MovieChat Forums > The Paper Chase (1973) Discussion > Susan is a mess

Susan is a mess

posted 13 years ago by vabeach152
4 replies | jump to latest

The character of Susan is one hot mess.

She has so much rage against her father. She is in the midst of a divorce, has a mother who is so neglected that she returns from Europe to see her in a mental institution, meets and beds another of her dad's law students (after supposedly rejecting law student #1 and the "married dorm" life of Phillip) and then sleeps with Hart in her dad's BED and let's him paw through his personal objets in his STUDY?

In a contemporary light, I would say she needs a good therapist....I personally wanted to yell at Hart to RUN.

[–] regahsof 13 years ago

Yeah, after watching the film a second time I wondered what good she was pulling out of Hart. I'm a little surprised Hart goes for her so hard, but there's also, like Susan, not a whole lot we know about Hart in terms of his life objectives, etc (though presumably he knows he wants to be a lawyer?).

[–] BullSchmidt 13 years ago

She [...] meets and beds [Hart,] another of her dad's law students

It's been a while since I've seen the movie, but from what I recall it wasn't entirely clear whether she knew Hart was a law student the first time she went to bed with him. But on the larger point I'll agree. In the book she's even worse -- basically a late 1960s model hippie chick who disdains everything conventional while offering nothing of substance in return (unless one considers a lot of half-witted gibberish to be deep thoughts). The sort of person who would deliberately drive on the wrong side of road to be different than "the establishment."

The character of Susan is one hot mess. [emphasis mine]

Yeah, if a weirdo hippie chick with her hangups were to put the moves on me, I'd be very careful ... but if she looked like a twenty-something Lindsay Wagner, well ... ;)

[–] 13 years ago

[deleted]

[–] malione-1 9 years ago

She knew he was a law student from the very moment they first met, when he walked her home. He made a comment about the breakneck pace of studying as a 1L, and how it left so little time for anything else.