Watching Love Actually (spoilers follow)
Aug. 31st, 2007 10:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dolorosa_12I just had to post something here. I'm watching Love Actually on TV at the moment, and it's pretty much your typical Christmas fluff, with a good cast. But the scene where Emma Thompson's character thinks she's getting an expensive necklace for Christmas, when in fact her husband is giving the necklace to his lover is so moving, that still, the tenth-or-so viewing of it still makes me cry. She grabs at the present she thinks is the necklace, and it's a Joni Mitchell CD. And because her kids are there, she can't say anything to her husband. She excuses herself, puts on the CD and cries silently, stuffing her fists into her mouth to stop from being heard. And then she goes back in to her family, and life goes on.
The sequence only lasts about two minutes, and within it Emma Thompson manages to convey the full gamut of human emotions from elation to despair and then innnocence betrayed and then deep misery covered in brittle cheer. it's probably the most powerful scene in the movie.
It just got me thinking on the endurance of mothers, and wondering how many will put up with degradation and disrespect out of love of their children. Every time I see that scene, I think of my own mother and it makes me cry.
The sequence only lasts about two minutes, and within it Emma Thompson manages to convey the full gamut of human emotions from elation to despair and then innnocence betrayed and then deep misery covered in brittle cheer. it's probably the most powerful scene in the movie.
It just got me thinking on the endurance of mothers, and wondering how many will put up with degradation and disrespect out of love of their children. Every time I see that scene, I think of my own mother and it makes me cry.
