The Bucket List
Erica
BSHS 342
October 15, 2012

The Bucket List
Corporate billionaire Edward Cole and working class mechanic Carter Chambers have nothing in common except for their terminal illnesses. While sharing a hospital room together, they decide to leave it and do all the things they have ever wanted to do before they die according to their bucket list. In the process, both of them heal each other, become unlikely friends, and ultimately find joy in life.
Edward (Jack Nicholson) is used to living a lavish life and it showed in the hospital scene. His personal assistant Thomas (Sean Hayes) comes every morning and makes him his usual espresso and is taking care of all his personal matters. Edward has the mentality that nothing bad happens to him and he seems to be in a state of denial about his cancer. He comes off at first as a not so nice person. As time progresses on we see a different side of him. He comes off cold to Carter in the beginning and it isn’t until the Bucket Lists come into play that they start to have a friendship.
Carter (Morgan Freeman) has lived a hard working man’s life, is married and has grown children. Carter seems like your usual family guy that has the supportive wire and family. He has a wife that wants to make sure that he has the best care he can get. He has come to terms that he has cancer and that his day may be numbered. He expects nothing more than what he had received as care at the hospital. Edward on the other hand expected to have his own room.
As we can see it bothers Edward in the beginning that he has to share a room with another patient. This time that they are forced to share will eventually create a bond that is life changing. Carter sees the things that he has done on the past and from what I see in the movie feels a sense of integrity. He knows that he worked hard to gives his kids what they wanted and they turned into great adults. Edward on the other hand talks about his failed marriages and a daughter that he doesn’t talk to. Once again these men are mentally in different places in life.
One night Carter starts putting his Bucket List together of things he would like to do before his final days. The next morning Edward finds it crumpled up on the floor and asks Carter what it is. Edward contemplated the idea and told Carter that he wanted to do these things and make dreams happen for Carter. Carter was very hesitant because he does have a wife and family and he was thinking of them, at first. After much talk Carter decides that he is going to take this journey with Edward despite the fact that is wife was WAY against the idea. Carter said in the movie, “I have worked under the hood for 45 years for everyone; I think it is about time I do something for myself”. At that moment in time he had realized that at this point of his life and with the terminal cancer that he needed to take Edward up on his offer. Edwards’s mentality was he wasn’t leaving anyone behind and he could go and blow all he wanted. As we see he did take along his personal assistant.
Up until the point that Edward was placed in the hospital I do not think that his lifestyle reflected his age. He felt young and free and full of money, even up to the time that he and Carter took off and Carter started talking to him about what his priority should be at this point in his life. The one thing in Edward’s life that he had not reflected on was his daughter. Carter talked to him as much as Edward would let him about the situation. Edward at times still comes off as closed off to Carter but what Carter doesn’t realize is he is taking his advice and storing it.
Cognitively at this point both Edward and Carter have mentally come to terms with the illness and are truly beginning to take in the experiences that they are taking together before their last days. They both have dealt with many emotions as they look back at the life they have lived. Dealing with the hard times of the past is something that Carter wanted to help Edward realize. He wanted to help Edward see the importance of having a relationship with his daughter.
Once they returned from their ventures they both looked at their lives in a totally different light. As we look at Edward, we see him make a giant step in a direction that no one would have ever thought he would. We see him standing outside a house and then see him go to the door. A young lady opens the door and invites him in. As he is in the house we also see a little girl that is Edwards’s granddaughter. The audience can see a major difference in the outlook that Edward now has. At this point we see the composition of Edward’s family change. It goes from Edward not wanting to just be a family that consists of him but to a man that knows that a family is more than one person. We also see a different attitude in Carter. He goes home to his wife and we see a different connection between them.
After it is all said and done, Carter just wants Edward to find the joy in his life. He feels so grateful for what Edward has given him. His gratitude for Edward shows that he is a humble man. Edward still shows some of his old ways, for instance he tells Thomas “nobody cares what you think” when he tried to tell Edward he was proud of him. This shows he still has a sense of pride that he may not be ready or ever be ready to let go of. He has to maintain the hard guy attitude because that is what he has always portrayed himself as.
Both of these men were in totally different mind sets when they met that day in the hospital. One was at peace and another not ready to except. Through the tender feelings of each other’s friendship and life stories they made a friendship that would forever change the rest of the years that they were alive. What a wonderful movie about reflection at this stage of life can do for a person.