Why the pedo thing?

It seems your reaction is a bit harsh. There have been many movies where an older man or woman has been in a situation with an underage boy or girl and "romance" becomes a possibility. The ultimate test is how it is handled in the resolution and here they handle it well to show both the older guy and the younger girl learning something valuable for the rest of their lives.

Consider movies like "American Beauty", "Leon the Professional" and "Beautiful Girls" as a few examples that come to mind quickly. Or the more recent "Lifeguard".

The other end of the spectrum is a movie like "Lolita" where it becomes much more than an infatuation.

..*.. TxMike ..*..
Make a choice, to take a chance, to make a difference.

First of all, she doesn't look 14. Probably because the actress isn't really 14. it would be a "pedo" story if she really looked and acted 14 or if William was attracted to 14-yr olds. Not only that, they go a lot of places and no one is thinking why is this older man with this child. She smokes and drinks. They are in bars, with his relatives, her relatives, Jeremy, hotel clerk and it's not the first question on anyone's mind, but rather why is this Danish local with this abrasive American. They look like they could be together. They look like boyfriend and girlfriend.

But the story works on this level. It would not work if she was18. She was precocious and offered herself to him. If she was 18, he wouldn't have turned her down. He had to experience getting to know a girl he was attracted to without having sex with her. So, it worked in this case by her being underage because he takes that seriously when he doesn't really take anything else serously. He's rude, obnoxious and there's a lot of self-loathing. He has sex with a lot of girls but has little respect for any of them. These two related to each other and the journey to find his absent father's also absent father made him a better person only by knowing her. He listens to the things she says to him - so wise for a 14-year old who also didn't have a father but who has her mother's leering bf. She's extremely bright and resourceful. For William, by having this divide in ages permits him to fall for her because there's that space and restraint. She also gains some self-respect because he doesn't take advantage of her and she can tell the bf to get lost. Like Roman Holiday, Lost in Translation or any kind of love story, even Black Narcissus, that takes place in another locale, over a period of few days, attraction and yet restraint is built into the plot - for the reasons the story provides, they cannot be be with each other. There is some honor to the male character. These kind of stories are not the love stories of marriage or permanence but nevertheless sometimes have more meaning and purity of love because of it.

14 is quite young, but I think they should have boosted her age up to at most 16, not 18. It isn't creepy. He didn't know how old she was to begin with, and he fell in love with her. He couldn't change his mind about her once he found out she was 14. He was already in love. It's not pedophilia. It's pedophilia if he loved her and she didn't love him back. They were both in love. People don't seem to understand the innocence in love anymore. He didn't love her because she was a teenager. He loved her for who she was as a person. You don't choose who you fall in love with. Many teenage girls are attracted to men much older than they are, so it isn't just the older man's fault. Quit calling this pedophilia.

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