Seven Pounds

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

"In seven days, God created the world. And in seven seconds, I shattered mine."

The 2008 film starring Will Smith, Rosario Dawson, Barry Pepper, and Woody Harrelson, to name a few stars.

The film follows the enigmatic Ben Thomas, who spends his time donating what ever organs he could to seven unfortunate people to atone for something that is revealed over the course of the film. During this time, he meets Emily Posa, an Ill Girl who has both a rare heart condition and a rare blood type. As he soon falls in love with Emily and helps her out, he is soon left with a painful decision that may or may not be easy to figure out, especially when his past comes back to haunt him and the illness worsens for Emily.


Tropes used in Seven Pounds include:
  • Chekhov's Gun: At least two: the list of names and Tim's pet jellyfish.
  • Family-Unfriendly Death: Death by jellyfish? Not only painful but just flatout brutal to watch.
  • Foregone Conclusion: Once you piece together how Tim will kill himself, it's time to play the waiting game!
  • Heroic Sacrifice: Tim chooses option B in the Sadistic Choice (see below).
  • Literary Allusion Title: The film's title is taken from The Merchant of Venice.
  • Never Got to Say Goodbye: Tim never gets to say goodbye to Emily nor his own brother.
  • Never Trust a Trailer: The trailer left much to be explained about the movie, which was both its charm and its downfall. Some movie fans thought it was nice that it didn't ruin all the plot details; others ended up utterly confused as to what the movie was about. The film itself was like that too, until the very end.
  • Oscar Bait. It failed.
  • Real Men Wear Pink: Played with: "Um... it's pink." "It's salmon."
  • Sadistic Choice: Tim had one hell of a choice to make: spend a month with the woman you love or commit suicide to give her your heart so she can live out her life to the fullest. Life sucks, dunnit?
  • Secret Test of Character: Tim's abusive phone call to Ezra, who passes the test by not growing a spine. Which is another great lesson. There is a way to be 'good' and have a spine. Accepting abuse doesn't make you good, and people like Ezra who work in customer service are told to never lash out at customers, no matter what. Ezra was just doing his job the way he had been trained, and thus, passes the test.
  • Sexy Discretion Shot: Probably one of the most beautiful, heartfelt love scenes since Meet Joe Black.
  • Survivor Guilt: Tim is the only survivor of the car crash. He attempts to ease his guilt by giving away practically every internal organ he can spare. And one he can't.
  • Vegetarian Carnivore: Emily claims her Great Dane is one of these. Which is also a case of Artistic License Animal Care.
  • Xanatos Roulette: In order to pull off what Tim did, one would have to put a lot of faith in God to pull off several miracles, one of them being to break the laws of physics and disable a certain neurotoxin so your organs would be in working order.