Disgusted (Spoilers)

Oh, please....she was a slut who wasn't above using an old man for gifts and loving the attention he gave her. As far as her being a teenager, she had already been engaged and had an abortion...I'd rather see her with an old man who loved her and would watch out for her than the young scum bag who was just using her for sex. I don't know where you're from, but in the states 18 is legal age and she definatly was at least that. I don't mean to sound crazed, but I just had one hell of a night and I'm on my third glass of wine...lol.

The character Jesse is 20. I loved the film and found in moving and is actually my favorite movie of this decade (oh and since age seems to be important I am 19 and saw it when I was 18)


Oh and your age does not change how you take this film, who you are changes how you take this film.

Save Darfur

I watched this movie over the weekend. I've been ill and fell asleep the first time, so I played it again the next day. I find it one of the best films I have seen in a long time. There was an actual story there.

One thing I think most of the posters here have missed is Maurice's true interest in Jesse, which is the title of the film. Maurice was an intellectual, and an actor, an artist. I don't think it was so much him being in love with Jesse, but him relating symbolic images to a real life situation. He was fascinated with Jesse's youth, and the idyllic female form life had not yet spoiled. You might call it infatuation, but I think Maurice was well past those fantasies. I don't think he expected anything from her. Just to be near her gave him a taste of youth in his old age, when his days, quite literally were numbered. She cast light on an old man's dim future.

As for Jesse, if anyone was a user, it was she. She sends Maurice out for a walk, so she can roll in his bed with her low-life boyfriend. She woos him into buying her a tattoo. But, in the end, she is redeemed. She learns something about compassion, about caring for someone. Maurice taught her that by being "nice to her." He also gave her confidence in herself. Notice the difference in her first posing for the artists, and the last.

I'm really surprised that not one poster in this thread "got it." Jesse's final scene posing and the painting of Venus looking at herself in the mirror, held by the cherub, explains so much about what the film was telling us. As an old man, Maurice was once again made innocent. He was Jesse's cherub, holding the mirror for her. And Jesse was made into a goddess, despite the blows life had given her, and her own youthful arrogance.

There was a lot to like in this film. Take the montage of the ride to the sea for one example. And at the sea, the scene mirrors the painting over Maurice's toilet. The director keeps pointing out the art of the thing, but maybe viewers need to have lived a little longer than 17 years to see it. What about the fight with Ian? That sprung out of jealousy, not so much of the attention of a young girl towards an old man, but that Maurice still could see some value and beauty in life. All Ian did was complain about old age.

How about Maurice taking a punch at the low-life boyfriend? There was jealousy involved there, too, but not what one might think. The boyfriend had no idea about life, about just what good fortune he had being young. It was the kid who was perverse, not the old man. It was gratifying to see Maurice throw those punches, and it was telling of Jesse that she came back. Her conscience finally started to develop. It's sad to me that most of what is supposedly so "disgusting," blinds people to the beautiful.