Meg willingly had sex with the teacher. Not once she said no. Then, when she read his novel she got upset and in the end (the Florida poetry contest) she read a poem named "Now That I've Read Your Book". I don't understand how reading his book in the motel got her to think that he took advantage of her. Can someone clear that out?
shareI think the book actually not being anything was what upset her. He had read to her some of his book but there was not anything in the book. It was blank. She felt everything he had told her was a sham. Not just that he lied about writing a book but about his feelings to her. She really trusted and believed him.
shareThank you a lot for clarification! Din't notice at all that the book was blank... That explains a bit her reaction but still it's not clear to me why she slept with him. Obviously she wasn't too happy doing so (the expression on her face). It seems weird to me that she understood that he wasn't truthful about his feelings after discovering he didn't wrote that book as you said. The 2 things don't seem to connect too much and that's why I find it hard to see Meg as a victim and also I think the ending sucked.
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You're right--she never did say "No". Auster could have kept gonig except for the fact that her understood how uncomfortable she was. At the same time, though, I don't think Meg isn't a victim. She was so baffled at her feelings for Auster (she always saw him as a surrogate father, not a boyfriend) that she just didn't know what to do with herself.
I don't think Auster was lying about his feelings for Meg at all. I think he truly had feelings for her. Not love, but he felt for her because he really just wanted to be needed by someone. His family is in shambles; his wife obviously doesn't care very much for him ("I might have to do some work." "Bravo.") and he just needed someone to need him.
Currently reading: "Vote For Larry"
Currently listening to: Bright Eyes
She didn't know how to say no. This was something she thought she wanted, plus he is a man and one of authority. He used his power unfairly.
shareHe read her a poem and pretended it was his own, but it wasn't. He carried around the "book," pretending he was writing something, when he obviously wasn't.
I know how easy it is for a young girl to have a crush on a teacher, because I did myself. But thankfully, I never had a teacher like him.
Then I became a teacher myself, and I would never, ever have crossed that line with a student. Even though Meg willingly had sex with him, he was an adult and she was a child. Even if she'd thrown herself at him, he knew better. It was obvious that he was grooming her and setting her up for the seduction, and maybe it wasn't the first time he'd done it and that's why his wife was so unhappy.
I just saw the movie for the first time today and to me it didn't look at all like the character Meg was happy at all or receptive to the fact that her teacher came on to her and had sex with her. In fact, she looked rather disturbed while the whole thing was going on. That whole scene was pretty disturbing considering the actual age of the actress when it was filmed. Previous posts have said that she didn't say "no" to the teacher but it sure didn't look like she was saying "yes" either. There were many factors in her life that led her down the road that ended up in the motel room with her teacher. I think the fact that the teacher lied about writing a book and led her to believe that the passage he read to her was his own work. From his wife's reaction to Meg it seems that he may have been overly involved with his students in the past.
I did think that it was a very good movie and that Agnes Bruckner did an excellent job. I don't think I have seen her in anything before this. Certainly someone to watch for in the future.
She didn't say no, but she didn't say yes either. True. But he asked her if she was okay, multiple times. She could have said anything.
I still don't fully understand the ending and her reasoning for suddenly turning cold against him. I understand her feelings of betrayal because he never wrote a book, but after all he did for her, didn't she care? Because even if he "seduced" her or "should have known better due to age", he did help her out a lot and he was there for her. I don't know, it just didn't tie up for me and I felt her going to live with her father at the end was sort of out of the blue and almost slapped on as a quick ending. But maybe I just need to view this movie again to see if I missed something, because it didn't add up.
She shouldn't have had to say yes or no.
Sex should ALWAYS be of mutual consent. It should be as if BOTH parties can't keep their hands off each other. Not just one who wants to and the other having to decide still. A real man would know that and not still be trying to go for it while at the same time asking "Is this OK?" That should be WELL established before even thinking about trying something.
Come on... there was nothing loving about that sex scene either. He just wanted to nail her. I thought that was pretty clear.
It was pretty clear the whole time that he wanted her way more than she wanted him.
She was very young too and probably did not know what she was getting herself into... meaning, yeah, maybe she understood she was about to have sex but she did not know how she would feel about it until he got there.
And if he was half a man, he would have just waited until she knew for sure she really wanted him. But no, he got horny and selfish and just kinda went for it.
I agree with this and several other comments talking about the cruelty of the sex scene. We really need to have better sex education. It was probably the girl's first time and he just stuck it in without any preparation, when she was clearly nervous. Coercion doesn't mean yes. A man who's in his fifties sleeping with a teenage student doesn't mean yes. A woman being unresponsive and clearly uncomfortable during sex doesn't mean yes. I mean, in so many situations we do not make someone explicitly say the words "no" to figure out that they don't want to do something, especially something as intimate and potentially violating as sex. I think a lot of people have said it well. This was an incredibly vulnerable young girl who was facing so much tragedy. Her teacher made her open up to her about it, to be vulnerable with him. Then he tried to have sex with her. Sure he stopped, but he had already freaked her out and hurt her, mentally and probably physically.
shareHow old was Meg supposed to be? I got the impression she was 15 or 16 so even if she didn't say no he was breaking the law still.
shareAre you bereft???? HIS book???!!! What he read was from Rainer Maria Rilke's book, "Letters to a Young Poet". You haven't read this??? It is an exceptionally perceptive book about the nature of love between a man and a woman. I knew he was quoting Rilke as soon as he began speaking. You should get the book. It's really not a book, per se, but a compilation of letters Rilke wrote to an aspiring poet once. It's edited by John L. Mood. It's actually quite famous, in it's own way.
sharehaha. Well, someone wants to prove something.
shareTruthfully speaking, the sex scene was one of the crulest things that I've ever seen, after all that happened to her and everyone around her leaving her, her sister dying, her mother kicking her out, her friend making her still pills and then stealing from her, after she had to starve and sleep on the beach, the only person that was there for her completely exploited her. After the kiss I was just sitting and screaming at the monitor "Come on douchebag stop that dont be an ass". And after they got to the hotel room it was just painful to watch, I've seen rape scenes in movies before but that was a whole new level of cruelty and after he finally realized what he was doing and got up and left it was obvious he was never in love with her and the book proved it by showing that their connection from the beginning when he was revealing his soul to her was a lie. I was quite happy about the ending though since she smacked him around with her poem and she ended up with her father who was the person who seemed to care about her the most with the line about the car. It was terribly cruel movie with an imperfect ending but a hopeful one and I think that is why it is one of the best stories ever told.
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On the one hand, she *did* have a clear crush on him, with clear romantic elements. And part of her clearly wanted to be physically close to him. Nuzzling his neck, stalking him in Florida, going into the Motel room, etc.
That said, he did lie to her about the poem, which was a pretty major betrayal.
And the WAY he had sex with her was just painful to watch. No love, no caring, just basically taking advantage of her. Not even bothering to get her aroused. Just disturbing.
It all combined to greatly disillusion her. He clearly didn't care about her, just wanted to get off. And the only reason she was drawn to him was b/c her life was so messed up, especially the missing dad. He ultimately took advantage of that.
(The reason she ends up with her dad is because that's what she really needed -- not some surrogate dad exploiting that need to obtain bad sex.)
Wow. I can't even. How old are most people on this thread? Under 18? If so, please do yourself a favor and don't fall for a creep like Mr. Auster. He was breaking the law by having sex with her (underage.) She's not old enough to consent to sex, so it was statutory rape. She was confused and intimidated and just went along with it. And if she was 18 by then...okay, but it was the betrayal and manipulation that upset her.
That's all he wanted from her all along. He was grooming her all along just to have sex with her.
That's why she was mad. She realized all his "support" and "kindness" and "care" was just a manipulative sham to have sex with her. He didn't care about her at all. He was the adult, she was the vulnerable teen...he knew how to pull out all the stops to play the game to get her in bed.
You could tell as soon as she saw the bed and he started going all over that this was NOT what she wanted. She saw him as a parental figure, a friend, support, beacon of light, and yes had a little crush on him too. But once he's all "k' let's stick it in!" she shut down. That's not what she was going for, or wanted. It was very clear. She realized it was all just a bunch of BS, all along, all the things she had valued about him and "them"...fake. Just so he could sleep with her. Wouldn't you be upset?