Essay on More Sample

Here is a sample of one of the better essays on the film More. Remember the prompt: What is the message, or theme, of the film More? Bear in mind the format of the blog changed the format of the essay, so don't model your format over this one.

November 8, 2009

Wanting More


Mark Osborne’s short film More tells a story that is a scathing indictment of the pressures and illusions of our modern consumption-driven world, but it’s also a story that offers hope. The message is clear: acquiring more never satisfies us, and therefore, there must be something more to our world than the material objects and trappings of success we pursue.
The film opens with images of children on a merry-go-round, and then cuts to the main character being awakened by his alarm clock. It’s unclear if these first images are his dreams, or his memories, but clearly they haunt him as he goes about his day in the gray, industrialized city that is his home. He is haunted, too, by another dream he has, the dream to create something meaningful that will contribute to society.
This idea for a new invention seems to preoccupy him throughout the day, and is underscored by the fact that, so far, it has been an abysmal failure relegated to a box beneath his bed. He leaves his small, dingy apartment to go to his job on an assembly line where he makes the Happy product. On his way to work, like the thousands of other sad, gray, nearly-lifeless beings in his city, he is exhorted to purchase the Happy product and is bombarded by the constant message to Get Happy! Everywhere he looks this message greets him and his brethren, impossible to miss in its pervasiveness, and also because its yellow logo stands out starkly against the grayness of the city.
This world, unfortunately, parallels our own world all too well. We live in a society that constantly bombards us with messages, a constant stream of promises that if we buy these pair of jeans, drive this car, drink this soda, and watch this show, we will be happy. We live in a world that constantly tells us we want and need more, and that happiness can come only from external sources. We live in a society that tries to tear us down so that we will become vulnerable to this message.
The main character in More seems to know better, however. Before leaving for his job, he opens the slot in his stomach and from it glows a powerful light. After being fired from his assembly-line job, he goes into a dressing room and opens that slot again, as if he needs to draw strength from this light. What it is isn’t clear exactly – his soul, his inner-light, his essence – but what is clear is that it’s this light that gives him strength and vitality, what makes him whole.
He returns to his sad little apartment after having purchased the Happy product and takes out his own invention, a set of goggles. From the dust-covered box it’s clear this is an idea he’s had for some time, one he’s grown frustrated with, having made no recent progress toward completing. He breaks apart the Happy product and uses some of its parts to complete his invention. Yet it needs one more thing. He opens the slot in his stomach and takes some of his essence, some of his light, and places it in his invention.
This transforms his goggles, and through the goggles, his world is transformed: His apartment becomes a mansion, the view from his window is not a dead, lifeless city but rather a lush mountain valley with trees and water. He names these goggles Bliss, which is best defined as “perfect untroubled happiness” and “a state of spiritual joy.” Perhaps, it seems, fulfillment can come from external sources, after all. For, with these new goggles, everything seems better. In time we realize that, too, is an illusion, no more real than the images the seen through the goggles.
The main character is named Greatest Inventor Ever, and lauded as a hero. He grows rich beyond imagining. He ascends to CEO of his own company. He seems happy.
We see other characters experience a form of happiness as well. There is a scene of two beings hugging while wearing Bliss, the only form of physical contact we see in the whole film. When the main character yells at a worker on the line just as he had been yelled at previously, the worker simply holds up the goggles and the yelling boss is transformed into a smiling, waving figure.
But this is all illusion, and Osborne seems to be warning us that outside forms of happiness are transitory at best, perhaps even outright dangerous illusions. Drugs, alcohol, material goods – in the end, they don’t fulfill us, they always leave us wanting more.
The main character of the film realizes this. In the final scene, he sits in his large office, behind his enormous power-desk. He is wearing his Bliss goggles. He removes them. His eyes are sad and baggy – clearly he is still not sleeping well, and the momentary happiness he attained through his invention and the trappings of success has fled. He sets the goggles on his desk and opens the slot in his stomach. The light is gone. Though he found worldly success, he lost himself, lost his essence. Osborne’s film couldn’t be more clear – success and happiness, as our culture defines it, is empty. It leaves us wanting more and more, but the pursuit and acquisition of that more can never fulfill us, and perhaps cost us our very souls.
The main character comes to this sad realization, but it is yet not too late for him. He gets up from his desk and goes to his window, where something has caught his eye. He looks out the window and the camera zooms in on a forgotten corner of this sad city: children, colorful and vibrant, laugh and play on a merry-go-round together.
They wear no goggles.