MovieChat Forums > Zwei Frauen Discussion > Martha Plimpton's character...

Martha Plimpton's character...

posted 16 years ago by dancetildawn
3 replies | jump to latest

is such a bitch in this! I'm a fan of Martha's but really her character was almost too harsh. It was hard for me to believe the Jaime Gertz character and the other patients in the ward would be friends with Martha, she was so negative and mean. I guess there are a lot of people out there who seem to love bitches though- the masochistic types and the people who think harmony is boring, but by god I wouldn't want to spend my last days sharing a room with someone like her. I know it's an unfair tragedy to be 19 and be diagnosed with terminal leukemia but it doesn't give you an excuse to turn into the biggest monster on the planet. So it was hard for me to sympathize with her sometimes, but I love Martha so I forgave her. I just couldn't believe that was the role she famously shaved her head for. Definitely not one of her better roles OR movies, that's for sure.

[–] sabalon1 12 years ago

the character is scared teenager who is coming to terms that she is going to die. everyone deals with inevitiblity in their own way. she was pissed at the world.

if it wasn't for my horse, i wouldn't have spent that year in college

[–] johnf_sf 12 years ago

if you want to come to terms with (name your problem) by being a jerk, then enjoy loneliness because you deserve it

[–] SataiDelen 9 years ago

Did you see the movie, "Patch Adams?" If so, do you remember the terminal patient who treated everyone like crap? I sympathized with him, just as I sympathized with Martha's character. The attitude and behavior, to me, was completely understandable and justified. This movie was made in the 80s, when being diagnosed with ANY form of cancer was pretty much a death sentence. I personally know two women and one girl from that era who died of cancer. One from breast cancer, one from ovarian cancer, and the girl from leukemia. And the attitudes of all three varied. Strangely, the girl was the most optimistic of the three, while the one with ovarian cancer had the most negative attitude.

Anyway, my point is simply that if all three of them had taken an attitude with the world because of their diagnosis, I would not have blamed them one bit, nor seen them as unsympathetic people. Frankly, I couldn't comprehend the girl's positive attitude. I thought she should have been bitter, and angry and resentful of the world (not unlike Martha's character), but she wasn't.

I thought Martha's portrayal of her character was fantastic, and this is one of my favorite movies. I was around fifteen when I first saw it. I wish cable/satellite would air this movie once in a while, but in about twenty - twenty-five years, I've yet to see it aired.

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