MovieChat Forums > The Dark Hours (2005) Discussion > Interpretation of the beginning (spoiler...

Interpretation of the beginning (spoilers)

posted 18 years ago by edtgerf
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Here are the oddities, I think, at the beginning. I think they have a lot more to do with what's goin on than the ending, or the weird middle.

She has too many tracer marks to have just started treatment. The day before this, she had been consoled by the older doctor for having been diagnosed (which inicates it is a recent event). The timeline is ambiguous as to when these things started.

Her phone call with her husband, is very odd/hallucinagenic. Also, at this time she seems to react to him joking about being around her sister, and about inviting her sister along on a just-them Vegas trip. This is the first note about her sister, and includes hints about the three-way relationship.

The patient she reviews is not guarded/controlled at all, and is in street clothes. Also, her questions are f'd up, as is indicated by the older doctor the next day.

She hears sounds simliar to the "mice" as early as the diner scene, as well as rhythmic sounds (clock, clinking the coin).

[–] jonthecelt 18 years ago

Taking these one at a time...

She's been taking the drug for two years, rather than only starting recently. As she says later in the film, she used Harlan to find the right dosage to control the tumour, and then began to use it herself (she upped the dosage when the tumour stopped responding to the medication).

One of the symptoms of a brain tumour is often hallucination/misplaced sensory stimuli. I took the appearance of her husband in the office with her, and the lipstick references, to be the onset of an increasingly malign tumour.

A patient who is up for review, because they are claiming to be cured, is not going to be under heavy sedation or closely guarded. Also, not all institutions insist on the inmates wearing a uniform or hospital gown. The clothes they are entitled to wear would depend a lot on their state of mind - a patient who is a danger to himself and others obviously would have all means of causing harm taken from him, including belt and shoelaces.

Her questinos are not necessarily f'd up, but her giving the rest of the board her assesment in front of the patient is definitely outside the bounds of normal professional behaviour. This is why she is reprimanded by her superior and given the weekend off.

I didn't notice the 'mice' sound in the diner, and thought that all the sounds she DID hear were accounted for by a corresponding visual, to show where the sound is coming from. Again, sensory misinformation/hallucination is a symptom of the tumour, rather than the medication, so I just took this as her illness taking a greater toll on her health due to the added stress.

jonthecelt