...in the climactic scene when they meet again and Beth recognizes her as the one who cut her off. Beth's sheer anger and frustration in that scene as she's hitting Diana's truck with the telescope is so powerful. We know what they've both been through, as we've watched, but Beth's circumstances, to me, seem more dire, and completely justify her rage in that scene. Diana's nonchalantness just irritated me.
The movie was a study in who deserved the nod as having the upper moral hand. Perhaps while Beth was giving Diana's car a good whacking Diana did deserve it, poetically speaking anyway. However, at the point that Beth lost it and claimed that Diana was totally at fault for ruining her whole day was where things changed. There was nothing in Diana's behavior that made her deserve to be the victim of a murder attempt. I may have wanted to slap Diana too, but nothing more. Beth also may have not deserved to be killed either but she made a huge mistake by trying to approach Diana's overturned car with her in it. One shouldn't try to approach such another one at such a point.
shareBeth also may have not deserved to be killed either but she made a huge mistake by trying to approach Diana's overturned car with her in it. One shouldn't try to approach such another one at such a point.
But Beth shouldn't have approached Diana's car? Disagree fully here. There was no way Beth knew that Diana has an antique gun with her and what I found most ironic and heart-wrenching was Beth was trying to help.
I believe Moviegoer Dan nailed it. Personally, having lived in L.A. for nearly 20 years, I could see myself in both women's shoes all too easily. The viewer knows about both women and what has happened--but the individual characters do not know anything about each other. That's why it would be perfectly natural for Diana to be terrified of Beth. She doesn't know what all has happened to Beth that day! Of course, we know that Beth has just had the worst day anyone could imagine. So you can feel for her, too, and I agree with Dan's assessment of her epiphany at the end.
Seriously, anyone could be in either character's shoes. I think that's the point.
That said, the first time I saw this (I just watched it for the second time), I did feel it was really unfair for Diana to have lived. But upon reflection, I realized that my feeling that way was a self-protective reaction. I could easily have been Diana. I lived in that kind of high-pressure career and lifestyle. From a distance, it's easy to see how superficial her world is. But when you live and work in the entertainment industry (a la her ad agency), you know that it is such a self-absorbed and self-important industry where ridiculously intense pressure is put on everyone. Someone said something about Diana's job being one where she could be late and it'd be OK. That's just not necessarily true.
Personally, I think (hope) the filmmakers want you to empathise with both women, so you will pause and take a breath next time your hectic life makes you forget about your own actions and the consequences for them.
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I kind of did.
shareI wanted to slap her a few times....especially when she told Beth to move her car anyway and she didn't car if her car was stalled....I wanted to slap her when she told her daughter she couldn't get a last minute baby sitter to stay home with her when we all knew fully well she was old enough to stay home by herself....I figured it out, that her daughter may have started her period for the first time and all she wanted was her mom...but Diana was just too "busy" to take time out for her own flesh and blood. Work was more important...whiched pissed me off even more because her dead-beat husband was a lazy ass and wouldn't get off his butt and work. Sadly it had to come to her accident for him to realize he needed to support his family because his wife now disabled.
shareScott was in no way a dead beat! First of all, he was busy trying to get work, and he eventually did get the job that he was interviewing for, from the golfing interview for the new head of research at the software company. Remember, he wanted a second printout of the ultrasound, to pin it up "at work?" It wasn't Diana's road rage incident that woke him up, things had just been hard for him lately, a high level individual who was overqualified for much of what he was interviewing for, even Diana had earlier pointed that out. His investing strategy of purchasing antique guns and reselling them for a huge profit showed that he was trying to get things moving.
What was on Breanna's mind we never do specifically find out about but it may have, as you hypothesize, been her first onset of menarche. Diana DID try to help her daughter, Bree just wouldn't speak up at first, and then later there were the tons of cell phone reception problems that prevented the mother and daughter from hooking up.
The movie began with Diana's being the only one available to make a living for her family, and she and her loving husband had a ton of bills to pay at the time. That didn't mean that she was all work and inattentive to her family, she was usually right there when there were troubles. I do posit the possibility that she was just so busy that her children were feeling distant from her and weren't speaking up and were possibly acting out, as happened with Nate.
For sure! Pretty much throughout the whole movie she constantly honked at people & acted like the only thing that mattered was her & where she was going. Well, the ending says it all.
shareWhat I didn't like about Diana was her condescending treatment of Beth, calling her "sweetheart" when Beth told her that her car was stalled. I thought Diana was a real b****! When Beth started beating her car with that telescope, I laughed like crazy and yelled "You go girl!"
shareYes, Diana was rude, but she should have kicked the sh!t out of Diana for pounding her vehicle like that.
shareI didn't want to slap Diana; I wanted to run over her.
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