The Break-Up Analysis

The first thing we see is an establishing shot of a cityscape. The audience could guess from this shot that the film they are watching is a romance movie because many films of this genre are set in the city. We then see inside a stadium, packed full of people watching a baseball game. This again furthers the audience’s suspicion that it a romance movie because a baseball game would be quite circumstantial for two people to meet. It then cuts to a mid shot of two men sat down; displaying to the audience that it is very likely that these two will be main characters and one of them will be the protagonist male character. One of the males stands up and claps when a team makes a mistake, thus embarrassing the other person he is with. This could show that he is the ‘best friend’ that always gets in the way of the focus relationship. After, we see a shot of a line of males sat down, with one female; thus making her stand out. We can guess from this that she will be the protagonist female as the camera focuses on her. When the leading male looks around and sees her, he holds his glance; incorporating an element of traditional romance narratives – ‘love at first sight’. He then asks her if she would like one of the hot dogs that he has just bought, which again introduces another typical factor of the romance genre – male helping a ‘damsel in distress’ (even though the female in question is not exactly in distress). When the game finishes the man asks the woman if she would like to go for a drink, showing that he clearly likes her. When she refuses he keeps asking her to meet up with him and cracking jokes to ease the atmosphere.

During the titles there are snapshots of the two as a couple showing that they finally made it into a relationship.