8 Mile (film) - Plot

Plot

The film starts out with Jimmy Smith (Eminem), a young and unhappy blue collar worker, struggling with different aspects of his life. He has moved back north of 8 Mile to the rundown trailer home in Warren of his alcoholic mother, Stephanie (Kim Basinger), his sister Lily (Chloe Greenfield), and Stephanie's abusive live-in boyfriend Greg (Michael Shannon). Jimmy is focused on getting his music career started, but he seems unable to catch a break. Just prior to the events of the film, he ends a relationship with his recently-impregnated babysitter, Janeane (Taryn Manning), and during the film, begins a new relationship with Alex (Brittany Murphy), whom he meets at the factory when she shows up one day looking for her brother. Jimmy comes to realize that his life has remained largely the same since he graduated high school. At first, he considers himself a victim of his circumstances and blames others for his problems. Over time, though, Jimmy begins to take responsibility for the direction of his life and realizes that he has a large degree of control over how it will go.

He also begins to question whether his group of friends, including Future (Mekhi Phifer), are holding themselves back from moving on to bigger things. With his onstage choke still fresh in his mind, he appears to decide that he will give up on or postpone his dream of a music career in favor of devoting more time to his day job and building a home life. Jimmy's new-found responsibility becomes evident to his supervisor at the factory as well. At the beginning of the film, when Jimmy requests extra shifts, his supervisor laughs at him (because of his tendency to be late to work), but by the end, Jimmy's improved attitude and performance earn him the extra work he had originally asked for. However, a late night shift conflicts with the next battle tournament. Jimmy initially doesn't want to go, but a visit from Alex changes his mind. Paul, a homosexual co-worker whom Jimmy stood up for earlier in the film, agrees to cover for him. The battle acts as kind of a "final conflict" with a rap group called "Leaders of the Free World", who have harassed Jimmy throughout the film. This begins with the deterioration of Jimmy's friendship with Wink.

The latter continually pesters Jimmy everyday with promises that he can help him "get big"- that he knows people with influence, and that Wink can hook Jimmy up with the support he needs. However, he is betrayed when Jimmy shows up at the studio and finds Wink having sex with Alex. A fight ensues, in which Wink is badly beaten. In revenge, he shows up with Papa Doc and the other members of "Free World" to attack Jimmy outside his home in the trailer park in front of Lily, with the mob badly assaulting him, and leaving him with a black eye that's present at the final battle. Jimmy's friends hail him throughout the film as an incredible rapper, but until this point the film only shows snippets of his skills. The tournament has three rounds, and in each of them Jimmy faces a member of the "Leaders of the Free World". Jimmy wins both of the first two rounds with progressively more impressive freestyle raps. In the last round, he is paired against Papa Doc, the tournament's most feared battler and Jimmy's main antagonist throughout the storyline. Jimmy is aware that Doc knows all his weak points, so he decides to address them preemptively with his freestyle. Jimmy acknowledges without shame his white trash roots and the various humiliations the Free World clique have inflicted on him, and then uses the difficult life he's had as a springboard to reveal the truth about Papa Doc: despite passing himself off as a thug, he has a privileged background. Doc, whose real name is Clarence, attended Cranbrook, a private school located in upper class Bloomfield Hills, and lived all his life in a stable two-parent household. Jimmy makes a reference to "Shook Ones Pt. II", the beat that the DJ is spinning, by calling Papa Doc a "halfway crook", which sends the crowd into a frenzy. Doc is left with nothing to say in rebuttal and drops the mic. As Jimmy leaves the venue, Future suggests that he stay and celebrate his victory while also offering a position that would allow him to host battles at The Shelter. Jimmy refuses, claiming he has to get back to work and do everything his own way, to which Future agrees. The final shot displays Jimmy walking away from the shelter, more confident of the future ahead of him.