Run Lola Run

Most movies  run on a single  plot line in which the whole story resolves. But in some cases the movie runs on multiple plot lines which have one or several things in common, so is the case of the movie "Run Lola Run", in which the main character literally  runs through 3 different plot lines that get connected in several ways which almost always affect the outcome of the mini plot.

First of all, I believe the timing is everything. In the beginning of all three stories, Lola gets distracted by a dog and in each time she reacts differently which causes the story to unfold differently. In the first run, she gets scared and runs away, which makes her go through the story faster than in the other two runs. This causes a very specific outcome in which she and Manni end up assaulting a store, which resolves in her getting killed. In the second run however she falls through the stairs when the dog attacks her, so she looses more time and gets everywhere a bit later, which causes the story to have different conflicts than before, which resolve in  Manni getting hit by a van.Then the third run starts, but this time she acts differently, she dodges the dog and barks back at him which scares him but takes more time. This causes everything to go wrong and now she has no way of getting the money, so she goes to a casino and gambles. Turning out to be quite lucky she wins back the money, but also thanks to her actions, Manni finds his money back.

Second of all, every action has a reaction. All this movie keeps showing us is that every decision we make affects not only us but everyone around us. Every time Lola takes a new urn, makes a new decision, or simply stops doing something, a new outcome resolves. For example when she's late in the firs part and Manni robs the store. This part here gets changed when she gets there faster and stops Manni from robbing the store. Instead of that he gets hit by a van that wouldn't be there if she had followed her first steps. Also we have the crash that she stops ..... or not. The firs run she causes her dad to crash because she distracts him, but in the second part this doesn't happen which makes her steal money form her own dad.

Finally, It's all about money. Al three plots in RLR are united mainly by money. Either from a store or form a bank or simply by getting  back what's lost, Lola and Manni are constantly trying to get money. We can see throughout the movie that both of them put their lives through risk several times to get the money they need. All the times the story restarts, Lola gets hurt in the process of getting money. From falling through the stairs  to actually getting killed by a distracted cop, she's always getting injured in some way but she always keeps going on and tries to get the money Manni needs.

So adding it all up, we have that this movie's stories are mainly defined by how Lola reacts to  the dog. From running away to confronting her fears,  the dog really makes this stories outcomes change. Also we have that every choice she makes affects directly in the outcome of the story. Every time she makes a decision something  different will change in the story, giving it a different result. Finally we have that the reason why this girl keeps running and running is that she needs money, and that she and her boyfriend Manni are willing to do anything and everything to get it.