This is the first time I've ever commented on a movie. I think Penn's character is horrid. I think the movie itself was ok, with excellent acting by del Toro, but Penn's character just had me hating him and not giving a damn about him. I found him to be a very selfish arrogant ass. I think the only character I've hated as much was Paul Giamatti's character Miles in Sideways.
shareI found him annoying and incessant. I just was thinking "leave her alone!" the whole time. He was just always there and I really had a hard time caring wether he lived or died.
So, I do agree. His character was unlikable, however I beleive he gave a fine performance, as he always tends to do.
come on guys, his charecter wasn't that bad. He was just trying to repay Naomi Watts because he felt greatful that she got his heart from her husband, and falls in love with her in the process of thanking her. I dont see what was so unlikable about this charecter. and Miles from Sideways..I loved Miles! what movie charecter do you like? Mclovin? Spicoli?
haha, I kid. but I dont see what was so bad about Penn in this movie. I thought he was a pretty dynamic charecter. but hey, thats just one man who allways happens to be right's opinion.
i agree with gnob. The only thing i didnt like about penn's character was how he didn't appreciate how well he was taken care of by his ex. Other than that, you've got to give him some credit for taking naomi home and making sure she was safe and didn't get arrested
shareI believe that you are supposed to get that feeling from his character. I mean the guy couldn't even live with himself. He ends up shooting himself, maybe because he was gonna die anyway or because he realized how bad of a person he had become. He was very unlikable as is others that Inarritu has directed. Inarritu has a great way of making you feel emotion.
shareInteresting...I haven't quite thought about that until now.
As i was watching the movie, i barely felt a connection to Penn. I could imagine what was going through Watts' head as he kept popping up in front of her..one of the most moving scenes i think is when she calls him over and says, you can't just tell a woman you barely know that you like her...how do you even know what shes going through and feeling....i totallyyyyyy agreed wiht her there...he was too wormy, didn't get too much of my sympathy.
however i dont think his intentions were wrong, he probably wasnt planning on falling in love and sleeping with the woman
"I don't like the party scene. i just wanna sit on my arse and watch movies."--h£
It's a really complex character played excellently by Penn (who is one of our greatest living actors IMO). I felt some sympathy for him with the failing heart and failing relationship but he was kind of a pest towards Watt's character who really was in no shape to deal with him. I didn't hate him - I actually found him to be a somewhat sympathetic character.
Even if it means me taking a chubby, I will suck it up!
The character, I agree appears rather complex, and particularly conflicted. He wasn't a troublemaker, but he couldn't avoid it either. He wanted to help and repay a debt, but he was really in no position to do so. He had been given a new life, but couldn't really find a justification for it. He had an equally conflicted relationship to his wife; a sense of obligation and responsibility but he wanted to be more than a sperm donor. He wasn't without appreciation for the care she invested in him, but there was something twisted about her motivation. His life seems like this completely meaningless shambles of obligations and responsibilities met with impotence fired with good intentions. He seemed to be of modest talent but incapable of really doing anything that gave him any satisfaction.
One really has to ponder whether his whole life couldn't be measured by his final act. There has been plenty of talk on this board using the word suicide, but only a superficial mind could find that in what the film gives. Whether or not he died with the gunshot doesn't seem to me to be a part of his motivation or action. He wasn't thinking about himself at all. It was rather something else. He was as powerless at that moment to help her as he had been at any other time. He knew that this revenge thing she was on wouldn't bring her the relief that she sought, and furthermore, there was a good chance that it would bring considerable trouble after, but he was impotent to deter her. It is for this reason that earlier while she slept, he faked the murder, and told her he had done it. He knew it wouldn't bring anything but hardship for her. And now here she was bludgeoning this guy (to death) and he was in such bad shape physically that he couldn't stop her from doing it. He fires a shot into his shoulder, IMO, as a diversionary act - independent of the consequences to himself. It was the only way he could stop her. He gave her a bigger problem to worry about. It worked. It not only stopped her from killing this guy (which, by the way is what he, "Jack" (Del Toro), wanted as well - so he wasn't going to stop her), but the tragedy caused her to change her entire attitude towards life, Jack and everything else. The last scene we see of her, she is in her last trimester with "Paul's" (Penn) baby serenely contemplating. It also had a therapeutic effect on Jack. In perhaps one of the most dramatic wordless scenes in film, they exchange glances at the hospital. And through what arises from what passes between them they are allowed to go on with their lives.
(PRN) – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=id-bFpYQzXE
How could not feel sorry for a dying man? I loved Penn's character, he was kind of a bastard, but at the same time I felt sorry for him because he was an ill man and he was vulnerable. If you pick a character not to like pick the character that Benicio del Toro played.
sharespot on, mate (simplypm2004)!
the first posts i read here made me wanting to make some points however you said it all better and in more detail than i could.
Penn's extremely good actor and this role was a very good fit for his specific strenghts.. and no, he is not selfish at all. just remember how he stops Watts when she goes down on him to tell he's got her husband's heart just because he wanted to be honest with her. he's completely lost.
thanks god this movie doesn't have a narrative, adds a great deal of depth and realism.
as to the guys annoyed by Watts I would disagree as well -- I used to dislike her but I'll have to admit she's a decent actor and this is the first movie I've got a real sympathy for her.
------------
23
This movie would have easily been on my Top-10 list but for this character who eventually turned out to alter my whole opinion on it. It's weird cause although I didn't expect from myself to be able to show feelings of "sympathy" (ok, sorta) towards Jack Gordon, I did manage to, albeit his horrible crime of running over three people due to reckless driving AND abandoning them. And to my utter surprise, Paul Rivers who wasn't responsible for something as bad as that, was a mere annoying character to me;
First of all, this guy gave me the impression of a badass and I don't think that his character changed with his health condition. He seemed to me like these unpleasant dudes who only have bitter feelings and sarcastic remarks for everyone and everything. He has a bad attitude towards his wife (who was actually taking care of him) and ends up cheating on her and breaking her heart and he doesn't even seem to give a damn about his child.
Ok, so let's say that Paul wants to express his gratitude to the donor's widow. Wanting to thank someone for saving your life is one thing and stalking them is a different thing (Especially when he knows what she's going through, the wiser thing to do would be to thank her, write her a letter or whatever and then leave her alone!) And doing so by using cheesy phrases to attract their attention and get them to bed -while totally "forgetting" that the initial point of this quest was to, um, thank them- is at least ridiculous. And to be honest, naive, for a movie like this. Oh and by the way, old fashioned chivalry and the stereotype of the weak, helpless woman and the man who adopts the role of the protector (and in this case also avenger) tends to be cheesy.Very very cheesy. My guess would be that a woman who has lost her husband and two little daughters in a car accident, is driven enough to take her revenge on her own without needing the help of some random guy. And I really can't see how can an innovative director like Innaritu include such a cheap cliche in his movie.
In addition to all this, the fact that Paul pretends to have killed the guy and lies to Christina, which doesn't make any sense at all. It wasn't his business anyway but since he chose to be assigned with this duty, he should carry it out or back off. But no, he had to make up stories again...
Yes, sorry for being harsh, but from a ceratin point I didn't really care anymore if he would live or die as well.
Penn gave a great performance. It's weird to judge a movie like this, which is not a conventional romance, on whether you like a character who is clearly not intended to be very attractive. Dude drives a Saturn, after all.
One key to his character is what he provides to Del Toro's, a Jesus Freak who has stopped believing in Jesus. At the moment Penn shoots himself in the shoulder, Del Toro sees his feet, mutilated by broken glass on the carpet, and equates them with Christ's stigmata. For Del Toro, it's is the equivalent of Jesus entering his life to save him, and it restores his faith. That Penn is a very imperfect figure is fully in line with general Catholic, or Christian, doctrine that Christ enters our lives in strange and unpredictable ways.
Any 9 year old from Mexico (or any other Catholic county) would pick up that blindingly obvious visual reference. I expect most Americans (of which I'm one) who watch movies like this one would be like, huh? What's a sigmatata? And those who would catch the reference mostly don't go to movies like this. Weird.
I was completely under the impression that the baby was her late husband's. It was implied that Paul could not conceive normally and their sex scene showed only oral sex. She also expressed how life would have been worth living if one of her daughters had lived, so she got her wish in a roundabout way.
I think Penn played his character exactly as he should have. Very few movies haunt me for days and make me dream about them. This one did. The main reason was the performances. There was a lot of pain and anguish going on with hidden demons galore. You felt it all.
Paul's wife could not conceive normally because of the abortion that she had. She had aborted Paul's baby without even telling him. Cristina tells Paul the night she called him that she hadn't talked to anyone in months. If she had been pregnant, she would have known it at that time. The baby is Paul's.
shareExcellent post and analysis. Really, very well said. I love that Del Toro and Watts' characters share that brief moment near the end, it encapsulates so much of the film's intent.
sharepenn is great in this. he's not a politician trying to get the audience to 'like him', he portrays this character truthfully like bold actors do.
Key to winning baseball games? Pitching, fundamentals, and three run homers.-Earl Weaver
His charcter's smoking before and after the transplant was ridiculous. Surely the hospital would have screened him for nicotine before using a valuable heart on him. Then he had the nerve to smoke afterwards.
shareI didn't like how he cheated on/treated his girlfriend, other than that I quite liked him, I don't know why. Interestingly I felt that way when I saw it a few years ago, I was a teen then and had a silly crush on Seasn Penn lmao. Since then I've seen a close friend's marriage destroyed by cheating so I have a much worse hatred for cheaters now, even fictional ones. I might watch it again and see what I think of him now I'm more mature.
shareI have read where transplant recipients acquire traits and preferences from their organ donors, often suddenly liking a food that they hated before or the like. With Cristina's husband's heart beating inside of him, Paul couldn't help but be attracted to her.
shareI liked Penn's character, it was very human. I liked the fact he wasn't capable of killing that guy. It shows strength in my book, not weakness.
His wife however was a selfish ******, wanting a kid like a trophy. Wanting it regardless of what penn thought (or what the unborn kid would think when he grew up)
I think all 3 leading roles did a good job.
well since you're naked you might as well f___ a friend of mine. Paul come in here!
[deleted]
[deleted]
Paul was a jerk at times when it came to his wife, especially when he just disappeared to be with Cristina for days on end. But I agree with a previous poster that Mary's (his wife) motivations were twisted. She'd had an abortion without telling him, but I got the impression that the baby hadn't been Paul's anyway. Since he had cheated on her with his students, I assumed Mary had cheated as well, and a pregnancy resulted from it.
In the end, they were only staying together out of obligation to each other; Mary for the baby she wanted, and Paul out of gratitude for her care for him. They didn't love each other, and it was obvious.