In the End **SPOILERS**

I have thought a lot about this film, and, in the end,
I think it came down to this:
Two blindly passionate people lived a life-long love relationship
while they 'ruined' the lives of the four people closest to them.
Maggie Smith, in the end, was the pivotal 'Evil One' in my book. She wanted and achieved
" her cake and to eat it too" at the tragic expense of others. She only saw her lover as 'the sweetest most thoughtful man in the world' because that's who he was -with HER. And she kept herself blind to the truths of the situation and the tragic consequences- the suicide of
the wife and,possibly, her own husband; her daughter's non-blooming, and kevin kline's failures and self hate. In effect, this story is what Age of Innocence would have become- IF Michelle Pfeiffer had run off with Daniel Day Lewis when they were young and in their passions.

At one point, Maggie Smith tells Kline that his father is NOT responsible for how his son's life turned out, and that Kevin needs to own up to his own responsibility for his life. When sh hears from Kevin the truth about the mother's death and his witnessing it, she collapses....and the issue remains unresolved. The revelation never leads to an apology on her part. But we can optimistically feel that it leads to a sort of delayed 'apology' on the part of her daughter- to the family of her daughter's lover, when she ends the cycle of betrayal begun by her mother and continued by herself.

What are your thoughts about this?






The way to have what we want
Is to share what we have.