film review: One Great Imaginary Friend

Inchan Hwang
Mr.Garrioch
Junior English Composition Class
23 November 2012 

     Heading towards the end of the movie, Ben meets his online game friend Scarlet. Together with Scarlet, Ben formulates an epic suicidal show to give bullies and bystanders a lifetime lesson. However, at the very last scene of the movie, Scarlet turns out to be an illusion, or imaginary friend, that Ben created. What a surprise!

     This form of plot – in which an imaginary friend functions as a helper or mentor in hero’s journey format – can also be seen in the film <Fight Club>. In these two films, both protagonists are characterized as pathetic, cowardly, and impotent human being. 

Ben-X

Fight Club

However, their imaginary friends lead them by setting up plans, making decisions, and most importantly, transforming the heroes into courageous ones. In <Ben-X>, Ben changes from a pathetic autistic teenager to a courageous hero who rehabilitated his life-long enemies, bullies, by executing a national scale suicidal show. Similarly, in <Fight Club>, the “narrator” (his name cannot be identified in the movie) changes from an impotent business man obsessed with buying luxurious furniture to an anti-social “real man” who encourages other men to express their hidden belligerent nature. In other words, the protagonists face the ordeal with the aid of their imaginary friends - breaking through their environments such as bullies, mothers, social expectations, morals that were restricting them.

Ben-X

Fight Club

     I think these main characters created their imaginary friends because they couldn’t express their desires actively; since external restrictions have forced them to stay “normal” and to be satisfied with their current environment. In case of Ben, he is always urged by his mom to say “yes mama” whether he wants to say it or not, bullies always tease him and ridicule him, and his almightiness in games does not apply in real life where he is just a pathetic autistic teenager. However, with extraordinary charisma and courage, imaginary friends freed the protagonists from their current state. So, we can conclude that the protagonists’ unconsciousness – craving to unleash their desires – was embodied as an imaginary friend form so that protagonists could avoid acting independently.

     This format is significant in a way that it provides a film a twist and it successfully provides an unconventional hero-like character without losing reality of the film. In many films that embed the monomyth format, hero-like characters have, in most cases, supernatural powers. If Scarlet gave Ben courage with some supernatural power such as “force” in <Star Wars>, <Ben-X> wouldn’t have been seen as a non-fictional film and it would have weakened the messages that <Ben-X> tried to send. However, since Scarlet is only an imaginary friend, the plot becomes perfectly plausible since we did have, in real life, witnessed people who create imaginary figure and talk with it. With this plausibility, <Ben-X> can effectively convey its themes such as school violence, treatment for autism and effects of playing games.

    
     <Ben-X> was interesting film to watch. It is unorthodox, using a real game “Arch Lord” as a subject matter, presenting an imaginary figure, and inserting documentary-like interviews. These presentation methods were very refreshing since I was inundated with typical Hollywood movies and Korean movies. Although the themes – school violence, treatment for autism, consequences of gaming – were a bit disjoint, this film still successfully elicited many thoughts. I give <Ben-X> two thumbs up.