So it's set at a liberal arts university and now there's some pseudo-intellectual premise to shield us from yet another
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youngian67 — 13 years ago(October 08, 2012 12:43 PM)
The OP either hasn't seen this film or did not understand a single idea it explored. No sexual relationship even takes place between the two leads (apart from a one night stand with an older woman) and would work just as well in any other environment.
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ruthforrest — 13 years ago(October 15, 2012 02:54 AM)
Did you understand this movie? The whole POINT is that there's an attraction but he knows it's not right.
This isnt a Lolita complex either. There are inevitably problems with big age gaps like the one in the film, but there's nothing sinister or psychologically wrong about a man in his mid 30s being attracted to a 19 year old girl, nor is it an invention of the cinema industry.
I myself was involved with a man in his mid 30s when I was 21. -
nick-392 — 13 years ago(October 24, 2012 12:05 PM)
See the film before criticizing it. The male lead finds himself intellectual drawn to two women, one is his junior, by 16 years, and the other his senior by about the same age gap. He chooses not to get involved with the younger one specifically because of their age difference, but had no qualms getting involved with the older one, despite the fact that he was far more compatible with the younger one.
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pjpoconnell — 13 years ago(October 27, 2012 02:53 PM)
When I was 34, I was simultaneously in relationships with a woman who was 19 and one who was 55. (I don't mean a threesome; neither woman knew about the other.) I believe that each of us got something out of the relationships. Some young women want to "share" their overflowing youth with an older person; some seek father figures; others want to show that they can "conquer' an ostensibly more powerful personwhich older men are presumed to be; some just find their male peers "too immature."
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jrhpax — 13 years ago(October 29, 2012 02:39 PM)
As someone who actually saw the movie and loved it, the age difference was integral to the plot. We see a mensch being seduced by a 19-year-old virgin (NOT a minor), and he has to decide whether making love to her is the right thing to do. This isn't some "Lolita"-like situation. It's a really interesting twist to a great movie.
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photondancer — 13 years ago(December 04, 2012 04:27 AM)
And that experimentation includes guys having sex with older women. But you never see films about that do you? I think that's what the OP was mainly annoyed about. There are so many damn films released every year showing a man with a much younger woman. It's long past time we had some of the reverse.
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GiovanaSamara — 13 years ago(January 22, 2013 08:25 PM)
That is just so silly Who in Heaven really cares about age when in love, or in the middle of a great conversation?
In this particular movie, the girl is well-past the age of consent, she can do whatever she pleases and have sex with whoever she desires.
And I do think it was very silly of Jesse to refuse having sex with Zibby, even though he was in love with her. To me, this attitude just made him seem too narrow-minded and conservative for someone who adores reading (and broadening horizons), and should have learned from great poets and writers that life is much more than numbers. What horrible consequence could ever have come of that?
Jesse should have remembered Thoreau: I went to the woods because I wanted to live deliberately, I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to put to rout all that was not life and not when I had come to die Discover that I had not lived. -
nereidon — 13 years ago(January 24, 2013 04:44 AM)
though i like your take on that and the well chosen quote, i can understand how he just couldnt do it. he had been feeling for a long time that he had to grow up and as much as he liked her, the things that come with being her age were so different and strange for him already, that he just couldnt do it. and it wasnt just this one night but what was next. But i also see how selfish this was in reality and how ignorant. maturity is one thing, wisdom another.
" People being stupid is not a plot hole " - by redwingjs
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jagooch — 12 years ago(February 06, 2014 09:57 PM)
People object because
Law: In their country, it isn't legal.
Culture: Such things just aren't done.
Religion: some religions place age limits
Ethics: Mature taking advantage of immature.
Truth is, except for where the numbers are specified, it depends on the situation. I believe that there is a age were one is just too young for sex, but it's hard to know exactly what that number is. You can easily go to extremes and find an age where everyone agrees the age is too young, but you will get a lot different opinions of where the lower threshold is.
Age difference is another topic. 16 and 30, 30 and 44. 44 and 58 - In each case there is a 14 years age difference, but can you truthfully say that you reacted the same way to each one? -
ilykyu — 11 years ago(August 06, 2014 01:17 PM)
Whatever Works is a superior film exploring the same issues, but every character is more exaggerated. Larry David comes from the same neurotic overly self aware vein as Josh, only he is a straight up genius,not only depressed, but suicidal, he decides to switch it up and has a relationship with a beauty that is not only one third his age, but actually slightly mentally retarded. It doesn't work out, but the whole point of that film was to get over social compulsions and norms and live your life for yourself, experiencing and learning all you possibly can, while you can and not trying to exert control over what cannot be controlled. ,
This movie on the other hand had pointless contradictions and every time it seems to posit a stance it had something happen immediately to oppose it.
"what is your major malfunction numbnuts?!!" -
shelemm — 11 years ago(August 14, 2014 06:07 PM)
"This movie on the other hand had pointless contradictions and every time it seems to posit a stance it had something happen immediately to oppose it"
In a word, NO.
The explicit theme of the movie is learning how to say no. It starts with the scene in which we meet zibby at the diner and she talks about improv. In improv, she says, you can't say no; you have to say yes to everything then add something.
The rest of the movie has Jesse being prodded to say yes all the time, even when he wants to say no. The mysterious Zac Effron character says: "Fortune never smiles on those who say no." Zibby is constantly prodding him, literally not figuratively, with a jab to the stomach and other prods. At the party, on the school stage where they first hug, in her dorm room. He is constantly asked to say yes, even when we see he has trepidation. It is a constant theme in the movie, and finally he finds something he can take a stand against before he goes too far.