Lane Change story
Charlene Benton, driving on a stormy night while approaching divorce, gets glimpses of her past through the windshield after she picks up a stranded woman along the way. Directed by: Ken Kwapis. Story by: Ali Marie Matheson.
11 total · 2 choice · 6 major · 3 minor
| Theme | Level | Motivation |
|---|---|---|
| coping with a failing marriage | choice | The story follows Charlene as she is made to rethink her decision to divorce her husband of 17 years. |
| what if I met myself from a different time | choice | A grand revelation of the story is that the hitchhiker who Charlene picked up on the roadside was actually herself from about 30 years in the future. |
| becoming like what you oppose | major | Charlene came to the realization that by regarding her husband with disdain for crying at the prospect of divorce, she had unknowingly mirrored her father, who had chastised her as a child for crying at her mother's funeral. |
| divorce | major | The story follows Charlene as she is made to rethink her decision to divorce her husband of 17 years. |
| picking up a hitchhiker | major | Charlene made the fateful decision to pick up an old lady who was hitchhiking along the side of the road on a stormy night. Little did Charlene know that the old lady was her future self, and that the encounter would leave Charlene with a bright outlook on her seemingly doomed marriage. |
| remembering bygone days | major | Charlene reminisced about various pivotal moments in her life. She recalled (or possibly hallucinated) the day she got married, 17 years ago, and the day of her mother's funeral. |
| second guessing one's self | major | Charlene, who was initially dead set on divorcing her husband of 17 years, ultimately reversed course after some soul searching. |
| what if I saw a glimpse of the past | major | Scenes of Charlene's past unfolded before her eyes as she drove down the road on a stormy night. In one such scene, she beheld her child self crying in the backseat of a car on the way home from her mother's funeral. In another, she witnessed her possibly alcohol fueled wedding motorcade speeding past her on the highway. |
| classic films | minor | Charlene contrasted herself with Scarlett O'Hara in Gone with the Wind. |
| drunk driving | minor | In a strange scene, Charlene witnessed her possibly alcohol fueled wedding motorcade speeding past her on the highway. |