Jane Character Analysis in The East Movie (Essay Example)

The 2013 The East, is about a former FBI agent named Jane who works for a private investigation agency. Her boss orders her to infiltrate an anarchist environmental terrorist group called The East to stop their attacks against major corporations. The film explains the story of a woman who is trying to stop evil but finds that the so-called evil is a misunderstood group of people who have been hurt. In this paper, I will focus on the changing point of view of Jane, through her alias as Sarah. 

Jane, an ex-FBI, working for a private intelligence firm, is assigned to infiltrate and collect information about the environmental terrorist group The East. Sarah, Jane's alias, initially believes the environmental terrorist group is a danger to society, and so she infiltrates the group without having much information and research done on The East. Her views were based on what she had heard on the news and with the little information given to her by Sharah, her boss at Hiller Brood. As Sarah spends more time with the East, her initial goal to stop them shifts, and she feels more and more sympathetic and understands what kind of people are members of the East. This is shown in the film when Sarah says “Why is it that self-righteousness always goes hand-in-hand with resistance movements?” She knows that each one of them has some sort of connection as to why they are in the East but as the “jams” become more and more real to her, she starts to question the tactics they were using.

At the beginning of the movie, we see Sarah not knowing much about the group; we eventually learn about each of the members of the group. In the scene where Sarah is injured, Doc is treating a wound she got from running away from the cops. Sarah shows understanding and shares a compassionate moment with Doc as he is treating her. Doc says “most people don’t like to look.“ Sarah replies by saying “I am looking because I don’t want to.“ This interaction shows that she sees the gravity of what this group does to stop these corporations from polluting and ruining people's lives. We know this back and forth within Sarah’s perception of the group continues on throughout the film and especially so when she sees the victims and targets of the East’s “jams”. Sarah’s perception of the east was cloudy and unbalanced but as she continues to interact with each of the members and see firsthand what they do and why they do it, she learns The truth behind their “jams“.

In many scenes in the film, it’s obvious that Sarah’s emotions become more and more conflicted about how to go about The East. She knows that she must complete her task at Hiller Brood and she knows that she hast to complete her task at killer brewed To stop the violence jams, already being against the tactics that the east used against the corporations, but still knows that these corporations were, in fact, killing and hurting more people than they cared to admit. In a conversation with Benji, she voices her concerns about how the jams were affecting innocent people as well as the East. In a conversation with Benji, she voices her concerns about how the jams could affect innocent people. In the scene where Benji Izzy and Sarah are deciding whether or not to kill A corporate member and his wife for being part of the reason why a town’s water was poisoned with chemicals, Sarah questions the necessity of killing them. “I think hurting people isn’t going to bring that little boy back“, and also goes on to explain how using violence against these people would make them just as bad as the ones who are guilty of crimes. When she did this the other group members, Benji and Izzy, both disagreed with Sarah about how to go about equalizing the playing field. Izzy then questioned the reason why Sarah was with them at all. This furthers my stance that Sarah, having a lot of information coming forward once she met the East, is now being confronted with her initial bias and understanding of what they did and what they were capable of doing. From the viewer's perspective we can see that she is growing from the person she was at the beginning of the movie but She has seen firsthand the type of tactics the East uses against these corrupt corporations but still tries to persuade them into using peaceful means of operation.

As we near the end of the movie you can see the gravity of this instead of taking a toll on the entire group. Benji, wanting to start the next mission, Tries to persuade Sarah into helping him with the final jam. After Izzy’s death, Sarah and the entire group are very emotional but it hits Sarah the hardest with the reality of being in this organization taking a toll on her emotional being. The group leader Benji tries to persuade Sarah into working with her but she refuses to, finally, she does give in. Shock comes to Sarah as she wakes up in a moving car with Benji driving her to Hiller Brood’s headquarters and explains to Sarah that she was always a suspect as a spy and allowed her to join the group as a test. Sarah enters the building and goes up to her boss Sharon’s office to inform her about the final jam and what they plan to do, “They’re going to hack the satellite. Turn all the cameras in the sky against the CEO, the CFO, the CEO. Spy on them.” Sharon Sarah that the east house would be raided. Near the end of the meeting with Sarah, Sharon asks why Sarah has been eating dumpster food. Even though Sarah has completed her tasks for Hiller Brood, she has picked up on the guidance of the East when it comes to lifestyle choices which show her personal growth in the film. Another point that also shows her change is when Sarah has to tell Benji that she was not able to get the NOC list because of security which results in Benji telling Sarah that she wanted to expose all of the agents on the list to the public as revenge. From there we watch Sarah explain that even if she had a list she would’ve given it to him because his way of going about the issue would be drastically different from how Sarah would have dealt with the issue.

The East showed us character development, the very overused cliché romantic trait of star-crossed lovers, and clear-cut good and evil sides. We see a conflicted Ex-FBI Agent struggle to find balance and complete her mission to stop a misguided and zealous group of environmental activists from committing more heinous crimes against evil corporations. She creates bonds with each of the members of the east and her perspective shift is more sympathetic and understanding. During that pursuit she finds herself learning more about the companies that do real damage against people than if she had never had gone through with this mission.