Day 105: Conversations with Other Women

A woman (Helena Bonham Carter) and a man (Aaron Eckhart) get to chatting at a wedding but this isn’t the first time they’ve met, they used to be married when they were younger. They spend the night reminiscing about their past life together and it’s all really rather sad.

To start with we’re supposed to assume that the two don’t know each other but it’s obvious pretty much immediately that they were close before. Just the way they talk to each other and how they are together makes it clear. I liked the playful way they talked and how this night was obviously important to both of them. They go up to her hotel room as we all expected that they would and they spend time comparing how they were before to how they are now; he’s put on weight, she’s got a scar and a shorter haircut. It’s almost as if they don’t want to have sex but they both know that it’s what they need and seems to be the natural progression of the night’s events. So they do have sex but it is sad and, as he later points out, it makes whatever they had seem final. They divorced years before (I think maybe 10?) and the whole time he was hoping that if he met her again then they could get back together but he feels like now it could never happen. He tries to persuade her to leave her husband but she isn’t going to and I think he never really expected her to either.

I wonder how often people who used to be so close meet again at a much later date and come together for a short period. It didn’t seem like a healthy thing in the film. He said that he had imagined them meeting again so many times and he was clearly upset that she wasn’t going to stay. She was conflicted because she didn’t want to betray her husband but she also did want to be close to her ex again. They both seemed to accept the sadness of the situation and that what they'll do is inevitable. It must be difficult to really know what to do in that situation. It doesn’t seem such a black and white thing to me, when anything to do with cheating is usually. I can understand that they’d want to be close again, they loved each other so it’s only natural that those feelings would come into play here. It doesn’t seem like it did either of them any good though, and they did both cheated on their partners. I don’t know what conclusion I’d come to if this was to happen in my life and I’m a bit surprised by that.

The film was great, I was expecting it to be rubbish. I loved the fact that the whole thing was done in split screen, it really added something to it. And I liked that we didn’t know their names, they just come together for a night and get to live within the memory of how they were before and then they go their separate ways. It was interesting and sad, which is always my favourite.

8/10

Day 19: Rabbit Hole

So I was saying today that I was going to find a film that is easy to watch and won’t make me cry, something like Jurassic Park, y’know? And then I decided no, I’ll watch a film about a couple who lose their child because apparently I’ve decided to declare war on my tear ducts. Sobs a-plenty, my oh my.

Becca (Nicole Kidman) and Howie (Aaron Eckhart) are trying to pick up the pieces of their lives after the death of their son, Danny, in a car accident 8 months prior. The reminders of Danny around the house have different effects on both of them; Becca seems to dislike all of them and wants to get rid of them, while Howie likes feeling that he is still close by. Their conflicting ways of dealing with things causes a lot of tension but eventually they’re honest about what they want to happen and you can see they’re going to go from there.

The boy who hit Danny seems to be coping remarkably well. Becca accidentally sees him on a school bus and follows him for a while until eventually talking to him. He’s very mature about the meetings he has with her, probably understanding she needs them more than he does. He is quite creative and has made his own comic book about parallel universes. I love the idea that parallel universes could exist but I think it’s more a hope than a true belief. Imagine that regret you have. I'll take a stab in the dark and assume it's because you didn't do something that you really wanted to do. In a parallel universe, you did it and your life has splintered off from the aftermath. It might've gone badly or it might've gone really great but at least you did it. It’s a shame we can’t look in on our parallel selves sometimes and see how they’re getting on and how different they are to us. We could see what the result was to something we agonised over doing but then never had the courage to do. To echo Becca's words, “Somewhere out there I’m having a good time.”

I like the way the film was done with no overly dramatic scenes; it’s more about how their loss affects their lives in little ways, forcing them to face up to who they are now and what it means for them.

7/10