The Screenplay

Senior year is winding to a close for James Ladd, the no-nonsense MCB pre-Med and protagonist of our story.  The opening sequence of the film is a time-lapsed collage of different items and actions of his last four years here, giving us insight into his no-time-for-fun attitude and his ongoing friendship with Norah Johanson.  We are introduced to the characters through pictures and post-it notes before we get our first live-action shot of James, muddy, ragged, and sitting in a police interrogation room, not at all where we would expect to find him.  Quickly, however, the clock rewinds and we enter the scene a week before to find James studying hard at his desk, the last day of class near at hand.

As he studies, he is interrupted by Norah, who has taken the time to check up on him and make sure he gets a little break.  In the course of their conversation, with the irresistable wonder of Pokey Stix, it becomes apparent that James has completely missed the finer points of a college experience, neglecting the non-academic as a distraction.  Norah insists that he must learn to appreciate at least some of the necessary college joys before they reach graduation, about a week away.  She drags him off to a party, kicking off their adventures for the next week.

Most of their adventures over the next week will be explored in a montage of still photographs that highlight James's gradual enlightenment that school and life are to be enjoyed, not merely exploited for some nebulous idea of later "success."  This montage will take us up to the night before graduation; James and Norah go mudsliding on the quad, after which James recognizes his feelings for Norah moments before the pair are caught by the police. 

The next day, the scene is the same one we started with, in the police interrogation room, where James is pleading to be allowed to attend graduation.  The interviewing police officer is replaced by a higher ranking sergeant who takes the conversation on a different bent, asking James about his relationship with Norah.  James answers truthfully about his feelings, and the sergeant, who turns out to be Norah's father, decides to have leniency on James and lets him go.  As the credits roll, we see scenes of James rushing through campus to get to his place so he can clean up before the ceremony.