Why is Ann Thinking about Trash?
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Archived from the IMDb Discussion Forums — Sex, Lies, and Videotape
Barbie_N — 20 years ago(March 23, 2006 12:42 PM)
At the beginning of the movie, we're introduced to Andie MacDowell's character, Ann Bishop Mullany. She's sitting with a therapist in a clean, spotless living room, where she's explaining her worries, which lately have been about the trash.
I too have been very sick over the condition my house is in. Like Ann's character, on the outside I seem all right. On contrary, on the inside, I'm angry and mad, and the only thing I can pinpoint about what's wrong in my life is the messy chaos happening in my bedroom, in my car, in my kitchen, in the bathroom Everything's a mess and it's dirty and there is trash that has not been taken out for a week.
Can somebody tell me what the connections are here? Why was Ann talking about the trash? -
orcaroline — 20 years ago(March 23, 2006 08:46 PM)
She's not worrying about her house being messy. She's worrying about pollution, overflowing landfills, that kind of thing. Although it could be symbolic.
-Caroline
"Let the lovefeast begin."
"People are dying. The dialogue has to be up to it." -
dancinjinn — 20 years ago(March 25, 2006 09:04 AM)
I took her fixation on trash as an indication of how disconnected/repressed she was about her own real life. Worrying about trash gave her a way to focus and vent her anxieties in a non-threatening way. Instead of thinking about what to do about her empty marriage and unfulfilling life, she was more comfortable thinking about problems that she had no control over. As the movie went on, she became more able to look realistically at her own problems and take steps to change her life. Then, presumably, she could stop thinking about trash because she was more satisfied with her own life and things she DID have control over.
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rahul-gsp11 — 12 years ago(June 10, 2013 04:50 AM)
spot on,totally agree with this explanation,she just goes on and on thinking about things over which she has no control,she also talks about poor kids ,airline victims to deflect attention from her own real problems,this is a tendency among majority of ppl to do the same thing ,we will keep worrying about world issues etc etc to just deflect attention from our own problems ,Ann character is superbly written by Soderbergh,the way she opens up slowly and comes into her own and actually helps Graham to come out of his repression also,i guess by the end of this movie,she is more involved into her own life and less worried about things she has no control over,
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lexyladyjax — 12 years ago(August 28, 2013 11:59 PM)
It's easier for Ann to obsess over recycling and airline victims than to focus on her own failing marriage and her sexual issues. If she admits to her therapist her real problems then she'll have to deal with them and she doesn't want to have to do that. It's denial.
Some things you just can't ride around -
orcaroline — 20 years ago(March 25, 2006 08:34 PM)
Okay. I agree with dancinjinn, that she worries about things that are unrelated to her and out of her control to avoid facing her own problems.
-Caroline
"Let the lovefeast begin."
"People are dying. The dialogue has to be up to it." -
Radiant_Rose — 19 years ago(May 14, 2006 07:39 AM)
Oh, I can tell a joke, but sometimes a joke is just a way of making the truth more palatable or trying out a new idea. I'm sorry you didn't like the film more. I was unimpressed by the film at first, but it started to grow on me.
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Radiant_Rose — 19 years ago(July 27, 2006 04:44 AM)
She can do a bit about rubbish, or trash as Americans call it. She was lucky that Graham came along and by a curious miracle the combination of their flaws produced something good. But she should have been trying to find better solutions to her problems.
Don't dream it, be it.
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JustPassingTime — 18 years ago(August 04, 2007 10:28 AM)
"She was lucky that Graham came along and by a curious miracle the combination of their flaws produced something good."
That's what I like so much about this film. They were both sexually disfunctional, they just expressed it in different ways. I think it was beautiful the way they discovered each other and helped each other through sensitivity and honesty. That's what a relationship is supposed to be about though many people never manage acheive that level of intimacy I think that is what most of us really want. -
indymovies — 18 years ago(August 19, 2007 12:12 PM)
My take on why she's thinking about trash is that she's a beautiful woman, living in a community where she's liked and admired, has a good-looking husband and a beautiful house but she's desperately unhappy and is terribly ashamed and disgusted with herself for feeling like this.
She holds everything together to avoid going to pieces - having a breakdown - and will not face the truth about her life and John and it comes out as a feeling of being overwhelmed by something she can't control - trash. On a conscious level she's no more worried about trash than the rest of us but unconsciously she feels (and fears) it growing until it will overwhelm her.