Trevortni
2015-04-07, 12:58 PM
I've been wanting to talk to someone about my impressions of In Your Eyes, the movie written by Joss Whedon that came out last year. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to find anyone who's actually seen it, so I was hoping maybe some playgrounders have seen it and would be interested in talking about it.
The thing is, I would really like to get people's impressions before they hear what I thought about it. So please, either write your first reply before peeking at the Spoilers, or at the very least, get a good idea in your mind what you think about it before peeking.
For the most part, I loved the movie. It was a pretty unconventional romance, and the main actors did a good job and had good chemistry despite being on opposite sides of the country. It really felt like it was going places.
And then..... the ending.
It really, seriously feels to me that there was an ending that was written, but then was thrown out for whatever reason, and they hired some hack writer to write the most cliched, worst possible ending they could possibly think of.
There were lots of threads that were aching to be tied down, particularly in the area of: What really happened the first time Rebecca was institutionalized? It seems she wasn't really clear on what was going on at that time in her life, and her husband really seems to be going out of his way to keep any information about it out of her reach.
Both characters were handed easy ways to get out of the legal issues keeping them apart:
Dylan was basically offered not only a Get Out Of House Arrest Free card, but a Get Out Of House Arrest For The Low, Low Price Of Getting Rid Of The Guys Who Are Always Using You And You End Up Punching Them In The Face, Stealing Their Car, And Basically Making Sure There Will Always Be Bad Blood Between Them And You Anyway card. He even gets this epiphany that he doesn't have to make excuses for his own behavior, but can make his own decisions or whatever, and then he dumps the epiphany to make his own life worse instead of better.
Meanwhile, Rebecca was falsely institutionalized by her abusive husband. The proper response to this is absolutely not breaking out of the institution and punching her husband in the face. The proper response is having Dylan come cross-country, now that he's turned in the stupid crime duo and got his anklet off (or, hey, he could pass it through his newly upgraded police contacts) and let someone in authority know that a doctor is abusing his authority to imprison someone against her will. Then her husband is the one in legal trouble, she's granted an easy divorce where he's not the one that gets to keep his money, and they don't have to go running from the law for a week (because seriously, they aren't going to last much longer than that, if they even make it through the day).
Easy ending. The movie asks for that ending, begs for that ending. But no; instead they go for the flashy ending that will only make things worse.
I've tried looking online for any evidence that I'm right, that they did switch endings at the last minute, but I haven't found any evidence of that, and that makes me sad. Did Joss Whedon really just Hancock us?
<Sigh>
But anyway, other than the downer ending, I loved the movie and hope that the endings don't get botched in any future endeavors of the type.
The thing is, I would really like to get people's impressions before they hear what I thought about it. So please, either write your first reply before peeking at the Spoilers, or at the very least, get a good idea in your mind what you think about it before peeking.
For the most part, I loved the movie. It was a pretty unconventional romance, and the main actors did a good job and had good chemistry despite being on opposite sides of the country. It really felt like it was going places.
And then..... the ending.
It really, seriously feels to me that there was an ending that was written, but then was thrown out for whatever reason, and they hired some hack writer to write the most cliched, worst possible ending they could possibly think of.
There were lots of threads that were aching to be tied down, particularly in the area of: What really happened the first time Rebecca was institutionalized? It seems she wasn't really clear on what was going on at that time in her life, and her husband really seems to be going out of his way to keep any information about it out of her reach.
Both characters were handed easy ways to get out of the legal issues keeping them apart:
Dylan was basically offered not only a Get Out Of House Arrest Free card, but a Get Out Of House Arrest For The Low, Low Price Of Getting Rid Of The Guys Who Are Always Using You And You End Up Punching Them In The Face, Stealing Their Car, And Basically Making Sure There Will Always Be Bad Blood Between Them And You Anyway card. He even gets this epiphany that he doesn't have to make excuses for his own behavior, but can make his own decisions or whatever, and then he dumps the epiphany to make his own life worse instead of better.
Meanwhile, Rebecca was falsely institutionalized by her abusive husband. The proper response to this is absolutely not breaking out of the institution and punching her husband in the face. The proper response is having Dylan come cross-country, now that he's turned in the stupid crime duo and got his anklet off (or, hey, he could pass it through his newly upgraded police contacts) and let someone in authority know that a doctor is abusing his authority to imprison someone against her will. Then her husband is the one in legal trouble, she's granted an easy divorce where he's not the one that gets to keep his money, and they don't have to go running from the law for a week (because seriously, they aren't going to last much longer than that, if they even make it through the day).
Easy ending. The movie asks for that ending, begs for that ending. But no; instead they go for the flashy ending that will only make things worse.
I've tried looking online for any evidence that I'm right, that they did switch endings at the last minute, but I haven't found any evidence of that, and that makes me sad. Did Joss Whedon really just Hancock us?
<Sigh>
But anyway, other than the downer ending, I loved the movie and hope that the endings don't get botched in any future endeavors of the type.