People seem eager to justify Mia's outrageous behavior. I'm particularly referring to her kidnapping, traumatizing and almost killing an innocent child. If a male protagonist exhibited the same behavior, he'd most certainly be condemned as a monster.
Isn't it a bit sexist and condescending to assume that females lack moral agency?
I agree, everyone on this board is slagging off Connor, but Mia herself is no saint. She stole from Connor before she even got to know him, and even pestered him at work to get money off him, and of course the incident with his child. She did nothing to resist his advances, and even though she was technically underage, it's not like she was an undeveloped pre-teen. She was mature enough to fight him off and was far from an innocent victim.
I'm a Creationist. And an Evolutionist. Sue me.
Not innocent, but certainly still a victim. And what she did with the child was an accident. Had she meant to hurt the little girl, she would have, certainly wouldn't have tried to do anything to help her. To me, it's almost as if she didn't really know what her own intentions actually were, just to strike back at Conor, who most assuredly deserved being responded to in some way for his very adult behavior. Of the two of them, he's still the way bigger scumbag. In fact, Mia doesn't even rate.
Chick
She was mature enough to fight him off and was far from an innocent victim.
Mia is a lost, young girl who hasn't a clue and makes some mistakes
Venables and Thompson tortured and murdered a tiny boy and noone here has made excuses for them
Mia's actions were contemptible, but of course Connor's actions were worse. He knowingly targeted a minor and her mother sexually knowing they were both vulnerable, and deliberately endangered Mia by encouraging her to join the sex trade.
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I think his actions were worse because they were premeditated. He went and slept with a vulnerable mother and child knowing his actions would have a disastrous effect on them and encouraged mia to become a stripper.
Noone's endorsing Mia's actions - arguably she should have answered for her actions in a court of law as should Connor. But her actions weren't premeditated and she stopped when she realised the child could get hurt.
The age of consent is 15 in your country? That's far too young for a 35 year old man.
Well I disagree with it being premeditaded. In my view he was trying to act as a parent to the girls. In fact he was doing a much better job than the mother. Then once he noticed that Mia was interested in him, he did a despicable thing and took advantage of it. But did anyone really get hurt? We heard the mother say on the phone that he, like all men, are only good for one thing, so I don't think she got very hurt. And all Mia got was her heart broken. It almost seemed to me the family was in better condition at the end of the movie than in the beginning.
Btw is it made clear that he knows that the add for talended dancers was in fact for strippers? I mean, I sure didn't get that until she got to the audition. Are you sure he wasn't just encouraging her to follow her dream of being a dancer?
I think the reason the mother said those things about Connor was to brush off something the person on the other side of the phone had said about her falling for Connor because before then she was talking about how when she saw him she knew there was something different about him. I think this is a defense mechanism she resorts to frequently because of all the scumbags she frequently encounters in her life.
shareI had the very same impression.
Also, lol no he was not like a father to Mia. He had been mildly flirting with her all along. I wouldn't say that sleeping with her was premeditated, I believed him when he said he was pissed and the thing could have been avoided, but he had encouraged her all along. Not necessarily for sex, but he clearly basked in her attraction to him.
there's a highway that is curling up like smoke above her shoulder
This age of consent thing crops up all the time, at the age of 14 you can have consensual sex in Germany yet they heavily censor video game and movie violence. Many european countries have 15 as the age of consent.
Had the police caught Connor they would have charged him with statutory rape, which doesn't come with a very long prison sentence.
Kidnapping on the other hand, in the UK, is an indictable offense which means there is no upper limit for the judge when giving a sentence. In the eyes of the law at least, Kidnapping is by far the more 'wrong' thing to do.
IMO, Mia was by far and away the more criminal and immoral of the two, committing kidnapping, breaking and entering, actual bodily harm and thievery.
Although she was a product of a terrible upbringing, that is never an excuse for committing these acts and she would be sent to a borstal, not a referral unit, if the police ever found out.
Statutory rape and kidnapping are both disgusting crimes. Both Connor and Mia harmed a child.
I believe courts would conclude Mia's actions were mitigated on grounds of diminished responsibility; that a psychiatric report would conclude she suffered from mental health problems. As Connor did not appear to be so mitigated in his actions (and as he took advantages of a far younger and more vulnerable individual in a calculated way), I see his actions as being the more repugnant of the two.
Isn't it beautiful? You're all bringing up great points about the morals in the movie. You've noticed that both characters are flawed. They both care enough to be genuinely nice at times, though selfish enough to allow others to be harmed.
I agree that the family seems better off in the end. I think the kidnapping scene is incredibly alarming to an adult, but to a the teenager who isn't limited by a fear of responsibility, the danger doesn't cross her mind. She doesn't have the capacity to understand what the situation must be like for the little girl and assumes that everyone must be like her. In conclusion, everyone got a little hurt but no one died.
That's a very nice explanation. Although kidnapping is worse as a crime, the thing is that Mia committed it under intense psychological distress, and on the background of a terrible upbringing and terrible family relations (her mother was abusing her the whole time, and Connor had been the first family-like creature to warm up her house). Connor, on the other hand, looked like a healthy individual, and being drunk is hardly an excuse for using an emotionally frail teenager as a sex object (the way he talked to her during sex!...).
Sleeping with the mother was one thing (not that hiding his marital status had been a decent thing to begin with), she was a grown woman who could tell between sex and emotional involvement. Sure it still hurt her when he left, but she knew how to deal with it - a little crying and everything would be ok.
Mia on the other hand had just begun her sex life (whether she was a virgin when she slept with him or not), and sleeping with him had a very strong effect on her. Even he realises that what he had done was BAD, which was why he vanished immediately afterwards. And Mia didn't know how to cope with it. This is exactly why such situations are described as (statutory) rape - while the intercourse may be consensual, the young person is likely less able to cope emotionally with the consequences of the act, and the thing can easily become an *emotional* rape.
And to the OP - I am pretty sure that if Mia had been a boy I wouldn't have had any less understanding for him. Boys can be emotionally frail too, their emotions can also be abused.
there's a highway that is curling up like smoke above her shoulder
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I agree. She was a pretty bad character. For a while I was scared that the film was going to turn into Fatal Attraction.
😎
"I Am the FBI."
I meant physically mature. I'm pretty sure a well placed slap/kick/punch would have thrown Connor off her, but she did nothing to resist. But I agree that her actions before and after sleeping with Connor were not [mentally and emotionally] mature at all.
I'm a Creationist. And an Evolutionist. Sue me.
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You brought up good points. You can't get through to these people -- they're arguments are flawed and they will always fail to realize it because they're biased or make ignorant assumptions. You said brought up everything I was thinking.
shareshe's 15 and highly emotional.. there is a reason teens aren't and should not be tried as adults. if the character was male i'd feel the same. i don't see the point in a gender debate here. but sure, she shouldn't get a pass because she's female, but because she's an adolescent.
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I'm not aware of the movie where a 15-year-old boy kidnaps a little girl, returns her unharmed (but wet) and is then condemned as a monster. Please tell me which movie this is.
Janet! Donkeys!
I'm not aware of the movie where a 15-year-old boy kidnaps a little girl, returns her unharmed (but wet) and is then condemned as a monster. Please tell me which movie this is.
I am really getting tired of the gender card being brought up all the time during these discussions. In the 70s, 80s and 90s, it was the feminists whining all the time. Now, in the internet age, it is the men's rights crowd showing up in every discussion. I find both groups childish and deplorable. Some people from both sides have legitimate arguments, but then the rest are just bitter that they can't find mates, so they spend their days blaming the opposite sex for everything, instead of acting like adults and improving themselves.
If you are going to start a gender war under every discussion, at least make sure it was triggered by something real that was actually said somewhere. I don't recall anybody saying Mia is entirely innocent, but you are crazy to not acknowledge how Connor is more guilty, being the adult. I find your op comment and the comment from the guy directly under your first comment, both so deplorable that I don't know where to begin. Connor was a good father to these girls? It makes me cringe hearing that. He was perverted and creepy.
British people must be different from Americans when it comes to modesty (I thought they were similar), but in America, a grown man taking off a 15 year old girl's pants when he puts her to bed, is very weird and unacceptable behavior. People on here are commenting on how "nice and fatherly" it was of him , as if that was even necessary for him to do, which really concerns me. He wasn't taking her pants off to save her life. He wasn't helping a five year old girl who wet her pants before going to bed (although as a mother, I would definitely have an issue with a man, who is not her father, doing that to my five year old daughter without coming to get me first since I am just downstairs). Really, what was the point of taking Mia's pants off? Just put her on the bed fully clothed. She is old enough to wake up and take care of herself if her pants get uncomfortable.
The spanking scene is self explanatory. I shouldn't have to address that. But let's move onto the younger daughter. There is an off camera conversation where Connor is brushing his teeth or shaving, and the younger daughter needs to go in there and use the bathroom and Connor tells her to go ahead and go because he won't look. I found that very disturbing. How old was she? 10? Don't give me this garbage about how if she isn't a teenager yet, it is fully innocent. People who don't respect the modesty of children are insane and I am surprised about the amount of people even in America that find that okay. Most kids develop a sense of modesty around opposite sex adults when they are five or six. Seven or eight if it is an opposite sex parent. Connor should have left the bathroom.
Connor did plenty of other perverted and weird things, but all that aside, HE was the adult here. Nobody is saying Mia is innocent, but these men's rights posters who commented above are going so far to say Mia is equally guilty if not more so. Are you guys nuts?
I am really getting tired of the gender card being brought up all the time during these discussions. In the 70s, 80s and 90s, it was the feminists whining all the time. Now, in the internet age, it is the men's rights crowd showing up in every discussion. I find both groups childish and deplorable. Some people from both sides have legitimate arguments, but then the rest are just bitter that they can't find mates, so they spend their days blaming the opposite sex for everything, instead of acting like adults and improving themselves.
What I find interesting is that no one talks about her mother, an obvious selfish *beep*
share