Being somewhat of a fan of both Tobey Maguire and Elijah Wood, I finally watched this movie. (The Spouse picked it up of DVD a couple of weeks ago).
I am confused.
Is this the most moralistic, puritanical movie ever, or is it just about how much the '70s sucked?
I really liked the acting, and I’ll admit that I was tickled at the admission of just how much second trombone parts suck. But I find myself baffled by the “punishments” each of the characters receives at the end of the film. They don’t seem to fit the crimes. Are they meant to, or am I missing something?
i didn’t read the book, and i felt some parts of the movie didn’t fit well. He had too many asian type themes that to me didn’t fit with the movie setting. Especially the old world music during extended walking scenes.
I didn’t get why the guy cried at the end at all. I couldn’t tell if he was sad that he fucked up his life and family, was worried that something might happen to his family, or something i missed.
Good Lord that movie was awful! My husband and I both felt compelled to keep watching because we were just sure it would all make sense in the end. It didn’t. It left us with such an unsatisfying feeling of having wasted every minute we spent watching. Just awful.
The only movie I think left me feeling even more disappointed was Eyes Wide Shut.
I think the father is crying at the end because (a) he has his entire family with him, which is extremely rare over the course of the movie, and (b) he has finally realized exactly how fragile that is - how he could potentially lose each one of them, one way or another. Or, it could be that he realizes that he’s been the greatest “sinner” over the course of the events told, and yet the “punishment” laid on him was relatively light compared to what the other father or his own wife went through. Or it could just be because
his friend’s son is dead, he had to carry the dead body home, and the reality of that is finally hitting him now that his own son is in front of him.
Or maybe I’m talking out my ass. I don’t mind a certain amount of ambiguity in a movie, but man is this one ambiguous.
Part of my problem is that I’m not sure whether the underlying moral assumptions of the movie are Christian or Buddhist.
I find Calliope’s comparison to Eyes Wide Shut interesting, as I have only seen parts of that one, but what I have seen leaves me with the same vague sense of having been toungelashed by a puritan. There is something about some of the fundamental assumptions about sexuality in both movies that bothers me.
I love this movie. I didn’t find it ambiguous at all. For one thing, I wouldn’t try to interpret any of the events in terms of crime and punishment. I didn’t find the film moralistic at all. Rather, it is about people struggling to connect with each other and, in most cases, failing miserably. (The only successful connection in the movie seems to be the final scene between Christina Ricci and Elijah Wood’s brother–the kid from Jumanji, whatever his name is).
At the end, Kevin Kline’s character breaks down because he can’t keep up the facade of normalcy any longer. He tries to smile and welcome his son home, but he is no longer able to hide the painful reality of his existence.
There is so much terrific dialogue and character development in this film. It’s pacing is perfect, and the story is compelling. I’m amazed that so many people here didn’t like it.
I loved this movie. But then I always love movies which shows people’s lives that SUCK even worse than mine. That’s always encouraging.
The pseudo-sex scene between Ricci and Wood reminded me a lot of a scene between me and my first girlfriend. Hell, it was almost exactly the same, now that I think about it (minus the girl’s father walking in and spoiling everything.)
I didn’t think much about what type of philosophy the movie explored, but the ending did make me wonder:
When Elijah Wood’s character dies, Tobey Maguire says something like, “Life is pretty fragile. It’s like someone’s always leaving the door open, and if you’re not careful, you’ll walk right through it. But for every person that walks out, another walks in.” Does that mean that Christina Ricci’s now pregnant with the reincarnation of Elijah Wood?
KGS, I don’t see that as reason enough to draw such a conclusion.
For one thing, I don’t think Christina Ricci actually had sex with that boy. I think they just fooled around. They seemed content to just lie together. We never see them getting it on.
I haven’t read the book, though. A sister of mine read it shortly after seeing the movie. She said it was very different. Some of the characters were different, for one thing. Also, she said it wasn’t a very good read. This may be one of those rare instances where the movie is better than the book.
The movie had some nice photography and that’s about it.
Tobey Maguire does his impression of Tobey Maguire yet again, and everyone else walks around in their detached post-modern angst. No one communicates with each other! Wow, what a concept! It just seemed really trite and pretentious overall, and had nothing interesting to say about human behavior or family interaction that we haven’t seen before.
Though I did like the “key party” scene. I hadn’t heard of this manner of swapping before; seems like a cool way to jumpstart a dull party.
Kevin Kline cries in despair at realizing that what he thought was moral liberation turned out to be moral decadence. The sleaze of all the story’s entanglements has infected his family and “friends,” and he sees that he has irredeemably corrupted his world. The scene of the family together is what sets him off because, with all the backstory that he knows (and we know) about the characters, it looks like an obscene parody of a “happy family” portrait.
KGS, I actually wondered if that line meant that one of the two moms might be pregnant by the other’s husband. Not necessarily with Mikey’s reincarnation, just pregnant in general. Gods know, the movie could use something uplifiting like a new life coming into the world . . .
Keith Berry, I concede Maguire’s limited range, but I thought it worked really well for this film - as a matter of fact, the only film I’ve seen of his for which I think it didn’t work very well was Spider-Man, and even there I thought it worked fine for Peter Parker until he took his glasses off. (Plus, I consider him eye-candy, along with Wood, Weaver, Ricci, and Kline, so hey.)
Jackelope, do you really see any indication that Ben thinks that what he’s doing is “liberating” at any point in the movie? He strikes me as being furtive and guily about it very early on in the film. I agree that he doesn’t see the enormity of it until after the storm, but I don’t see him as thinking of it as freeing at any point - if anything, the “your needs, my needs” line suggests to me that he thinks he’s supposed to feel that way and doesn’t.
Again, I’m not arguing that it’s a bad movie. It’s exactingly crafted and well-acted, IMHO. It just seems to think that there’s something inherently dirty and alienating about sex, whether it’s in or out of a relationship. And that bothers me no end.
I don’t see the film making the argument that there is something inherently dirty or alienating about sex. Rather, it is telling a story about people for whom sex is alienating. I don’t know about dirty, but definitely alienating.
However, when Ricci and the younger brother get under the covers, it doesn’t seem alienating to me at all.
[Warning: I’m not spoilering parts of this message that might be spoiler-y, since I don’t think anyone’s commented so far who hasn’t seen the movie. Beware.]
Yes, but as you pointed out above, Sandy and Wendy get under the covers, shuck their clothes, and then don’t appear to do anything. They just sleep together partly naked. It’s sensuality without sex, lustless - as opposed to Wendy and Mikey’s mostly-clothed groping, which obviously does have some lust behind it, even though it’s significantly less sensual, and which gets “punished” more strongly than any of the other sexual [mis?]behavior in the movie.
On the other hand, Sandy is, IIRC, the only person who says “I love you” in the entire movie. Perhaps that one isn’t “punished” because it’s the only instance of loving sensuality in the movie? It is ambiguous (there’s that word again) whether they actually do anything or not.
I agree; but I don’t think he’s a strong enough character to realize that until the end. I think he was just “going with the flow” of what was going on, and it wasn’t until the end that he had to (and did) make his own moral judgment about it. In other words, he didn’t realize–or maybe “acknowledge” is a better word–what he actually felt about all the shenanigans until that moment. The shattering realization was not “this is all immoral,” but rather “I have been immoral.” I think up until that point he considered himself “above” morality, or maybe outside it.
I feel like I’m circling my point without nailing it, but this’ll have to do; I have to run.
