Practice Introduction

“All the characters in Look Both Ways are lost in some way. Do you agree?” Throughout “Look Both Ways”, the director, Sarah Watt explores the idea that difficult circumstances in life can cause characters to feel they have lost themselves, meaning that behaviour is no longer matched to belief in personal self image. “Look Both Ways” demonstrates that life is an unscripted event of which no one knows the final outcome and we can often become overwhelmed by how seemingly little control we exert over the navigation of our lives. This appears to be the case for almost all the protagonists in the film, some characters are affected more dramatically than others as circumstances differ but they all suffer some form of emotional upheaval and appear to struggle to accept the changes. This is certainly the case for; Nick as he is forced to accept his cancer diagnosis which causes him to experience emotional conflict with himself and surrounding characters. Andy and Anna who have relationship problems due to an expecting child that neither of the characters seem to want to take responsibility of. As well as Meryl and Julia who struggle to find their place in society after the struggle of dealing with the un-expected death of a loved one. Although many characters appear to feel lost, Phil is a notable exception as he actually finds himself as the film progressed. Consequently the majority of the characters in “Look Both Ways” are lost in some way but there are obvious exceptions to this as some unique characters find themselves during the film.