, pathetic fallacy suggests that sadness follows. As she drives home happy about her promotion, she sees a bright light come towards her as a lorry crashes into her car, the bright light bringing connotations of heaven, again. This sets the mood of 'fate' in the movie as she would not have been hit by the lorry if she had left when she was going to.