Stanley Pickle

In the film Stanley Pickle, we see a young man who appears to be living a child's life, with a bed that is too small and a room that is decorated like a small boy's. His day-to-day routine seems to remain the same, which is later revealed to be because his parents are controlled by clockwork, like large wind-up toys, that can only repeat small simple motions. Stanley watches a girl playing with a bird through his window until he is spotted and hides away. The next day he watches the girl again, however, the bird has died and the girl appears to be mourning her loss as she creates a makeshift grave for the bird. Stanley is finally seen leaving his house as he collects the bird, which he then reanimates with the same clockwork used to puppet his parents. When Stanley reveals this to the girl she is horrified and runs away. This leads Stanley to realize that he is not living freely the way the girl had. When the clockwork in Stanley's parents stop working he buries them both, using the keys to their clockwork as gravestones before he runs away through the forest to begin living freely.

One of the film's most important reveals is that Stanley's parents are run by clockwork. This already gives the film's beginning a feeling of bizarreness, which becomes even more unnerving as the film progresses. When Stanley recovers the corpse of the bird and begins working on it, the viewer realizes this is likely the same fate that his parents faced. An unknown death and reanimation as uncanny clockwork puppets of their former selves. Another important reveal is the transformation of Stanley's bedroom into a lab. Combining this information with the previous reveal that his parents are run by clockwork, leads the viewer to realize (or at least infer) that Stanley reanimated his parents with clockwork to create the seemingly paused in time life that he lives, reliving the same series of events day after day.

Overall, Stanley is a man who wants to have complete control over his life. This is seen through the repetition seen constantly throughout the film. Stanley's parents run on simple repetitive motions that follow an identical routine every day. Stanley also eats the same food in every breakfast scene and wears the same outfit every day. Stanley is seen to change throughout the film through his perception of and interaction with the bird girl. He is seen to leave his house for the first time in the film to retrieve her bird. When Stanley reanimates the bird and presents it to the girl, this is his attempt to share his controlled life. This doesn't bring her joy because the life she lives is free and beyond her control. Seeing Stanley's overly controlled life horrifies her. Her horrified reaction is what leads Stanley to make his biggest change, burying his parents and leaving his controlled life to be free.