The Mighty: Film analysis
Brief Index:
1. Emotions that we can see in the movie.
2. Attachment bounding of the two main characters.
3. Identity process of the two main characters.
4. Self-steem of the two main characters.
5. Self-Concepts of the two main characters.
6. Gender indentity aspects.
7. Parents, Teachers and Aduts' Roles.
8. Friendship.
9. Interaction.
10. Other interesting aspects.
1. Emotions that we can see in the movie.
2. Attachment bounding of the two main characters.
3. Identity process of the two main characters.
4. Self-steem of the two main characters.
5. Self-Concepts of the two main characters.
6. Gender indentity aspects.
7. Parents, Teachers and Aduts' Roles.
8. Friendship.
9. Interaction.
10. Other interesting aspects.
![Picture](/uploads/4/3/6/3/43631079/203332441.jpg?533)
1.EMOTIONS
The film that we have seen, which was inspired in the book Freak the Mighty by Rodman Philbrick, is very emotional because it treats with diverse types of emotions and feelings that guide the film action. We can divide them in positive and negative ones according to the way that affect the main characters of the film.
We can observe the emotions of Boredom, Sadness, and Pity that both characters share in the first part of the film. These emotions drive them also to feel unfortunate and lost in their life and for this reason feeling useless.
Following with the film we can also appreciate the Shame or Embarrassment that some characters feel from the others like in Max’s attitude. At the beginning of their relation sometimes Max is ashamed of Kevin and his illness because at the school being with him encompasses the “freak” label.
During the development of the film we can also find some positive emotions towards Max and Kevin like the affection and caring that they start to feel for the other because in both cases to share time with his partners have improved their vision and life. Slowly they start to gain Confidence and Courage in their selves as they face the Blade Band (the band components feel anger and wants to revenge them), they accomplish their goals. We can also find Love emotions between Kevin and his mother and between Max’s grandparents and Max. Another interesting emotion to analyze in the film is the feeling of hops that appears in the moment in which Kevin lies to Max about his illness and drives him to the laundry building telling him that it is a very big Investigation Centre.
At the point that the film’s plot change completely with the appearance of Max father new emotions are raised such as Anger of Max in front of he because of the murder of his mother (this emotion is shared with his grandparent’s one); at the point that Max is kidnapped by his father, everyone in the close environment of Kevin and Max feel Fear and maybe also Panic. Max feels hurt because of his father past actions and the effect that have on his nowadays life, so for this reason a Regret feeling is raising.
After the Max father problem is solved we have another one that is that Kevin illness hasn’t stopped and day to day he is getting worst. By his death all the characters Suffer and feel Sadness again, Hysteria and a very big Pain.
But the film ends with a positive Emotion which is Satisfaction. Max ends to write the empty book that his friend gave to him by Christmas with their story, the story of King Arthur.
2. ATTACHMENT BOUNDING
The Kevin case is stigamized by his illness, his father left home when he heard the words “birth defected”. Nevertheless, Kevin is not affected at all about the abandoning of his father, what he has got over thanks to the strong relation with his mother. Due to his illness, she is too much careful and pretends that her son does not suffer outside home. Nevertheless, she encourages Kevin to develop his mind and create new gadgets. Despite of that, she is very anxious about giving freedom to Kevin, she relies a lot on Max and entrust the life of Kevin to Max. Kevin sees Max as someone to help in his reading and he pretends to create a friendship in order to be given more freedom to live the life, by his mother. On example of freedom would be to attend the fireworks from the 4th of July, where they started the friendship as complementary bodies (legs and mind).
In the case of Max we find that there is a ack of both parents at the point that the movies starts. In the one hand, Max’s father was convicted for the death of Max’s mother. Max has a deep fear and hate against his father, who wants his boy out from the house of his parents-in-law. In the other hand, he knows that her mother was murdered by his father, because he remembers the scene from some years ago. However, as he is afraid of his father he has not told what happened to anyone but he still misses his mother. His Grandparents are the Max’s family, they appreciate their grandson, although he, from their point of view, has not the skills to be different from his father and similar to her mother. Grim, Max grandfather and the father of Max’s mother,is a strong hearted man who cares about his grandson. Gram tries to encourage him about his physical traits and refusing Max’s thought about his resemblance to his father. To aviod this complicated scene at home, he starts to meet with Kevin. He relies on Kevin because Kevin relies on him. The bound between both friends is increased by the fact that they complement each other, without pretending to leave the mind to Kevin and the legs to Max in any moment. Furthermore, as Kevin uses the King Arthur’s story to create a bigger friendship, they finally share all their secrets and adventures.
3. IDENTITY
In the film, we can see several types of characters. In the analysis of the identity of them we are only going to take into account the two principal ones: Kevin and Max. As we can see during the film, both characters (and specially Max) change during the film. After looking the film, I have noticed that the aforementioned characters have a dynamic appearance which means that they are affected by the story and they suffer a transformation.
Hence, I will start with Kevin identity elaboration process. The identity is an experienced self-representation. It implies a developmental process that aims to structure and balance image of oneself. The identity creation starts at newborn stages and continuous though everyone’s life. Since his birth, Kevin suffers the Morquio syndrome which is a very big determinant in his identity elaboration (socially and biologically). As we can see he is a shy boy who doesn’t stands out between the School mates. He is very intelligent, imaginative and creative (as we can see with his interest in middle ages and knights’ literature). According with the Multiple intelligence theory of Gardner he is Word Smart: he has Verbal-Linguistic Intelligence. Apart from that he is a quite inspiring hope boy who aims to change things thank to his imagination.
Emotions control every facet of our life, including decision making, objective and subjective thinking as a result of our interactions with others; so, as we live in society in a social context, all interactions affect us immensely, for this reason when analysis an identity we have to take into account the social aspects that have modeled his identity and personality. The fact that he is very intelligent and creative can be also related to the fact that implies to have an illness those incapacities you to have a proper relation with the people surrounding you, above everything, treating with the other children at school. This lack of proper relations may have caused isolation and therefore more time to spend in reading and developing those skills. He also has low self-steem and lack of confidence in himself because he had no friends and maybe also due to his lacking of father’s figure due to his abandon. The aforementioned lack of confidence encompasses insecurity which is aggravated by the mother’s protection because of his illness. Although that we see that he is a happy and quite enthusiast boy because of his mother love and caring and maybe also for the innate qualities that everyone has.
Changing now to the analysis of Max identity, we have to take into account also the both element that we have used before: biological and social points. The few innate qualities that Max expresses during the film is that he is a good-nature boy, quite happy and calmed. Although that, since we construct our identity according to society convictions about socially accepted or non-accepted aspects, Max identity is clearly influenced but this story and how it affects his current life. His good personality is affected by his very low self-steam due to the mother murder by his father and the effect that socially has on him (at school the Blade band reminds him that his father was a murderer). This is the starting point for the difficulties that has on the school such as the torment received by a group of children at school and the fact that he is retaking course; this difficulties make his self-steem lower and his confidence is detrimental. The aforementioned agents and causes pessimist thinking and an isolated and passive attitude until the point that he states "Sometimes seems like the whole world has just seen me on `America's Most Wanted.' "
As I have said both are dynamic characters, so by the time that the film ends they have changed in identity and personality. They have changed to have high self-steem because they saw that the two together can do things. They have more courage because they have seen that they can defend from the others, they are more confident in themselves because of the cooperation between them. Their union and friendship have modified their identities in a positive way.
4.SELF-ESTEEM:
Once we have to foccus on the Self-Steem of Max and Kevin it’s essential to take into account their progess during the history film because as has been already said in the Identity part, they ae Dynamic characters. At the beggining, Max had a low self-esteem due to the fact that he didn’t have friends and felt a bit undervaluated. However, his physical dimension kept in a small part his low self-steem stable. in the vourse of the movie, thanks to the relationship with his friend Kevin, Max improved his social self-esteem and hence he was capable to the academic dimension. About Kevin, his main self-esteem is the academic one, that has been high during all his development. However, the physical dimension is his weakness and his social dimension is also reinforced by her friendship with Max and a bit by his mother.
5. SELF-CONCEPT:
It is the concept you have about yourself, cognitive dimension of yourself representation; hence, according to that we are going to analyze, as it has been done in the identity part, the two main characters of the film.
At the beggining pf the plot, Max had some problems to recognize his emotional statements, which is a problem for developing his own self-concept since Kevin believed that he was as his father, and he would life similar experiences as an adult. Fortunatelly thanks to he Kevin's help, he is an independent person from his parent, and only he can define his own life.
Obviously, at the end of the film Max is still a teenager and he is still in a changing and unstable moment of his life. However, before knowing Kevin, Max was constantly living stressful situations, but with Kevin they lived some adventures together, and they had an exciting live from a personal and emotional view. As I have already mentioned both characters are adolescents so they are both in an increasing abstract step. Hence, they are able to understand that when they are separated from their parents they will return, or that when they stop eating, they will eat again; so they are capable to understand the relativity of some facts. Despite that, Max before knowing Kevin, was not able to imagine that he could define a different path from the one defined by his father but thanks to Kevin’s help, he has learned to overcame a weakness and sadness so he will have a more esay life, this shows us that they still are in an evolution process of the self-concept. During adolescence, we start to need “our own space” and Max and Kevin find their own space being one with the other and spending “private time” together.
Both have similar ages, so they have passed thorugh some of the important steps of the self-concept development. As out personal evolution is progressive, we can see a part of their personal evolution during the film (they are dynamic characters).
The film that we have seen, which was inspired in the book Freak the Mighty by Rodman Philbrick, is very emotional because it treats with diverse types of emotions and feelings that guide the film action. We can divide them in positive and negative ones according to the way that affect the main characters of the film.
We can observe the emotions of Boredom, Sadness, and Pity that both characters share in the first part of the film. These emotions drive them also to feel unfortunate and lost in their life and for this reason feeling useless.
Following with the film we can also appreciate the Shame or Embarrassment that some characters feel from the others like in Max’s attitude. At the beginning of their relation sometimes Max is ashamed of Kevin and his illness because at the school being with him encompasses the “freak” label.
During the development of the film we can also find some positive emotions towards Max and Kevin like the affection and caring that they start to feel for the other because in both cases to share time with his partners have improved their vision and life. Slowly they start to gain Confidence and Courage in their selves as they face the Blade Band (the band components feel anger and wants to revenge them), they accomplish their goals. We can also find Love emotions between Kevin and his mother and between Max’s grandparents and Max. Another interesting emotion to analyze in the film is the feeling of hops that appears in the moment in which Kevin lies to Max about his illness and drives him to the laundry building telling him that it is a very big Investigation Centre.
At the point that the film’s plot change completely with the appearance of Max father new emotions are raised such as Anger of Max in front of he because of the murder of his mother (this emotion is shared with his grandparent’s one); at the point that Max is kidnapped by his father, everyone in the close environment of Kevin and Max feel Fear and maybe also Panic. Max feels hurt because of his father past actions and the effect that have on his nowadays life, so for this reason a Regret feeling is raising.
After the Max father problem is solved we have another one that is that Kevin illness hasn’t stopped and day to day he is getting worst. By his death all the characters Suffer and feel Sadness again, Hysteria and a very big Pain.
But the film ends with a positive Emotion which is Satisfaction. Max ends to write the empty book that his friend gave to him by Christmas with their story, the story of King Arthur.
2. ATTACHMENT BOUNDING
The Kevin case is stigamized by his illness, his father left home when he heard the words “birth defected”. Nevertheless, Kevin is not affected at all about the abandoning of his father, what he has got over thanks to the strong relation with his mother. Due to his illness, she is too much careful and pretends that her son does not suffer outside home. Nevertheless, she encourages Kevin to develop his mind and create new gadgets. Despite of that, she is very anxious about giving freedom to Kevin, she relies a lot on Max and entrust the life of Kevin to Max. Kevin sees Max as someone to help in his reading and he pretends to create a friendship in order to be given more freedom to live the life, by his mother. On example of freedom would be to attend the fireworks from the 4th of July, where they started the friendship as complementary bodies (legs and mind).
In the case of Max we find that there is a ack of both parents at the point that the movies starts. In the one hand, Max’s father was convicted for the death of Max’s mother. Max has a deep fear and hate against his father, who wants his boy out from the house of his parents-in-law. In the other hand, he knows that her mother was murdered by his father, because he remembers the scene from some years ago. However, as he is afraid of his father he has not told what happened to anyone but he still misses his mother. His Grandparents are the Max’s family, they appreciate their grandson, although he, from their point of view, has not the skills to be different from his father and similar to her mother. Grim, Max grandfather and the father of Max’s mother,is a strong hearted man who cares about his grandson. Gram tries to encourage him about his physical traits and refusing Max’s thought about his resemblance to his father. To aviod this complicated scene at home, he starts to meet with Kevin. He relies on Kevin because Kevin relies on him. The bound between both friends is increased by the fact that they complement each other, without pretending to leave the mind to Kevin and the legs to Max in any moment. Furthermore, as Kevin uses the King Arthur’s story to create a bigger friendship, they finally share all their secrets and adventures.
3. IDENTITY
In the film, we can see several types of characters. In the analysis of the identity of them we are only going to take into account the two principal ones: Kevin and Max. As we can see during the film, both characters (and specially Max) change during the film. After looking the film, I have noticed that the aforementioned characters have a dynamic appearance which means that they are affected by the story and they suffer a transformation.
Hence, I will start with Kevin identity elaboration process. The identity is an experienced self-representation. It implies a developmental process that aims to structure and balance image of oneself. The identity creation starts at newborn stages and continuous though everyone’s life. Since his birth, Kevin suffers the Morquio syndrome which is a very big determinant in his identity elaboration (socially and biologically). As we can see he is a shy boy who doesn’t stands out between the School mates. He is very intelligent, imaginative and creative (as we can see with his interest in middle ages and knights’ literature). According with the Multiple intelligence theory of Gardner he is Word Smart: he has Verbal-Linguistic Intelligence. Apart from that he is a quite inspiring hope boy who aims to change things thank to his imagination.
Emotions control every facet of our life, including decision making, objective and subjective thinking as a result of our interactions with others; so, as we live in society in a social context, all interactions affect us immensely, for this reason when analysis an identity we have to take into account the social aspects that have modeled his identity and personality. The fact that he is very intelligent and creative can be also related to the fact that implies to have an illness those incapacities you to have a proper relation with the people surrounding you, above everything, treating with the other children at school. This lack of proper relations may have caused isolation and therefore more time to spend in reading and developing those skills. He also has low self-steem and lack of confidence in himself because he had no friends and maybe also due to his lacking of father’s figure due to his abandon. The aforementioned lack of confidence encompasses insecurity which is aggravated by the mother’s protection because of his illness. Although that we see that he is a happy and quite enthusiast boy because of his mother love and caring and maybe also for the innate qualities that everyone has.
Changing now to the analysis of Max identity, we have to take into account also the both element that we have used before: biological and social points. The few innate qualities that Max expresses during the film is that he is a good-nature boy, quite happy and calmed. Although that, since we construct our identity according to society convictions about socially accepted or non-accepted aspects, Max identity is clearly influenced but this story and how it affects his current life. His good personality is affected by his very low self-steam due to the mother murder by his father and the effect that socially has on him (at school the Blade band reminds him that his father was a murderer). This is the starting point for the difficulties that has on the school such as the torment received by a group of children at school and the fact that he is retaking course; this difficulties make his self-steem lower and his confidence is detrimental. The aforementioned agents and causes pessimist thinking and an isolated and passive attitude until the point that he states "Sometimes seems like the whole world has just seen me on `America's Most Wanted.' "
As I have said both are dynamic characters, so by the time that the film ends they have changed in identity and personality. They have changed to have high self-steem because they saw that the two together can do things. They have more courage because they have seen that they can defend from the others, they are more confident in themselves because of the cooperation between them. Their union and friendship have modified their identities in a positive way.
4.SELF-ESTEEM:
Once we have to foccus on the Self-Steem of Max and Kevin it’s essential to take into account their progess during the history film because as has been already said in the Identity part, they ae Dynamic characters. At the beggining, Max had a low self-esteem due to the fact that he didn’t have friends and felt a bit undervaluated. However, his physical dimension kept in a small part his low self-steem stable. in the vourse of the movie, thanks to the relationship with his friend Kevin, Max improved his social self-esteem and hence he was capable to the academic dimension. About Kevin, his main self-esteem is the academic one, that has been high during all his development. However, the physical dimension is his weakness and his social dimension is also reinforced by her friendship with Max and a bit by his mother.
5. SELF-CONCEPT:
It is the concept you have about yourself, cognitive dimension of yourself representation; hence, according to that we are going to analyze, as it has been done in the identity part, the two main characters of the film.
At the beggining pf the plot, Max had some problems to recognize his emotional statements, which is a problem for developing his own self-concept since Kevin believed that he was as his father, and he would life similar experiences as an adult. Fortunatelly thanks to he Kevin's help, he is an independent person from his parent, and only he can define his own life.
Obviously, at the end of the film Max is still a teenager and he is still in a changing and unstable moment of his life. However, before knowing Kevin, Max was constantly living stressful situations, but with Kevin they lived some adventures together, and they had an exciting live from a personal and emotional view. As I have already mentioned both characters are adolescents so they are both in an increasing abstract step. Hence, they are able to understand that when they are separated from their parents they will return, or that when they stop eating, they will eat again; so they are capable to understand the relativity of some facts. Despite that, Max before knowing Kevin, was not able to imagine that he could define a different path from the one defined by his father but thanks to Kevin’s help, he has learned to overcame a weakness and sadness so he will have a more esay life, this shows us that they still are in an evolution process of the self-concept. During adolescence, we start to need “our own space” and Max and Kevin find their own space being one with the other and spending “private time” together.
Both have similar ages, so they have passed thorugh some of the important steps of the self-concept development. As out personal evolution is progressive, we can see a part of their personal evolution during the film (they are dynamic characters).
![Picture](/uploads/4/3/6/3/43631079/783305053.jpg?291)
6. GENDER IDENTITY ASPECTS:
Although in the film gender differences are not explicit, we can see some sexual identity aspects. The ones bullying Max and Kevin are only boys and not girls, this could be a gender identifiaction becuase boy tend to be more active and for this reason sometimes they tend more to physical contant and hence to violence.
Femenine gender roles are also played in the film with the Kevin's mother who takes care of Max when she meets him. Max doesn’t have a maternal figure and he missed her mother’s role of caring, so he identifies it on Kevin’s mother, so the feminine role of caring figure is associated to a woman.
Regarding also about Loretta actions, in a gender differences perspective could be seen as “women are always good” even at the end.
7. PARENTS, TEACHERS, ADULTS' ROLES:
We will start the analysis of the adults' role in the film by the Kevin's mother.
The mum is suffering because of the illness of her son and the fear of losing what she loves the most makes her be controller and stressed. While the friendship between the boys increases and makes closer the mother modifies her attitude to a more permissive becuase she sees in Max a protector for her son that makes Kevin stronger. Hence, this character plays an important role in the friendship.
The grandparents: The grandparents take an important and determinant role for one of Max because they had adopted the role of mother and father of the children. During all the story they take care of his grandson in different ways: they know what to talk with him, when to let him alone... But although they represent his parental figure, there’s a certain distance between them. With the positive evolution of the grandson the relationship between them narrow so they act like a family so we could say that they are also dynamic characters.
The father: The father role is implicit during first part of the film: with the things he has done, is develop some behaviors, attitudes and feelings in his son, Max. The influence that the actions of the father has on Max are big and present during all the film (it even affects his social life). We can say that the father character’s role in the film is to mek his son evolve from immaturity to maturiry, to face his problems and fears, etc. It helps him to become a strongest person.
8. FRIENDSHIP:
At the beginning of the film what we can see first is the bullying that Max suffers in school because of his family past, it is known at class as the Missing Link. It changes drastically when he meets Kevin and his social position also changes when their friendship starts. The friendship of Kevin and Max starts in a wrong way. In gym class, the bullies knocked Kevin off with a ball and Max is blamed for that. As punishment he has to go to reading lessons and his tutor is Kevin. The book they read is King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table, the book, that will drive them through all their relationship development takin as a reference the book values, is Arthurian chivalry that Kevin loves. So, we can see a relation for their own benefit: Kevin teaches Max readings skills and culture and at the same time Max transports Kevin where he wants to: There’s where empathy starts.
9. INTERACTIONS:
The main interactors with Max life are their Grandparents. Max has a positive but cold relation with grandparents, who have taken care of him since the death of his mother becuase they are very careful and this causes a distance between them increased the former distance formed by the events from the past.
Interactions at school with teachers are quite tens before knowing Kevin. Concurrently with the film development the teachers change their opinion about Mfrom from not beliveing his capacities to achieve an enough level of studies to feel surprised when Max demonstrates his knowledge answering question in the class.
Max and Kevin's relation in bidirectional. Kevin is a positive reinforcement for Max, because he encourages him to open his mind and start learning and Max is a partner of discovery for Kevin.
One of the most powerful relations found in the film, is the one that Max has with his father. they are found in a negative relationship, because Max suffered a lot due to the murder of his mother, and now he wants to manipulte him again.
Max and Loretta might be one of the realtions that are more unnoticed. Although she has not had a big relation with the boy, she realises that she has lost all his life being nobody. Therefore, at last, she says to Max "[doing] nothing's a drag", what pretend to mean that he must go on and open his mind. Therefore, she is a positive reinforcement.
Kevin and his Mother bounding is very strong because of the lack of father figure. She has a positive relation with Kevin, because she encourages him to develop his mind and take care of him.
10. OTHER CONCEPTS:
The scaffolding concept is present in the entire film in Kevin's relationship. Kevin is guiding max in the scaffolding process; Kevin also helps Max to develop some skills and attitudes that Max had undeveloped. Therefore, we can say that it is a scaffolding process because Kevin is not teaching new concepts to Max, but guiding Max in the process of recognizing and internalizing some attitudes that Max already has.
Although in the film gender differences are not explicit, we can see some sexual identity aspects. The ones bullying Max and Kevin are only boys and not girls, this could be a gender identifiaction becuase boy tend to be more active and for this reason sometimes they tend more to physical contant and hence to violence.
Femenine gender roles are also played in the film with the Kevin's mother who takes care of Max when she meets him. Max doesn’t have a maternal figure and he missed her mother’s role of caring, so he identifies it on Kevin’s mother, so the feminine role of caring figure is associated to a woman.
Regarding also about Loretta actions, in a gender differences perspective could be seen as “women are always good” even at the end.
7. PARENTS, TEACHERS, ADULTS' ROLES:
We will start the analysis of the adults' role in the film by the Kevin's mother.
The mum is suffering because of the illness of her son and the fear of losing what she loves the most makes her be controller and stressed. While the friendship between the boys increases and makes closer the mother modifies her attitude to a more permissive becuase she sees in Max a protector for her son that makes Kevin stronger. Hence, this character plays an important role in the friendship.
The grandparents: The grandparents take an important and determinant role for one of Max because they had adopted the role of mother and father of the children. During all the story they take care of his grandson in different ways: they know what to talk with him, when to let him alone... But although they represent his parental figure, there’s a certain distance between them. With the positive evolution of the grandson the relationship between them narrow so they act like a family so we could say that they are also dynamic characters.
The father: The father role is implicit during first part of the film: with the things he has done, is develop some behaviors, attitudes and feelings in his son, Max. The influence that the actions of the father has on Max are big and present during all the film (it even affects his social life). We can say that the father character’s role in the film is to mek his son evolve from immaturity to maturiry, to face his problems and fears, etc. It helps him to become a strongest person.
8. FRIENDSHIP:
At the beginning of the film what we can see first is the bullying that Max suffers in school because of his family past, it is known at class as the Missing Link. It changes drastically when he meets Kevin and his social position also changes when their friendship starts. The friendship of Kevin and Max starts in a wrong way. In gym class, the bullies knocked Kevin off with a ball and Max is blamed for that. As punishment he has to go to reading lessons and his tutor is Kevin. The book they read is King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table, the book, that will drive them through all their relationship development takin as a reference the book values, is Arthurian chivalry that Kevin loves. So, we can see a relation for their own benefit: Kevin teaches Max readings skills and culture and at the same time Max transports Kevin where he wants to: There’s where empathy starts.
9. INTERACTIONS:
The main interactors with Max life are their Grandparents. Max has a positive but cold relation with grandparents, who have taken care of him since the death of his mother becuase they are very careful and this causes a distance between them increased the former distance formed by the events from the past.
Interactions at school with teachers are quite tens before knowing Kevin. Concurrently with the film development the teachers change their opinion about Mfrom from not beliveing his capacities to achieve an enough level of studies to feel surprised when Max demonstrates his knowledge answering question in the class.
Max and Kevin's relation in bidirectional. Kevin is a positive reinforcement for Max, because he encourages him to open his mind and start learning and Max is a partner of discovery for Kevin.
One of the most powerful relations found in the film, is the one that Max has with his father. they are found in a negative relationship, because Max suffered a lot due to the murder of his mother, and now he wants to manipulte him again.
Max and Loretta might be one of the realtions that are more unnoticed. Although she has not had a big relation with the boy, she realises that she has lost all his life being nobody. Therefore, at last, she says to Max "[doing] nothing's a drag", what pretend to mean that he must go on and open his mind. Therefore, she is a positive reinforcement.
Kevin and his Mother bounding is very strong because of the lack of father figure. She has a positive relation with Kevin, because she encourages him to develop his mind and take care of him.
10. OTHER CONCEPTS:
The scaffolding concept is present in the entire film in Kevin's relationship. Kevin is guiding max in the scaffolding process; Kevin also helps Max to develop some skills and attitudes that Max had undeveloped. Therefore, we can say that it is a scaffolding process because Kevin is not teaching new concepts to Max, but guiding Max in the process of recognizing and internalizing some attitudes that Max already has.