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"We've got a yellow truck, a road in front of us, and nothing but opportunities."

Natalie: You're not very good at reading minds.
Keith: Well, that's cause I wasn't really trying. [puts his hand on Natalie's head] He manages stacks of paper, moving them from side to side everyday. He hates his job. When he was your age, he dreamed of going to Duke, but they rejected him. So he pored over every detail of your application, night after night until you finally got it right. Natalie Anderson, the star of the household, who loves being the center of attention. She just wishes it didn't mean having to play tennis all the time.
The office scene

This is the film description scene.

Keith is a 2008 romantic drama starring Elisabeth Harnois and Jesse McCartney (yes, that Jesse McCartney).

Natalie Anderson (Harnois) is the perfect high-school student — straight A's, varsity tennis player, member of the yearbook club, etc. Naturally, her boyfriend is the equally impressive and attractive Hispanic jock Raphael. But unbeknownst to her, fellow student Keith Zetterstrom (McCartney) has made plans to "have fun with her", and a seemingly innocuous assignment as lab partners turns into a bizarre friendship which changes Natalie's life — apparently for the worse — as her picture-perfect life gives way to an insatiable curiosity about Keith and the secrets he's keeping.


This is the trope examples scene:

  • The Ace: Natalie, as described by Keith above, as well as in her depiction in the first scene.
  • Anguished Declaration of Love: Natalie delivers one to Keith after sneaking into his truck to follow him.
    Natalie: I don’t... I don’t care where you’re gonna be next year. I don’t care if you’re crazy. God, I just know I wanna be with you. I don’t understand what you’re doing. It seems so pointless, I mean everything... It just seems pointless, but when I’m with you it’s different. I don’t know why. 
  • Auto Erotica: At one point the camera pans over showing Natalie and Keith having passionate sex in the back of his truck.
  • Bavarian Fire Drill: On a whim, Keith takes Natalie to some random office building, walks right in and finds a conference room to sit in while they continue working on their lab assignment. They get thrown out by security a short time later, but the scene encourages Natalie to get used to going along with Keith's bizarre improvisational antics.
  • The Big Damn Kiss: Keith plants one on Natalie following her love confession to him. At the airport, Natalie gives one to Keith as she tells him that she doesn't care how much time they have left.
  • Bittersweet Ending: Keith dies, and Natalie now owns his truck, after having successfully reconstructed the carburetor and installed it with the help of Keith's dad. She graduates, and appears to have mended her friendship with Rebecca, and the last scene shows her fulfilling Keith's dream of going to London, Ontario.
  • Bookends: The scene where Natalie is lying on the back of the pickup truck as it inches toward the edge of a cliff.
  • Break Her Heart To Save Her: Once he realizes that Natalie wants more than friendship from him, Keith tries his hardest to dissuade her from wanting to be with him. Only in the "goodbye scene" does he let her win him over, after she chooses to see past his sickness.
  • Character Development: Natalie learns to live her own life rather than what her parents had planned out for her as she grows closer to Keith. With Keith, although he's long since accepted his impending death, he finds one last reason to live as he falls in love with Natalie despite his frustration that he doesn't have enough time to enjoy their relationship. The last we see of him, he finally returns Natalie's feelings and accepts that she's willing to stay with him for however long he has left.
  • Cloudcuckoolander: Keith seems to be living in his own crazy world.
  • Confession Triggers Consummation: Natalie and Keith share a kiss and immediately have sex following her love confession to him.
  • Deus ex Machina: Natalie was so close to making a clean break from Keith, until a car drives by his truck and a kid alights from it, gushing about playing video games with Keith. This sudden glimpse of a softer side of Keith changes Natalie's mind and further heightens her curiosity about him.
  • Establishing Character Moment: The first scenes of the movie basically describe both Natalie and Keith, particularly how disparate their lives are from one another. Natalie is the quintessential high-school overachiever, while Keith appears to be a charmingly irreverent jerk whose bad attitude is excused by the adults around him for some unknown reason.
  • Hidden Depths: The majority of the movie is about Keith's secrets, as well as how they appear to be pulling Natalie into a downward spiral throughout the film.
  • In Love with the Mark: Keith really did want to have fun with Natalie, as he said at the beginning of the movie. The last thing he wanted was to fall for her, and he hated it because he was dying and was just coming to terms with the fact.
  • It Doesn't Mean Anything: Keith coldly dismisses Natalie and tells her that their having sex meant nothing to him, breaking her heart.
  • It Meant Something to Me: While Keith tells Natalie that he was only using her and that he "screwed her" literally and figuratively, Natalie fires back that she made love to him and it meant something to her.
  • Kick the Dog: After having sex for the first time, Keith then dismisses Natalie's feelings and asks her to forget what happened between them.
  • Leaning on the Fourth Wall: Keith, who calls out random scenes when he's with Natalie, including a "picnic scene" (doing their assignment in a conference room) and a bowling scene (which they decide to save, instead opting to leave bowling balls on people's front porches). Once he stops doing this, it falls to Natalie to create the "goodbye scene".
  • Manic Pixie Dream Girl: Keith is a Rare Male Example.
  • Meaningful Echo: The more Natalie becomes a bigger part of Keith's life, the more she parrots Keith's lines. It also marks how their feelings for each other grow throughout the film.
  • Precision F-Strike:
    Natalie: Fuck you.
    Keith: You just did, partner.
  • "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Keith gives a very mean one to Natalie when she contrives a "goodbye scene" after she finds out that he's dying. Natalie doesn't buy it for a second and correctly assumes that Keith is just hiding his true emotions.
    Keith: Wake up Natalie, don’t you see what happened here? You had a beautiful life, and I had shit. I hated your guts. I wanted to take you down, I wanted to make you as miserable as I am, and that is exactly what I did. Now, hows that for a goodbye? Face it Anderson, I screwed you. I screwed you big time.
  • Red Herring: Keith lies about his address and family, underestimating Natalie's determination to figure him out.
  • Relationship Upgrade: Natalie is excited to start a new relationship with Keith. Unfortunately, Keith rejects her and tells her to forget what happened between them.
  • Romantic False Lead: Raphael. To be fair, Natalie does wish him well; it's just that it's easier than trying to explain why she's so obsessed with figuring Keith out.
  • Secretly Dying: Keith. His fatal condition is implied to be cancer, after Natalie talks with the father of the boy who was friends with Keith.
  • Sherlock Scan: Keith appears to have Natalie all figured out, as shown in the page quote above. It turns out that he's always had a crush on her since he was 9 and played an anonymous guard while she assumed the role of the princess in a school play.
  • The Snark Knight: Keith lives and breathes snark... though not for much longer.
  • Sorry That I'm Dying: Keith: "I just wanted a little more time."
  • Their First Time: Natalie ends up losing her virginity to Keith in the back of his truck.
  • Wham Line: Al: "They were in chemo together."


"This is the goodbye scene."

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