Film Synopsis

The opening of the film shows us the woman, Eve Robinson  opening the curtains or blinds in a sequence seven times, so it looks like she is opening them over and over again on different days in a week. This is followed by a sequence of seven shots of her sitting on the train, then seven shots of her waiting in a queue for coffee, seven of her eating lunch, seven of her on the train home and then seven of her putting her keys down back at home. This sequence is followed by a shot of her sighing and then finally the screen goes black, where the title of the film appears. Each shot will be about 3 seconds, and so the viewer gets an overall idea of how this woman's life progresses on a day to day basis. This sets up the idea that she is just an ordinary woman to start with.

After the opening, we see Eve as a girl, in the scene where her parents are arguing, and as she is only five at the time, she does not understand the repercussions that a divorce in the family could bring, and so she just stays in her room doing what she normally would on any other evening. We see her at school, going about a normal day, and we see her coming out of the school to meet her mother, who looks as though she has been crying. We'd see a few more minutes of this childhood, so that the audience gets the idea of the discomfort and tensions in the family, before returning to the present, pulled back into the present by a phone ringing.

The film  continues like this, giving us long flashbacks and memories from the Eve's youth, such as when she was seventeen, coming home from a night out and having an argument with her mother, where it is revealed that her parents overcame the problems they faced when she was younger. We then see her graduating from university, then when she gets a job and her life starts to settle into a pattern; one that she still carries, and doesn't particularly enjoy.

Back in the present day, she sees on television an event, which will most likely be the bombings of 9/11 or 7/7. This makes her realise how she needs to make herself be her own person, and how people go through life being pushed around and shaped by other people, when all they need to be is themselves. This leads her on to questioning herself and what she's doing and why. This in turn leads on to her trying to break free of the social norm, and the influence of other people. Questioning what makes us who we are, she takes a year leave from her work to go and live with people around the world who don't lead the life she does; she will visit the slums of Brazil, and the inuits of Greenland for example. She sees the places that the world left behind, and finds out what really matters in life; not the things we own or the places we work. Throughout this year she takes a photograph at each place she stays, with the people she meets, and at the end of the film we will see a montage of all of these photographs, with Eve having found out what matters to her and who she is. She goes back to her home town with this knowledge, and we once more see her sitting on the train on her way to work, but this time with a smile on her face.