Analysis of the opening of Just Like Heaven

Analysis of the opening of Just Like Heaven.

The story line for just Like Heaven is Elizabeth Masterson (Reese Witherspoon), a dedicated doctor in San Francisco, has almost no time for anything. When her sister with 2 children sets her up on a date, she gets into a tragic car crash and gets put into a coma. Meanwhile, a landscape architect named David Abbott (Mark Ruffalo) moves into San Francisco and coincidentally, into Elizabeth's apartment while its for rent. While at the apartment, Elizabeth's spirit haunts him. She doesn't remember who she is, who her family is and what she did - All that she remembered was her apartment and where everything was. To settle the arguments, David agrees to figure out who Elizabeth really is. when they get close to figuring out who she is, they eventually find love with one another and as they finally know who she really is, they learn that fate really has put them both together.

The opening of Just Like Heaven starts off with a background of clouds and backing music which is song called Just Like Heaven sang by Katie Melua. The text and titles of the actors and the film title were pink,blue,yellow,green these colours fit with the genre of romantic comedy but it would not fit the genre of horror or thriller. 


In the first scene the setting we see is a variation of heaven with flowers everywhere with warm colours, there is a woman sitting there (Reese Witherspoon) she looks like a girl out of a fairy tale as she is looking wistful. When we here 'Just Like A Dream' from the song there is a jump cut to a girl day dreaming who we can tell from her clothing that she is a doctor, the girl is a pretty white blond girl, which is conventional to the romantic comedy type of actress.


As she is working there is light and airy music, she is not the stereotypical blond as she is very smart, you can tell she really cares about her patients, this states that she does not have a social life and that gets confirmed when she's in the bathroom with the other women who are either married or have children, and they state that she has neither, this is represented as a bad thing and that all the other women have moved on apart from herself. 


We then see who Elizabeth (Reese Witherspoon) is talking to on the phone who we find to be her sister Abby (Dina Waters) who's character is completely different compared to Elizabeth as she is a stay home mom with a husband.