127 Hours (screenplay by Danny Boyle + Simon Beaufoy) is about a man who endures the extreme depths of psychological and physical suffering but who learns through the experience, grows and changes – a heavy price to pay for character growth, especially as the story’s true.

Delve deeper and we see the movie’s major theme is connected to the protagonist’s psychological self-revelation. Before his journey into hell  Aron Ralston’s a self-proclaimed ‘big fucking hard Superhero‘ who can do everything on his own. But by the end of the movie he’s screaming for help from strangers. That’s a changed man. But what a journey it takes to get him there. His revelation and the major theme of this movie is that we need others. We cannot go it alone in this world. No man is an island.

This theme is brilliantly captured in the movie’s set-up with the eye contact between Aron and a cyclist.  Aron is on a solo adventure. The cyclist is with a bunch of others. The big question the movie asks is: should we do things alone or together?

Are you as a writer going it alone? If you’re a novelist do you use an editor? If you’re at marketing stage do you use a PR strategist? If you’re a screenwriter do you use a script consultant? Or are you, like Aron, suffering alone ?