His love was shallow


He thought she was beautiful, like a statue, but had no interest in her beyond that decorative and flimsy attraction that make men move mountains for women, which is why when he came home with a frivolous, vapid, spoiled child, her looks could not save them. It was only later when he began to develop an interest in her and a curiosity about the complexities of her being that he began to truly love her.

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I completely agree. He was entranced with her. She was everything he wasn't, meaning his complete opposite and I think he inadvertently saw her as a challenge, the same way he saw cholera and medicine as a challenge. But only when his eyes are opened to her facets and complexities is when he begins to truly fall in love with her.

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If she was so "deep" why was SHE so easily fooled by her mere lover - Charlie Townsend?

She really wasn't worth wasting much time on probing her (mental) depths - at least as she was presented in the movie.

It was her "love" for her husband that was beyond shallow, initially - at first. She recognized that it was HIS love for her that was quite real all along, not the meaningless words of Charlie. Too bad she was such an idiot and basically threw away what could have been a good life for her and her children.

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Her being vapid doesn't change the fact that he was just as shallow and vapid. Now does it? The point is that he didn't even bother to look deeper. And if your argument is that she was shallow (which she was) and he knew it, then he is just as shallow for being attracted to her.

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You seem to miss the whole major point.

SHE cheated on him. He didn't cheat on her and wouldn't even have thought to try.

Because he really did love her - shallow or not.

Maybe you confuse "romantic/sexual inexperience" (which he definitely was) with "shallow?"

Also, apparently Kitty never thought Walter's love for her was shallow, in the least - else why would she have said to Charles, "He loves me," when her locked bedroom door handle turned during their last coupling?

Charles is the one who then alluded that just maybe Walter didn't really love her - while professing his own love. All lies, wasn't it? Rather despicable manipulative lies, actually. Now CHARLES was the shallow man - no doubt about it!

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You obviously missed MY point. I never excused her for cheating on him--in fact, I describe her exactly as she is. My post is about HIM, not about her. And I focused on him because most viewers would view him as noble, but my point is that he is shallow, too. He met her and "fell in love" based purely on her physical appearance. He cared nothing about getting to know her as a whole human being. How is that different from her falling for the flashy married man?

I'll never understand why people come on someone else's post to ramble about nonsense completely off topic.

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I'll never understand why people come on someone else's post to ramble about nonsense completely off topic.


You'll never understand why anyone might disagree with you?

Sorry, but I did and I do.

I WILL agree that Walter was a stupid man - when it comes to your idea of "real love" and his choice for a wife. But all he did was ask her - he didn't force her or even manipulate her with "shallow" romance words or actions. She said "yes" for her own shallow reasons. This I think we both agree on.

But I continue to disagree with your own characterization of his love for her initially or EVER as "shallow." How is it ever "shallow" if he was committed to her - and her alone - in the "love verse" kind of way? Maybe you think he should have accepted her own stupid actions in sleeping with another married man who WAS only using her for his own base needs/desires?

Again, if your own wife acts nothing but "shallow" after years together - how can a man somehow grow "deeper" feelings about her, anyway? Kitty faced the same conundrum with Charlie, as soon as his true shallow definition of "love" became known to her. Or do you think "hot sex" equals deeper love?

Walter merely was what he was and in my own opinion his love for Kitty grew not one whit because he "suddenly" got more interested in her "mind".

I just finished reading the book and there was a great deal difference between this movie and the book. So much so, I guess I need to really treat them as separate works. I had thought the book might provide more insight into this movie but it really doesn't because the script writers/director took it another way.

(E.g. - there WAS no romance/love reconciliation between Kitty and Walter in the book. Walter never touches her again and Kitty thinks often how just "unlovable" Walter is, even after he died. In fact, Kitty is the one unlovable and finally realizes that at the end of the book.)

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Walter was in love with her. He made the mistake of what many men of yesteryear (and today) make: "I'll do anything in my power to make you happy." Kitty fell in love with the man who didn't try to make her happy: Charlie, the suave sophisticate - glib, flirtatious, droll. Walter knew early on "You weren't the cleverest girl in the world" (saying bitterly after he confronts her about infidelity) so he didn't know any way to engage her and fulfill her -his intelligence obviously being higher than hers- other than to be nice to her: support her financially, play games with her (albeit reluctantly), make love to her in his unpolished eagerness (she as more sophisticated was not impressed). Notice he bought her a piano after she said "Dontcha have a piano?" I don't believe he would have ever been unfaithful to her - he had his work to escape to (actually compounding her frustrations) but in turn too he was not fulfilled with a true equal: ".... pretending I was as thrilled with you by the latest gossip ... as vulgar and uninformed in the world as you are".

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They hardly knew each other when the got married. She married him to get away from her mother. Not an excuse for cheating, it's just easy to understand why she fell for Charlie. She was a silly young woman.

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He says he knew she didn’t love him but that she would grow to. He was right.

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