what's wrong with having loads of money and not wanting to spend it? what's wrong with working to provide for your family, which means there are times you can't see your family as often as you liked it to be? is it your fault if your wife cheated on you because you aren't around a lot? is it fair that friends think you are a sucky husband and it's ok for her to cheat?
if you ask me, my answer is no for all four questions.
most families tolerate spousal absence in the name of economic prosperity. we let go that our husband and wife has to be away for work, we do the best with raising children on our own, we make do with whatever money available for that month. george clooney plays the amiable father and husband who is thrifty with money even though he owns a large tract of land in hawaii, a working lawyer who travels frequently. he leaves the household and child raising to his wife and thinks she's ok with the arrangement. suddenly his wife got into an accident, goes into coma, and he is shouldered with the task of taking care of his two teenage children. he is confronted with kids he has never really known, confronted with his wife's infidelity for the first time. you can see life draining out of him, and as he grieves the passing of his wife, he does the best a father of two could do - to just stay strong and be positive.
george clooney rarely plays losers. so it is good to see him plays an ordinary guy close to buckling but has this will to go on, which is extraordinary. he could have just place his children in a boarding school and get on with his life, but he chose to be close to them and get to know his children. he could have chose to leave his wife behind for the pain she caused him, but he chose to tell her lover that she is dying so that he could say goodbye. he chose to be a better person when everyone thinks he is lame and uninteresting, unfairly taking his wife's side that it is ok to cheat.
hawaii is such a beautiful place, the story unravels the island's quiet beauty. but even in paradise, pain will find its way to you, and when it does, all you can do is be strong and let it pass.
trust that some day, you'll be ok.
I think Clooney has got what it takes to turn a victim into a dignified protagonist. You don't slobber all over him with pity, you take heart that he made the best of things and tried to get on with his life with dignity. Yeah, I got all that just from the trailer.
ReplyDeleteThe first paragraph you wrote reminded me of the cultural chasm between the West and East. In the economically challenging East, you honour your father for working hard and understand the sacrifices he made in trying to give you a better life. In the West, it is taken for granted that the father must rake in money AND be there AND be hip AND be cool etc etc.
A father cannot be all; granted he ought to have a more balanced life and spend more time with his family. But if that model was what he had to pattern his behaviour upon, then he must be guided to change; which is the job of the wife. I think it's cheap for a spouse to cheat when the partner didn't give them what they want. Judging from the trailer, he was a mild-mannered man; surely it isn't hard to encourage him to not work so hard and that they could do with less so that they would have more time with him.
But it is a penultimately common story which they tried to portray with human foibles and error.
A lengthy reply for someone who hasn't even seen the film yet, hehehe.
did i give away too much or you can just tell a lot from the poster? haha. give it a watch. hawaii is beautiful :)
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