When her husband was severely abusing their son, she still chose to stay with him but the moment he shags a student, she chooses to leave him? WTF! So adultery was a bigger crime to her than child abuse?
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Well, he was never THAT physically abusive. He never properly hit his son or beat him up. He was very emotionally abusive, and that punishment with the paint cans was horrible. But, I've heard of much, much worse (physical) abuse.
Besides, it's difficult to leave someone over emotional abuse. Justification, rationalisation and normalisation (and a bunch of other stuff) keeps people tied together - even if it's patently obvious they shouldn't be.
Shya83, it's horribly misguided of you to suggest that physical abuse is somehow much more damaging than emotional abuse. I suffered both as a child, and although the physical stuff was awful beyond belief, it is the emotional abuse that has scarred me most - and still affects me to this day (I am now in my thirties). All kinds of abuse - physical, sexual, emotional, and neglect - should be seen as equally damaging to children. Failure to do so only results in the continuation of abuse cycles.
shareSorry, that wasn't my intention. I was trying to explain the mindset of Julia Robert's character - which apparently did not view or fully realise the impact of her husband's emotional and physical abuse on their son. I agree that emotional abuse has far more lasting effects - something I can personally understand. But most people, like Julia Robert's character, are not even aware of the damage of such behaviour, and the actions of emotional abusers are often rationalised away.
No worries, sorry if I misinterpreted what you were saying - I guess it's a pretty sensitive and thorny issue. It's definitely as you say, that it is not taken as seriously as physical or sexual abuse - and it can be a lot more insidious and harder to pin down, with negative messages reinforced over time. And yes, excuses are made for the abuser, or their behaviour is somehow assimilated and even tolerated as "normal" after a while. The family's model of normality becomes warped until practically unrecognisable to an outsider.
So we can look at this family and say how shocking, how did the Julia Roberts character put up with the husband's abuse of the son, why did she not leave him? But it wasn't like he suddenly woke up one day and had turned into this monster. It took years of escalation to reach the point where we saw them - like brainwashing - like erosion. It doesn't mean they (the mother and son) were HAPPY about the situation, or didn't hate and resent him, or feel trapped. Only, that they had been ground down, and down, and down, until this was the life they accepted, this was normality, keep your head down, do as he says, walk on eggshells, try not to do anything to anger him, keep quiet, let him get his own way, for the family's sake, for a quiet life.
It's easier to slip into than you think. And the damage lasts a lifetime.
I agree with you. That was stupid. I asked the same question in another thread. She just stands by and lets her husband abuse the son she supposedly loves. This whole movie is very confusing.
shareYes! Finally someone besides me found that disturbing. The whole time watching that movie I felt like Julia Roberts character was the true monster. As a mother I couldn't fathom watching my husband abuse my son and doing nothing but "comfort" him AFTER the fact.
shareAs a mom, I found her character very disturbing. I'd have packed up my kid and left that sadistic SOB in a heartbeat, and I certainly wouldn't have had any more kids with him.
I commented to my husband, when she said "I love you big," that she didn't love him enough to protect him from that abusive bastard.
If you're too old to cut the mustard, you can always lick the jar.
PopperTheFeistyPenguin^
Agree with your comments.
"We would have been fine, if there hadn't been any.....mess"
Julia Roberts's character was really really bad, the worst of the movie
shareI'm glad others thought that too.
The way the mom let her husband dump her son out in the rain (granted, he ran off but still she didn't demand he stop & go back!)
That paint can thing was pure sadism. She sees her son soaked in sweat after her husband locks her out of the garage, yet she never confronts her husband?!!
The son deserved punishment, but good God, that was evil.
To play devil's advocate, that son was quite a nasty brat in his own right.
There was no need for him to pretend he lost his glasses....so why did he do that?
He started a fight for nothing.
Then he makes a big production of writing a poem, wins an award, and humiliates his dad for no reason??
Did he really think that at least someone in a roomful of college professors wouldn't recognize the poem?!
I'd say this cloud is Cumulo Nimbus.
Didn't he discover America?
Penfold, shush.
If you ask this question, you know nothing about real life, wich is often more brutal, more then this movie. Man or Women can get lost in the psycological effects one person might have on the other, friends, husbands and wifes, relatives, we all can get enslaved by, basiclly a stong minded person that is not emotional stabil or comfortable. One person not feeling good can put familes in a cage. Im happy for you not having experience of it but let me tell you. all posters here that thinking this is unrealistic, or that Julias character was a bad person, i think its very common, and the right thing to do in reality isnt as easy to navigate when it isnt watched on a movie screen. Whats wrong and right isnt as easy, if your under the psycological effect of a stong minded abuser.
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