Does anyone else find it interesting that screenwriter Tom Ford decided to give Amy Adams' character some long, irreleva
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tigerfish50 — 9 years ago(January 19, 2017 05:36 AM)
It could be possible that he has cancer, like Shannon's character, and that this is really the motivation for sending the novel to Susanbut again, in my mind, this is pure speculation.
Of course it's speculation - that's exactly what you're supposed to do when confronted by an allegory! You engage your brain and speculate about the meaning of the allegory in a rational manner. In a well-constructed, nested story which is clearly an allegory, every line, action and prop should do double duty - it should move the narrative along, and also reveal info about the source characters and their story.
When you discover
both
characters associated with Edward are facing death or die - your reasoning faculties should recognize those two events as a very gigantic, bright red flag. An allegorical bell should ring loudly in your allegorical ear! Only the dimmest dimwit would ignore such an enormous neon signpost when the template for those characters fails to show up for an appointment at the conclusion.
What kind of person are
you
? A deaf, dumb and blind dimwit, or somebody who possesses a few functioning brain cells? -
DHfilmfan — 9 years ago(January 19, 2017 01:55 PM)
More ad hominems please. I don't think you've convinced me or any other reader sufficiently enough of your cancer theory. Please also comb my posts thoroughly for grammatical and spelling errors to bolster your case as well.
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DHfilmfan — 9 years ago(January 11, 2017 08:50 PM)
Ford is definitely not saying that women shouldn't have the right to abort their fetuses (I prefer this to "unborn children".) No one is. He just threw it into the story as a plot device to "legitimize" further his vengeance. Again, it wasn't even in the original novel upon which this film was based.
He is saying that it's wrong to use that right do what Adams' character did to her husband.
Is Ford really saying that? Are you saying that Susan had an abortionto do something to her husband? To wound him intentionally somehow? I'm pretty sure her husband followed her and her lover to the clinic and witnessed the aftermath of the procedure which she tried to hide from him.
Does supporting women's rights mean that we can't criticize women who use those rights to do terrible things?
What exactly was the terrible thing she did? Was exercising her right to have an abortion wrong becauseshe had an abortion?
Whatever you think of women's rights, you must admit that what she did by leaving him and aborting his child does somewhat correspond to the fictional rapes and murders in that his family was taken away from him in a brutal way.
Now the "unborn children" phrase makes sense.
She didn't want to have a child with a man whom she didn't love and didn't see a future with. Should her husband rape some sense into her? -
jimmer69 — 9 years ago(January 12, 2017 09:58 AM)
I'll try this again.
No one is saying a woman doesn't have the right to get an abortion. We should get that out of the way. Seems quite a few people who bark out 'women's rights, women's rights' seemed to have stopped right there and said, 'well, she got an abortion, it's her body, oh well. the guy needs to deal with it and it's no biggy' without looking at the whole picture. There's more to it than that.
Here's what happened in the story.
His wife left him, and while processing that, he:
1: finds out she was pregnant
2: finds out she aborted the fetus without even telling him she was pregnant with
their
creation (yes, it takes two create a human)and without any conversation at all about other options before exercising her rights to have an abortion
3: finds out she had another man in her life already.
Those three things he finds out all at the same time while still processing the fact that she left him. It's not like she told him she was pregnant, they talked about options, she said she wanted an abortion, he was against it and she did it anyway. That's not how it went down.
There's a women's right to exercise control of her body and have the abortion, and then there's actual common human decency which Susan discarded thoroughly. -
tigerfish50 — 9 years ago(January 12, 2017 10:21 AM)
Those three things he finds out all at the same time while still processing the fact that she left him.
You know, all of those three things are quite common, none of them are capital crimes, and only a juvenile mind would consider them grounds for a twenty-year campaign of revenge. In fact, many injured parties in a divorce would probably prefer to be fed Susan's anodyne version, especially since they have no say in the matter.
Therefore - as I've pointed out on numerous occasions, Edward's novel contains no revenge motivation. Try considering some other options. -
jimmer69 — 9 years ago(January 12, 2017 10:34 AM)
Okay, no one said anything about capitol crimes. Jesus Christ some stupid strawman arguments fly around here. Since when does a capitol crime have to be committed for people to be hurt?
And it's quite common for someone to find out those things all at once? OOOOOkay
I've never come across anyone, ever, that got slammed with all that stuff all at once. And, like many, I knows tons of divorced people.
But you go ahead and think men could/should just roll with finding out all those things all at once and have them think, 'Meh, whatever.' It's not realistic. Not all men are emotionless robots. Some actually have some feelings and I imagine anyone finding out that his wife/ex-wife/soon-to be ex-wife (who he still loved) was pregnant, aborted it, and had a boyfriend all at once would have some real hard emotions to deal with. Nothing juvenile about that. Anyone who minimizes the effect that would have doesn't have a grasp of reality.
I also think it's stupid that he would ponder on it for twenty years and have it consume his life. At some point, you'd think he'd finally come to the realization how horrible of a person she was and he was lucky to get out as quickly as he did. -
tigerfish50 — 9 years ago(January 12, 2017 11:02 AM)
I've never come across anyone, ever, that got slammed with all that stuff all at once. And, like many, I knows tons of divorced people.
Well, you should be thankful you and your friends lead nice quiet sheltered lives. Long may it continue. -
jimmer69 — 9 years ago(January 12, 2017 11:18 AM)
Yes, my 23 year Air Force career was very quiet and sheltered. We all know how easy marriages are with people in the military. You know, with the constant deployments (sometimes very short notice deployment) and permanent changes of station (having to move the family often). Never a messy divorce scenario playing out, nor seedy things going on, when one of the people in the marriage is deployed.
I'll stick with the notion that somebody finding all that out all at once is incredibly rare. -
tigerfish50 — 9 years ago(January 12, 2017 11:31 AM)
I'll stick with the notion that somebody finding all that out all at once is incredibly rare.
Except he didn't find out all at once - first she informed him she wanted out, and later he discovered the other elements - perhaps simultaneously, perhaps not.
Anyway, none of it justifies a bitter twenty-year grudge, and I doubt that's the underlying story. -
jimmer69 — 9 years ago(January 12, 2017 11:34 AM)
In the post you responded to, the three things I mentioned he found out all at once were: She was pregnant, had an abortion, had a boyfriend. Go back and look. Those are the things I'm saying he found out about all at once:
Here is what I wrote:
'Here's what happened in the story.
His wife left him,
and while processing that
, he:
1: finds out she was pregnant
2: finds out she aborted the fetus without even telling him she was pregnant with their creation (yes, it takes two create a human)and without any conversation at all about other options before exercising her rights to have an abortion
3: finds out she had another man in her life already.
Those three things he finds out all at the same time while still processing the fact that she left him'
So, I never said he found out she was breaking up with him while also, at the same time, finding out those three things. I made it clear (twice) he was still processing the breakup AND THEN found out the additional three things all at once.
While I think he'd still hate/strongly dislike her for all of that, I would hope most men would move on instead of spending 20 years mulling over it and having it consume their lives. No one, especially a woman like that, is worth ruining your life over. Then again, not everyone deals with things the same way. -
tigerfish50 — 9 years ago(January 12, 2017 12:00 PM)
Here is what I wrote:
I'm sorry - I didn't realize I was going to face cross-examination on these points. Anyway, there's still no evidence all this happened simultaneously - you assume it for some reason. Perhaps, as others have done, you want to present Susan as irredeemable. -
jimmer69 — 9 years ago(January 12, 2017 05:25 PM)
I watched the movie and, because of how it was presented, I came to the conclusion those three revelations did happen at once. I'd like to see some reasoning as to why it didn't.
Susan's conversation in the car after the abortion
Her: I just don't think I'm ever going to be able to look at Edward again after what I did to his child.
Him: He'll never find out.
Ok, so let's look at that.
They didn't know Edward was there when this conversation was happening. If Edward knew before that moment, how is it possible that he wouldn't ever find out about the abortion? How can her new man even believe Edward would never know about the abortion if Edward knew about the pregnancy? Was he going to give advice like, 'tell Edward you had the baby but he can't ever talk to her or see pictures or be involved at all in her life?'
He didn't know she was pregnant before that moment. The same moment he found out she aborted the baby.
And, Susan IS irredeemable. Even at the end, as this married woman is dressing sexy for her reunion/date with her ex-husband, she makes a point to slip off her wedding ring.