Seeing this movie was both refreshing and thought-provoking. it took 12 years for the director to finally make it. i hope it wins some awards! but... we'll see.
It follows Dean and Cindy's marriage as it appears to be coming to an end. Although we don't really know what happens. There are two things that I love about this movie:
1. that there is no conclusive ending. The director leaves the audience creating their own opinions and hopes about what happens to these two characters. After reading some interviews from the cast and director, the director stated that he hoped that Cindy and Dean would maybe make amends. but, that this wasn't really the point of the story. the hope lies in the fact that there was progress made from the beginning of their story. the first step of progress is confronting and recognizing the issue. The director said that in the beginning of the movie, neither Cindy nor Dean really talked about any of their problems, as individuals or as a couple. They both had their own fears but they were uncertain of how to express them and unsure if they were willing to change. Basically, they didn't know themselves well enough to make any progress in the relationship. The director took a lot from the marital issues of his own parents when developing the story and scenes of the movie. he also had a type of manifesto with the cast in that he wanted them to share their ideas for the script to make it as real as possible. he said that michele williams was a huge participant in developing the script and scenes as a whole.
This is one of the most raw and real portrayals of a relationship that I have seen in the movies. To show their love for each other but also their failure to come to terms with their own troubled families and to share a sense of growth is so real. They are essentially incompatible because they can't find that one crucial link that allows them to change and grow together as a unit. It shows the reality of love and that as much as there is little culpability in two people falling in love, there can be equal little blame when the love slowly dies between two people.
2. the other thing i love about this movie is that both characters are "good" people. There isn't someone who cheated or someone who abused. yes, both people have their own issues, but they are both good people at the core. Dean is a lovely character and i fell in love with his light-heartedness immediately. he believes that he can realize his potential by being a good husband and father and is truly a wonderful person at heart. Cindy is very smart, ambitious, often stubborn, and becomes quite bitter over the fact that she has all of these dreams and aspirations but feels trapped in a marriage where there is no growth for her to realize her own ambitions. The question for cindy, as i am sure many girls feel today, is "what do I really want?" we grow up being told of what we are supposed to want. that once you find a great guy, who is truly good to you and love you, this is all you need and it is bliss. but what if you want more? what if there is more love to be felt? even if you can't imagine it or describe it. what if that person doesn't want anything else out of life but for you to be the center of it? Ultimately, I feel for them both.
I for one was going to see this movie with my friends, but I am really glad that I decided to see it quietly in the safety of my bed. its hard to take down, hard to see what these two are going through and hard when you relate to their situation. i'm sure everyone can relate somehow to this movie and the raw emotions that are felt by cindy and dean. we can all only hope that we are making the right decisions for ourselves and the ones that we care about. At one point, cindy is talking to her grandmother about falling in love and how her parents never seemed to love each other. she asks her grandmother, "how do you know if you can trust your feelings if they can disappear so soon?" her grandmother responds, "you can only trust those feelings by having them." in other words, we can really only trust our feelings and hope that our intuitions will guide us the right way. maybe they will guide us to another learning experience in which we will be forced to learn how to better listen to ourselves and what is best for ourselves individually.
You also can't help to wonder what would have gone different for Cindy and Dean if there wasn't a child involved. Dean makes such an epic attempt to "save" Cindy but was if for the right reasons? Did they really listen to their hearts and feelings or was it based on a desperate attempt to bandaid a wound that was too big? I don't know. But, as this movie is a stark portrayal of real life, questions like these are almost pointless to ask in real life. you just have to move on and keep finding ways to heal your own wounds. and i believe that this is what the director succeeded in depicting. a real life portrayal in which the characters only have one chance to decide and then it is just a memory. as actors, the director decided to put them in a place as to never really know what is going on, to improvise, like real life. they are at the mercy of life as their characters. we are all at the mercy of life.
arg. my analytical "digging too deep" mind is getting the best of me. maybe i should've watched the king's speech instead ;) oh well, too late!
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