Character and Change in The Present

The Present In short film The Present by Frey (2014), the protagonist is a boy who is given a new pet as a gift. The boy at first rejects the pet—a dog with only three legs—and goes back to playing his video game. The viewer is led to believe that boy does not like the dog because it is not whole. Eventually the dog’s energy and optimism win the boy over and he gets up to take the dog out into the yard to play.

It is then revealed that the boy is also missing his right leg: he has to use crutches to move around. The boy and the dog thus share the same defect—the absence of a limb.

Suddenly, the viewer understands the boy’s pain and the reason for the present: it is meant to be a gift to the boy that can bring him some happiness while also dealing with the problem that he himself needs to face—i.e., how to stay happy and optimistic in a world with only one leg. The dog does the trick and the boy comes out of himself and his self-absorption.

He begins to act again like a human being because, after all, it is not the legs and limbs that make us whole but rather our spirit. The character’s change in the film is due to his overcoming a central issue within himself: I myself do not feel that I have ever really undergone a change quite like this—but I do recall a time when I changed the way I felt about someone.

I once worked with an individual who annoyed me badly every time he spoke. He would make me so mad that I couldn’t stand eating lunch at the same table with him. It was like he was trying to annoy me on purpose to get my attention or something. I thought he was being completely juvenile whereas I was trying to be mature and get the other co-workers to like me.

One day I saw the other co-workers picking on him and giving him a really hard time and making him feel bad. I immediately had an epiphany and understood why he was always so annoying: he didn’t know how to be friends with anyone because he had never really had one. I decided right then and there to stop feeling so annoyed by his idiotic comments and to see them for what they were—his attempt to get my attention and be my friend.

As soon as I decided to do this, I became his best friend at work and I actually began to enjoy his company. Yes, I still continued to think he was goofy and silly but I never held it against him or got mad about it. We are still friends to this day even though we no longer work together and I am very good I got over myself to let this person into my life in spite of all his oddities and quirks.

I feel that I am a dynamic and round character. For instance, with this friend that I made, I was dealing with a conflict in my own life—my own lack of friends. I wanted the other workers to like me, which meant I didn’t want this goofball trying to get me to enter into silly discussions with him. However, I realized that by just being his friend, I could actually make a friend too and thus solve the conflict that I was going through.

I think I am a rounded person, too, because I have a complex personality: I can be moody, charitable, mean, angry, loving and affectionate, and downright spiteful at times. I feel.