Oh look yet another perverted old fart appears endearing to a young chick seeking safety, security, and to be rescued by her daddy. Were the boring flashbacks to how a pedophile met a young chick necessary? (Their relationship ends having a common outcome finally fast forwarding to where her life left off before it died and, makes for a semi-watchable movie).
shareJust realized that Alan Arkin is 53 years older than Blake Lively. Must be some kind of a record for an onscreen couple.
The flashbacks caught me by surprise, but they didn't really bother me that much. I definitely didn't experience Herb as a pedophile (he certainly wasn't introduced as one) or Pippa as someone who was pathologically seeking a father figure. I thought she stayed with him out of guilt, not just for his wife's suicide, but also for the way it echoed her own mother's death.
I do wonder how many actors born in the 1930s can brag about playing husbands/lovers to Robin Wright, Monica Bellucci, Blake Lively and Winona Ryder in a single movie.
I'll put my two cents in to agree with the OP. My first thought seeing them in the opening scene was Surely he's not supposed to be her husband...?
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"I'm sorry, but.." is a self-contained lie.
I watched this with my BF and it was almost embarrassing to watch with him, cause we have almost a 20 year age gap. I hope I'm not like that in my 40's/50's and stay with him only out of guilt but we DO have a relationship that works; Pippa and her husband were both cheaters and I think it had nothing to do with age disparity in why they broke up.
shareActually, the husband was neglecting his young wife to the point of cheating with Pippa, then on Pippa, followed by cheating with her young friend. He was clearly motivated by age disparity and self-denial ("I don't want to be old!").
Young women with much older men usually (not all) had a bad, tumultuous, or non-exitant relationship with their fathers as little girls, which supposedly keeps them in an "Electra complex" of some sort...seeing out a daddy figure, whether it forms a healthy relationship or not. However, Pippa had issues with her mother, so it made even less sense.
Ah well, boring movie...to me.
"Don't get chumpatized!" - The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters (2007)
His character was younger I guess, so I so nothing 'pedophile' about it. Do you really know what this word means?
shareAlso, Pippa was actually meant to be older - I imagined in her early to mid twenties (haven't read the book, so not sure on specifics) so paedophile is definitely not the right word...
The Herb Lee flashbacks didn't bother me at all. It actually gave me more insight as to how Pippa ended up with him and how they're relationship was based upon guilt and a need for a father figure/security which eventually, as we know, fell apart.
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