Watched it last night, and I despise Dean more and more. He had a great setup; pretty, professional, and mature wife, great kid, etc. All he had to do was cover his end. Hell, even if he quit the job and became a househusband who cooked and cleaned, even that would've been better than the pseudo-adolescent life he was living!
Amy: I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
Shhhhh, dean is a saint on these boards, don't ya know ;)
shareDean "covered his end" by holding a job and by being a good father. He loved Cindy and I'm sure grew frustrated knowing that she could never love him like he loved her.
shareSaw this movie last night. Been thinking about it off and on. The "live up to your potential" conversation was quite similar to one I had some time ago - I was on the "Dean" side. Apparently, it's critical to some women that their significant other have drive, ambition, purpose, etc. Not sure if this is peculiar to straight women, or if it applies to gay or bi women, although it probably doesn't matter. At any rate, just looking at the historical facts of the relationship (as shown in the film) it's difficult for me to sympathize with Cindy. Yes, Dean drank - probably to excess. Yet his drinking wasn't shown to negatively affect his relationship with either Cindy or Frankie. He worked, made it to Frankie's "Yankee Doodle Dandy" concert, suggested a date night. Early in the timeline he got beat up, met Cindy's argumentative family, and stepped up to be a father/husband. Yet later in the film, Cindy's coworkers & father act concerned for her every time Dean comes around, as if he's some sort of Jekyll & Hyde character. Not saying he's perfect, but dang!
shareYet later in the film, Cindy's coworkers & father act concerned for her every time Dean comes around, as if he's some sort of Jekyll & Hyde character. Not saying he's perfect, but dang!
Well said.
Also, I think Cindy's imploring Dean to "be a man" was a challenge. Why hasn't he done more with his abilities? He had serious joie-de-vivre when they first met. She must've felt he'd become more...
The main issue I have (admittedly based on personal observation & experience) is how a woman so nonchalantly dismisses a man once she's bored.
Ryan Gosling on the question that Cianfrance was trying to ask in the movie: "What happens to love? Where does it go? He treats it like a murder-mystery. This couple’s beautiful love has been shot down in cold blood, and you spend the rest of the film trying to trace down the killer: is it him, her, their jobs, the parents, money, time, erosion? Whodunnit?"
My feeling is the opposite, and would say the person to despise is Cindy. I agree that he could've had more ambition in the career department. But he was a good father and raising the girl from the get go as his own even though he wasn't the biological father. He also made an effort in their marriage time and time again, while she was the one who kept rejecting him. Yeah, he got drunk but he never beat her or anything, and he was probably drinking because she keeps pushing him away.
shareb530 - yeah, his drinking isn't explored. T he physical rejection he endured could've played a part.
shareIts not what he did but how he behaved, plain and simple. He just needed to grow up more and stop being so needy and LISTEN to what she needed from the start.
Ashmi any question
What? She never once tried to open up to him. Did you even see the film?
shareWe saw the beginning and we saw the end. Nothing in between. When she says that she can't take it anymore, I got the feeling that he had not been the easiest to live with the whole time.
🐈 Rachel
I agree -- there's clearly a lot that has gone on in the in between. He's defensive, while she's critical and has clearly pulled away. The things I focused on from the get-go were the parenting roles the two of them played, and how he pushes her to do the things he wants.
People here comment that Dean is a great father, and he is, sort of. He interacts with and engages his daughter (or step-daughter, if you want to see it that way), and he really has fun with her. That's a good thing, but he takes it to such an extreme that he undermines Cindy's efforts to set reasonable rules with the girl. He's like a goofy and indulgent older brother, rather than an authority figure, and he ends up undermining Cindy's relationship with Frankie, with the two of them allies against the only responsible person in the family. That would rankle me big time if I were in Cindy's position (and the movie makes it evident that this is a big problem).
Then there's his constant pushing things on her over her protests, whether it's getting her out of bed, or going off for an evening at a sex hotel, or even having sex. Maybe that pattern was established early in their relationship, with him pushing her a little to do things that she was reluctant to do, like dancing, but by the end it was long past the time when it was an effective way for Dean to relate to her. With this sort of pushing past and discounting her desires I can see why her co-worker, having heard complaints from her side of the relationship, might say, "Don't let him brainwash you!"
I think Cindy was in love with him at some point but didn't love him. Not enough, anyway.
shareHouse husbands dont last very long.
shareI understand your claim but in my opinion, the movie did not show enough of their current life for me to deem Dean's existence as "pseudo-adolescent". As far as what we see and hear in the movie, Dean paints houses and enjoys getting drunk. That's obviously not the most attractive job in the world and a drinking problem is NEVER cool, but in my opinion as a viewer, we were not shown enough of their day-to-day lives.
share