What Is The Structure Of The Movie Stepmom

In the movie, Stepmom, there are five important characters. Isabel, a young photographer who is dating Luke, a lawyer and a recent divorced father of two. Jackie, a stay-at-home mom shares joint custody with Luke. Anna, the oldest child, is 12 years old, and Ben is 7 years old. The children live with their mother, but spend the weekends with their father, who shares an apartment with Isabel. These characters stay consist throughout the movie; however, the relationship between Isabel and Luke changes at the end of the movie because they get married.
A. Identity Family Dynamics
Family Structure
In the beginning of the movie, Luke and Jackie had an okay relationship. Like many divorced families, their main focus was on the children. Since the
In the last scene, the family sits together as they celebrate Christmas. Since Jackie was ill, they chose to celebrate the holiday at her house. During one scene, Jackie asks the family to take a picture with her. As the entire family sits down to take a picture, Jackie insists that Isabel sits with them in the picture since she is a part of the family. Surprised, Isabel sits down beside Jackie and holds her hand as the rest of the family surrounds them. During this specific scene, the family’s emotions were expressed freely. Another important aspect of the families’ resilience is how they finally acknowledged the hardships that Jackie was facing. Anna and Ben both had their intimate conversations with Jackie about their futures, which allowed both to celebrate their relationship with their
Divorce introduces a massive change in children’s lives, especially when the children are connected to each parent. This usually creates unfamiliarity for the children and often takes time to smooth into the transition of jumping from one house to another. This was the reality for Anna and Ben. Lucky for them, both their parents were not aggressive towards one another and in some parts of the movie even seemed romantically involved. During one scene, Anna, who is very outspoken, asked her dad what happened with him and Jackie’s relationship. He answered very honestly by explaining that he fell out of love with Jackie, but still views her as a close friend. Still confused, Ben asked if parents can fall out of love with their kids.
This open dialogue demonstrates that the children still are in the healing process. In their situation, as they were trying to assimilate into the new family structure, Luke and Isabel got engaged. Children are sponges and are able to detect negative energy. If the parents are encouraging open dialogue, children are prone to mimic this and feel comfortable talking to each parent, which is seen with this family dynamic later on in the