MovieChat Forums > Nymphomaniac: Vol. I (2014) Discussion > Liz (spoilers)

Liz (spoilers)

posted 9 years ago by UknAlias
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After rewatching the Director's Cut for a second time I noticed something about Liz.
When Jo finally got the courage to give Jerome the letter declaring her love of him; Liz stops her and tells her to wait until Friday because "he's always in a good mood on Fridays." When Friday comes and Jo still is adamant about giving him the letter, she finds his uncle there instead who informs her that he has left the country and married Liz.
Liz must have known that even then, Jerome was also in love with Jo. But with their "declaration of war" neither were willing to admit it. Not only to each other, but probably to themselves. When Liz saw Jo hovering over his empty office and looking, lovingly, over just his things, she probably knew that if Jerome knew of her feelings that she would lose him. So, she lied. I would even bet it was Liz's idea to leave the country and get married.
It makes me wonder if Jerome had gotten her letter that their lives would have taken a different path or ended fairly the same.
With that being said, the ending in vol II shows Jerome's same anger toward Jo when she had initially refused him in the elevator. I think he beat her because of his own anger towards himself for loving her so much but not being enough to keep her. And Jo possibly the same. Although she points the gun at his head and pulls the trigger, she didn't rack it. And admitted to knowing better. Killing him meant finally putting an end to their tortured love affair. But, she couldn't do it.
As far as Jerome's affair with P; whether he knew she was Jo's protégé or not is unsaid. But, the 3 + 5 with her in front of Jo was, I feel, a combination of a "*beep* you, you're replicable," with a "you're all I wanted, so I have to replicate you."

[–] atsuinakada 9 years ago

Yeah, UknAlias. Liz knew she could lose Jerome. I suspect she was concerned from the moment he hired Joe because Joe had no secretarial abilities and yet got the job anyway. That alone speaks volumes. And then Jerome shows Joe around on the first day and somewhat patronizes Liz with the whole "her name is Good job, Liz." And even though he was mad that Joe rejected his advances in the elevator (lift)he still ran errands with her--time that was not spent with Liz which further, showed that he would do anything to be with Joe even if it was not sexually .

Even Joe "tidying up" his office and Liz saying she was unaware or away from her desk so she could not stop Joe, I suspected she knew what Joe was doing and hoped it would have gotten Joe fired, but alas it didn't. Jerome just used that opportunity to assert his authority by having her bring the tea and pastry in again ("do-over") and then sent her to get a fork.

I think Jerome knew that P was working with Joe. I could imagine during pillow talk that Joe would have come up or even possibly before things got intimate between P and Jerome. Him beating her up and then P having "numerical" sex with him and then urinating on Joe shows they were both angry at her. Joe did after all leave Jerome and their son for selfishly hideous reasons. It seems it would have been better for Jerome to have stayed with Liz who possibly seriously loved him.

Either way I felt less interested in Joe and Jerome once they were replaced by the older Joe and Jerome. I did not mind Older Joe as the storyteller, but I did not like when she was put in place of younger Joe with Shia LaBeouf and then Labeouf was swapped out for older Joe. By then I was already used to the "romance" between the younger--so it just felt for me a little strange. I guess I was not expecting so much of the story to be lived out by the younger adult Joe. I thought after the "train shagging" that it would show more of Charlotte Gainsbourg's as Joe. IMO,They focused too long on the younger then threw the older ones in and I guess the director thought the audience wouldn't mind since Gainsbourg did all the stortelling/narration. But it made it weird for me.