Dear John Analysis

Dear John Analysis

The film I am going to be analysing today is Dear John which is a Romantic film from the author of The Notebook. I am going to analyse the film based on three codes, the generic code, narrative code and technical code. Firstly, I will start with the generic code. The plot of the film is about a love story and it all starts at a beach where a woman's handbag falls into the sea and a man who she eventually falls in love with dives into the sea to rescue it, the twist in the film is that the man works for the army and is back and forth from home all the time, he is also at risk at dying at any point because of his job. Both of them send letters to each other for days on end but meanwhile inside it is killing both of them being without each other, the question is will they stay together or will they break up. Throughout the trailer there is music playing in the background, a song was playing and you could hear a lyric played what said 'I'm miles from where you are' which is relevant to the film as both the man and the woman are miles apart from each other. There are two stand out actors in the film Channing Tatum and Amanda Seyfried, both of who fit into the role of this film as they have played roles like this before. The director Lasse Hallstrom can also be linked to films like this before so he has a certain knowledge on how to direct a romantic film. 

Secondly, I am going to analyse the film based on its Narrative codes. Probably the most important part of films is to get the audience asking questions in their mind, the audience does this in two different codes, the enigma code and the action code. The enigma code raise's questions in our minds and the action code are actions or signs that move the film forward, obviously since we are only analysing the trailer we can only pick up certain moments what the trailer shows. Some action codes what we could get from the trailer where will he rescue her bag, will he go back with the army, will he stay longer with the army and will his dad die in hospital. The main questions what are asked are the enigma codes, these where will they stay together or will they break up, that is what most people will think while watching the film.