Film Study - Ice Castles (2010)

Name of Student:
Ice Castles.
Ice Castles is a movie where a young girl by the name Alexis has a dream of becoming one of the greatest figure skaters during her time. She faces a lot of challenges in her quest to becoming the greatest skater, including losing her eye-sight and even breaking up with her boyfriend. In her suffering, after being blind, Alexis falls in love for the second time with her boyfriend, Nick. Nick with the support of Alexis` father, and her coach come together to make her realize her dream.
Alexis Winston stays in Iowa with her father who is a widower. She participates in a competition in Cedar Rapids where she is discovered by Aiden (Morgan Kelly), who is an Olympic figure skating coach. After an invitation by Aiden, Alexis moved to Boston to pursue Olympic figure skating dreams. Alexis` skating skills improved tremendously while in Boston. She participates in a regional figure skating competition and took position two and also won the sectionals. She becomes very famous in the media. She then qualifies for the National competitions, and even she feels she can compete very well in the Olympics (Ice Castles, 2010).
Nick who is Alexis` boyfriend from Iowa is a bit jealous of her success in skating. He then goes to the sectional event to reconcile with Alexis on their differences, but to make matters worse, he finds Alexis Kissing her coach, Aiden (Jo Ann Schneider Farris). Alexis is now very sad and very much confused because of what she did to Nick. She then decides to go out to skate on a lake while a competition celebration party was taking place so that she could free up her mind from her thoughts of betraying Nick. While skating she tries a complicated jump on the ice and falls, hitting her head badly. The injury on her head is so serious, that it causes her to become blind. This brought an end to Alexis` Skating career.
Alexis then returns to Iowa depressed and with a lot of disappointment. She then reconciles with Nick, and Nick decides to devote himself to helping Alexis return to skating. Nick has a lot of belief in Alexis and sooner than later, Alexis started enjoying ice skating again. Surprisingly enough, Alexis is able to do things the way she used to do when she was not blind. Nick now convinces Alexis to compete in the U.S. National Figure Skating Championships, because he believes that by doing that, Alexis would be able to move ahead with her life. With the help of Nick, her original coach who was based in Iowa, and her father, Alexis competes in the Nationals and her performance was stunning.
One of the key issues which stand out in the movie is the father to daughter relationship. Though Alexis` father is a single parent, he shows a lot of care and love to his daughter. For example, he stood by Alexis when she was trying to get back to training, after the accident which caused her to loose her sight. Another issue is the love relationship between Nick and Alexis. Their relationship was faced with some instances of disappointments and happiness. One of the disappointing events is when Nick caught Alexis cheating on him, and that caused a great rift between them. One of their happiest moments is when they reconciled and Nick decided to help her get back on track with her career. From the movie, it is evident that Nick and Alexis came out as strong couples in their relationship, which faced a lot of hiccups starting from Alexis` coach who was seducing her to jealousy of her boyfriend who was not happy with the achievements of his girlfriend. There is something for us to learn from Nick, which is, we should always support our partners in a relationship on the career choices that they mak...