Love Liza
We watched this movie yesterday and although it probably satisfied my need for sad movies (I didn't know I had any but now I know it's gone) for several months I really liked it. It's about a young man trying to cope with his wife's recent suicide. He doesn't know why she killed herself and spends a big part of the movie avoiding to open her suicide note. Philip Seymour Hoffman plays the main character and is brilliant in it - as usual.
Since you can read all about it, I'll just add what really hit a nerve with me. Obviously the young man cannot continue his life as usual and quickly everything just falls apart... but I must admit I don't understand how people somehow seem to expect him to keep going on. Everybody is very sympathetic but they still think he is nuts for "dropping out" of everyday life. I don't get it. Grief is so uncomfortable and unacceptable in our society that we really come to judge people who mourn or are sad for some reason. But how are we supposed to deal with things like these? If someone has an accident and breaks all his limbs in million pieces, everybody sees it as normal if they take several months to get back on their feet, but if you lose a loved one or experience some other emotional trauma, suddenly your recovery can't come fast enough. It seems if you are not visibly hurt, you just somehow need to "snap ouf of it" or hide - so nobody has to deal with your cumbersome grieving self.
I remember my own frustration when we had the miscarriage...it's like you are supposed to get better... soon! soon! And although I knew I would and I had never lost hope, I did need that time to feel miserable! Some events can be so traumatic that it leaves you with a sense of a complete vacuum. I was hurt by a guy once to the point that I had lost a little bit of my right mind if you want to call it that. I look back at the time and see that I wasn't myself completely. I suppose I knew it then as well but when you're in the middle of it, your perception is clouded.
Grief doesn't mean you have lost it forever (temporarily maybe :), you have given up or that there's something "wrong" with you. Yeah, things are not good, they suck. Yeah, it will get better eventually but until then they are BAD. There has to be room for that. It's part of life. It is life. It's not supposed to be a smooth ride and everything out of the norm is just an embarassing mistake.
I guess we are all lucky if we have someone in our life who will understand that and not urge us to "get it over with" - even if they are trying to be really subtle. Sometimes all you want to hear is: Yeah, you're right, it's bad and there's nothing we can do about it now.
I've been wanting to see this movie. Thanks for your review of it--it sounds really good. I'll have to rent it soon.
How beautifully you write about things Dinka. You can't believe how many people said the rudest things to me when I miscarried. My mom was the worst, I guess it never happened to her so she had no idea. Her great advice, was that I should never mention it or think about it every again. How can anyone who had a miscarriage do that?
Thank you for being one of the most understanding people around when I went through that!
Matt & I watched it tonight... he's mad at me for making him watch a sad movie. He'll be over it by morning though.
I really thought it was well done. Very sad though. And I'm glad to have had the chance to read your review or I wouldn't have ever heard of it.