Bao (2018)

Bao is a short film directed by Domee Shi, only eight minutes long, but is the best comparison i can find to my own screenplay. It is a family/genre short film about a mother processing her son leaving home by raising a bao bun as a pseudo son, personifying him to the point that the bao bun is a living breathing child she raises. The close comparison here to my own screenplay here is that the main character projects her emotions onto an inanimate object, anthropomorphizing it and using the bao bun as a stand in son. Odette in my screen play, treats the cactus as a symbol of her late grandmother, personifying it in her mind and projecting her emotions onto it. The warmth, humor, and emotional growth of Bao is exactly what I’m looking to portray. 

Marley & Me (2008)

Marley & Me, directed by David Frankel, has a lot of the themes I’m looking to portray, emotional conflict, anger, sadness, joy, all wrapped up in the cover of a lighthearted dog movie. Once again the analogies between Marley and the cactus are clear, both stir so much anger and negative emotions in the main character. Regardless, they are loved, and at the end of the movie once they are lost only then is their presence really appreciated in full.  

Spirited Away (2002)

This one is a bit more out there, but visually, I picture my screenplay’s aesthetic to be like that of the style of any Ghibli movie, particularly Spirited Away, directed by Hayao Miyazaki.  Vivid colors and soft lighting, eclectic maximalist scenery, all those elements that can be translated from animation into real life are what I envision. I feel that the lighthearted exterior but darker more serious themes of Ghibli movies also reflect the tone im trying to give off in my screenplay.