I am very impressed by movies like this that explore the 'non' action, the unspoken. It’s what is NOT said, not revealed, that screams out at you. Even in the silent moments, the pain is extremely palpable.

This movie shows us a range of emotions, and moves us in just as many ways. I felt it so interesting to see how my own perceptions changed throughout the movie. The beginning led me to one interpretation, a (negative) judgment, then later, I found myself feeling much more understanding, compassionate and non-judgmental of their situation. I think it takes a hellava good script to do that! And great acting.

Imho, there was no ‘ultimate transformation of their lives’. There is separation, but not reparation. Eddie served as a ping pong table between the two protagonists, bringing their pain more closer to the surface, and yet… nothing really changed in their behaviour (in the sense of both acknowledging the events and learning to grieve which was crucial to their individual survival) except for her calling it quits as part of a couple. I guess that was what was so painful to see in the end. That they continued to be 'broken people'.

Tidbits
. Screenwriter/director Kip Williams’ first full-length movie with reputable actors.
. Williams screenwrote only a part of Irving’s book.
. Irving’s own home was used as the setting for this movie.
. Note the use of color (or lack thereof) in the outdoor scenes. The hazy greys of summer vs Marion’s clothes, for example (made me think of the symbolism of that red coat in Schindler’s List)
.Jeff Bridges’ performance deserved an Oscar!

I watched the movie this evening. At first I thought it was dull dull dull. I did not like the boy's characterization; I found him to be a non-personality. The little girl was eerie, everything was kind of cold and eerie in the first third of the movie. I did like the depiction of the outdoors; if you think about it, it was beautiful, melancholy, distant. It was like Marion.

As the movie went on, I liked it better. Jeff Bridges started out looking like a sage middle aged guy and ended up being a bit of a typical upper class curmudgeonly obnoxious middle-aged guy. At the very end of the movie I did not like Ted very much, but I felt a lot of compassion for him. I think that is a testament to the great job Jeff Bridges did depicting this character.

I started thinking this movie was not really "about" anything but just a portrait of an interesting summer with some very specific, odd people. And as the movie went on, the dialogue got a little more normal, the interactions seemed more like normal conversations than snippets (the "unsaid" element was vast in the early part of the movie). This changed the tone of the movie and I think it made it seem more positive, optimistic.

I do think the ending gives us hope. I think it was a good thing to get rid of those pictures. It looked like hiring that Mexican couple would give Ruth a little bit of normalcy in her life. It's too late for the parents but there is hope for Ruth.

I am willing to bet the novel is very much better than this movie, but the movie makes me want to go read it.

Thanks for recommending something I would not have ordinarily gone out to see!

Rose

Clairabelle, you review a movie so well.

As for why Marion turned to Eddie, Paula, I think in this case it was a little of both. We all know someone who has thrown themselves at someone else when their couple was in trouble. Sometimes it's intentional, but I don't think Marion did so to hurt Ted, it was more like she was trying to stop her own hurt. She didn't appear to me to want to 'get back' at Ted, even if he was a pompous womanizer. God knows she would have good reason to, but then we are confusing Ted's weird exhibitionistic behaviour with their respective grief 'defence mechanisms'.

nosyrosie, I reacted slightly differently to Ted. I first thought he was a sorry s.o.b., particularly when we learn of his wierd behaviour towards his models, but later, as the movie went on, I began to feel sorry for this s.o.b. because I saw someone who was in post-traumatic stress and who did irrational things to numb his pain.

Paula, you also raised an interesting question whether Ted was like that PRIOR to the tragedy. I can't recall if this is shown in the movie. Was there anything suggesting he was? (perhaps the book could help us out here, if anyone has read it)

I felt the ending was appropriate - kind of like the ending of Million Dollar Baby.

My impression of the significance of Ted's going into the hole was that he would forever be just there - in a hole.

I agree, beth, that you start thinking 'this is a boring, nothing happening dud', but it just draws you in. But instead of reaching a climactic ending, it just maintains that dull, throbbing pain all the way thru.

I thought this movie reminded me a lot of a mix of other movies in particular "Summer of '42", "In the Bedroom" and "Frida". I thought for a movie with no action, maybe a little too much was going on.

The particular story line that I enjoyed most was was that of a mother, who due to circumstances beyond her control, couldn't be a good mother to her daughter and chooses to be no mother at all rather than a bad one. (Irving tends to have mother issue/problems doesn't he?).

I thought Ted's character was personified as a self centered, liberal, cheating, artist type. I took it his personality was pretty much the same before the accident. I didn't get the impression that he was all that affected by the accident. It disturbed me that he didn't understand why his wife was leaving, and that all he thought was that she was trying to get custody. It disturbed me that he didn't know how to put their daughter first. Shouldn't he have wanted Eddie to stay for just a little while for Ruth's sake? He's one of "those"...you know, not really mean, but can never seem to sympathize or put anyone else first. I understand why Marion had such an inward struggle in leaving Ruth with him.

Marion needed to reach out to Eddie for some kind of intimacy...because IMHO her husband was uncapable of being there for her. To me, Eddie seemed to be a replacement to Marion for both her missing sons and her "missing" husband.

I thought the somewhat "deus-ex-machina" type ending with the gardener and his family being able to take care of all wrapped up things a little too well for this type of movie. A little too happy of a conclusion for such a depressing movie.

I think the door in the floor represented temptations (and hell from following those temptations). I think Ted wanted to escape from his world so he "opened Pandora's box", so to speak, in hope of finding a new world for him and his daughter. Maybe Ted will be able to change for the sake of his daughter.

I also thought Ted was very similar prior to the accident, you got the gist of that from when he was telling the story of what happened during the ski trip.

I guess you're right Carla, about the pat happy ending but it made me glad because I felt so sorry for the little girl.
:) how silly of me, I know!

Rose

Clairabelle does have the gift of gab! :-D

Carla, a couple of things u mentioned ring quite true. When Marion decides to 'be an absent mother rather than a bad one', this was highly revelatory, yet almost a 'sane' moment. Can u only IMAGINE where her head was at? It's like she admitted being almost a danger to her daughter. Perhaps she was also afraid to 'love' the only child she had left for fear of losing yet another child...
And your comment about Marion seeing her sons in Eddie is another good point.

I thought Ted was profoundly affected by the accident. The entire story struck me as Ted's attempt to escape the world, to return to the safety of the womb. One of the first things he did after the accident was to return to his wife's womb to get a replacement child. When that didn't appease his torment, this entertainer of children created in his daughter the vessel of all that was his two sons by filling her with their stories. He seeded her. He continued to search for comfort of the womb and became very distructive when he didn't find it. The demeaning of the women he painted - and he seemed to paint a lot of paths to the womb - struck me as his anger at not finding comfort.

His agressive sexuality initially made me fear for the girl; his fatherly love abated that fear. Then I realized that he had killed the innocence of that child - psychic rape if you will - by bonding her to her dead brothers. I think Marion left because she could no longer be complicit and the only thing she was capable of doing was removing the pictures which were stealing the soul of her daughter.

The movie this most brought to mind for me was "Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolfe" with the same intensity, but more subtly violent. For I think this was a violent movie. In a direct confrontation he could only openhandedly slap Eddie. Was this his way of comforting himself that he was a gentle man? But on the squash court he felt free to inflict pain. And once again we have images of the womb - a box. With pain associated. And in this case a box with its own door to an even deeper womb.

How significant was it that his next womb was to be a mother-daughter pair? Do you think he had been regularly going back into his hidey hole and we only saw it at the end of the movie? Had he built it, used it, and then abandoned it for a time?

I was thinking last night about the significance of Ted drawing's, and why he was obsessing with their 'bottoms', and you've nailed it for me. Excellent reviewing of the movie!

Marion, I confess, is more of an enigma to me. Part of me wants to say "It's been more than 5 years! Get over it." But depression doesn't work that way. And she was in a deep depression. I do think that the shrine throughout the house made it impossible to put the accident behind them. I'm thinking that with almost all the pictures gone, the girl will be left with the picture of her mother, the feet of her brothers, and maybe, with an example of a normal married couple in the household, she has a chance at life.

I had not realized until I watched one of the special features that this was based loosely on an Irving novel. I do confess that the characters in his books are not ever the types of people that I personally know. For they are all just slightly alien to me. I hadn't noticed his mother issues, Carla, but it does fit with what I have observed.

The thing that struck me most was your comment about Marian's reason for removing the pictures. That strikes me as so accurate, and gives me a really new awareness of her personality.
And the comment about "Virginia Woolfe" was highly illuminating to me. I only recently read this play because my husband is thinking about producing it with me in the part of Martha, and even though she is nothing like Marian, I see that the mental violence they inflict upon one another can be so subtle, really, doesn't necessarily have to be overt and loud. Because now that you mention it, I do see how bent Ted and Marian's relationship is.

Well done!
Rose

I thought Marion was the one that wanted the child, and that she was the one that filled Ruth with the pictures and the stories of the dead brothers, not Ted. I thought she took the pictures away because she knew "she" did wrong by them, not Ted. I thought Ted may have indulged Marion in hope that it may help her, but I definitely thought that "she" owned the shrine/stories.

Also, why did you get the impression that Ted changed? I'm not saying my opinion is right, and I may have been tainted by the movie "Frida", but I really thought Ted was always a selfish womanizer. Why do you think he was different before the accident? I don't think he was ever really close to the boys.

I think the whole Ted story has to do with him stepping up to the plate and finally having to take responsiblity to be a good father and having to care about someone other than himself... something that I don't think he was able to do with Marion or his boys. For some reason, I am left with hope that Ted will be able to change and put his daughter first.

Has anyone read the book? I wonder how this section is portrayed in writing. Was Ted a deeply affected victim of the accident too, or was he a selfish as# who only seemed to care about himself until having to deal with raising his daughter? Now come on, someone had to read the book :) and where are all the guys' reviews? It looks like only girls watched this movie. Bill, where are you?

I think he brought in the Mexican couple as substitute parents. I don't see him being there for the girl.

This is a man who deals with images. His work is image; he cares about the placement of a semicolon. Image is all. I think it interesting that while we saw Eddie and Marion having sex, as did the child, we only saw Ted drawing women. He was careful to always appear as an artist and not a seducer. And he was careful to insure that his daughter never saw him as a seducer. I think he also carefully crafted his image as a father. Yes, I think he loved his daughter, but he loved himself more. His attention to his daughter was more in support of his image of himself as a wonderful man.

As to who owned the stories, I remember more of Ted eagerly telling tales of the two boys, and Marion having to be begged to tell them. But I could be wrong.

We do bring our personal life, our cultural experiences, and the current state of our digestive tracts to any movie that we see. That is what is so great about these discussions. For me, hearing what you all have to say makes the movies so much richer.

This is a great thread. I just wish we could get an equally good discussion going on "Closer", which is just as worthwhile, IMO.