So enjoyed this movie, but did I miss something?- George lucks into a great Greenwich Village apartment, next we see George and Ben together having a wonderful evening and then Ben leaves on the subway to go presumably to his own place, separately.
What happened- why are they both not living together in the Greenwich Village apartment? I don't get it-
I came up with similar questions as in this thread, and so I watched the last third of the movie again.
My take is that Ben succumbed to the heart condition we learned about after his shoulder injury.
I also assume the movie was attempting to show how Joey had some teenage emotional challenges, e.g. visiting a therapist, and that his only friend was this eccentric boy Vlad. Vlad was apparently very smart, in that he didn't need to study in order to pass his tests, and also in that he found some reason to steal books written in French that no one else at the school likely ever read.
Joey grew to resent sharing his home with Ben, but in the end was very sorry for the way he had acted towards Ben. Ben painted a lovely picture of Joey's one friend, Vlad, and Ben also offered Joey some life changing advice, to make sure to say hello when you see the girl. In other words, don't keep your life on hold. Take advantage now and connect with a girl that you seem to be fond of.
I found the stairwell scene very poignant and telling, that Joey came to grips with his grief about Ben.
The script is a hash. I think it tries to make up for this in 'charm' appeal. (eg. the constant Chopin).
My -guess- is that they shot all sorts of almost 'versions'... cheating husband, self-involved wife, Vlad trying to seduce Joey, all those initial characters who appear in the opening and then are never heard from again... etc. etc. etc. and at some point they figured out:
Hey, we're not at improv class... we got a simple movie to make here!
...so then they cut a *beep* ton of 'back story' and just kept the focus on the 2 leads.
But you can still see the loose threads everywhere. Which is a shame... it coulda been -great- if they had done all that 'editing' on the script -before- they started shooting.
also-there is a painting in the last scene that shows a man and a baby-who is this?
sharethere is a painting in the last scene that shows a man and a baby-who is this?
I took it to be Ben and Joey, back when Joey was a baby.
shareThey lived together for a short while in the Greenwich Village apartment before Ben died.
shareThey lived together for a short while in the Greenwich Village apartment before Ben died.