MovieChat Forums > Le scaphandre et le papillon (2008) Discussion > It's difficult for me to distinguish the...

It's difficult for me to distinguish the women characters in this movie?


I know there are tow doctors,a wife,a mistress,a secretary who help him to write down his words,and a classical beauty.The problem is that they all look similar to me.

What do you think?

BTW, I am an Asian. Some people in my contry also think it's difficult to distinguish.

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I kept getting mixed up between the guy in the wheelchair and Max Von Sydow's son. Thank God one of them was in a wheelchair or I'd have been lost completely.

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[deleted]

What an absurd thing to say. The double standard here is entirely in your head. You've taken a perfectly innocuous remark and tured it into something it's not. For why, I don't know.

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I rarely had trouble telling them apart. I thought Henriette was the prettiest, though.

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They were hard to distinguish in the book too, and you couldn't even see them, haha.

kierstin-happyphotos.blogspot.com

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It's difficult for me to distinguish the women characters in this movie?"

I don't know, is it? How should I know what's hard for you to distinguish?

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I agree. Why couldn't the director cast women who don't look so similar?

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I had the same problem. Only after reading some messages here did I understand the scene where his ex-wife is relaying a message between him and his current girlfriend.

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Not really. This didn't trip me up at all.

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On my first viewing of the movie, I had a problem distinguishing the women, but on the second viewing, I paid closer attention to how they were introduced and never had a problem identifying and tracking them throughout. Being able to do so GREATLY enhanced my emotional appreciation of the characters, their situations, and the movie in general.

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I think perhaps the "difficulty" in distinguishing them is that they are all somewhat similar-looking and approximately the same age.

There are five women (as I see it): the "wife"; the ex-girlfriend; two therapists; the transcriber.

Minor spoilers:

Each woman plays an important part in the protagonist's life; each of them "loves" him in varying degrees; he in turn loves and is sexually attracted to each of them.

Given the protagonist's extreme condition it is natural to assume a certain "blending" of their roles and even personalities.



War, one war after another,
Men start 'em who couldn't put up a good hen-roost.

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Many thanks to the OP for raising this question and to all the people who responded.

I'm American; I first saw this movie about 4 years ago and again tonight -- and I had some difficulty distinguishing between them and keeping straight who was who.

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I counted SIX beautiful women


4 blondish girls, ( speech therapist, occupational therapist,book transcriber, ex "wife")

2 brunettes (the empress, mistress)


Loved them all!

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