I am not sure why I watched this film, except that it was starting right when I turned on Sky television, and I am an inveterate completist. The story attempts to be a coming of age tale of sorts, but instead of being about an adolescent or young adult, it´s a middle-aged housewife who suddenly wakes up to the emptiness of her life after decades of doing nothing but filling the role of dutiful wife and supportive mother, whose primary extracurricular activity is to attend church meetings with other housewives.
The problem I have with the Kelly Macdonald character´s transformation is that it comes out of nowhere. How can someone who was literally so bored for so many years never have come up with other ways to occupy her time? Her discovery that she is gifted is catalyzed by the jigsaw puzzle she receives for her birthday. Not the i-phone gift, mind you, for which she has nothing but scorn, even though, as we all know, the internet has rendered boredom all but obsolete. The evolution of the female protagonist is a complete mystery, given that she seems to be in a state of mental fog akin to that of the Stepford Wives, and her ¨awakening¨ is catalyzed by a jigsaw puzzle. Had she never done a single jigsaw puzzle during her childhood, I wonder? On top of the arbitrariness of her catalyst, the changes she undergoes are equally difficult to understand. It seems very odd that someone so timid and meek and submissive would lie to her husband about meeting with a puzzle partner. Or that she would suddenly snap in the ways in which she does, when in fact her family did nothing to cause her to change her behavior. This looks in some ways like a midlife crisis, but Agnes does not seem to have enough self-possession to experience such a thing.
Given that, in the end, she strikes out on her own, abandoning both her husband and her puzzle partner (and lover), I think that this film may have been intended to express some sort of feminist triumph, wherein the female lead wakes up to her true potential and how she has sacrificed her entire life for her family. But of course she had the choice not to marry her husband, not to have children, and not to be a stay-at-home wife and mom. These were all choices which she herself made. In contrast to the 1950s, any woman who makes such choices in the 21st century bears full responsibility for them, given the many avenues open to women (at least in first world countries) today. Oddly, her character harks back to the time when all ¨normal¨ women were expected to fill that role. The tables have been turned, however, and stay-at-home wives and moms are becoming so scarce as to make them seem like the exception, not the rule.
All in all, I would say that despite some good scenes, the pieces don´t fit together and never end up falling into place in a satisfying way. My impression is that the filmmakers intended to depict Agnes as someone with autism, but the path to her transformation to a liberated, outspoken and bold free thinker is not convincingly paved. Totally introverted people do not travel to New York City to meet strangers about whom they know nothing.
The problem I have with the Kelly Macdonald character´s transformation is that it comes out of nowhere. How can someone who was literally so bored for so many years never have come up with other ways to occupy her time? Her discovery that she is gifted is catalyzed by the jigsaw puzzle she receives for her birthday. Not the i-phone gift, mind you, for which she has nothing but scorn, even though, as we all know, the internet has rendered boredom all but obsolete. The evolution of the female protagonist is a complete mystery, given that she seems to be in a state of mental fog akin to that of the Stepford Wives, and her ¨awakening¨ is catalyzed by a jigsaw puzzle. Had she never done a single jigsaw puzzle during her childhood, I wonder? On top of the arbitrariness of her catalyst, the changes she undergoes are equally difficult to understand. It seems very odd that someone so timid and meek and submissive would lie to her husband about meeting with a puzzle partner. Or that she would suddenly snap in the ways in which she does, when in fact her family did nothing to cause her to change her behavior. This looks in some ways like a midlife crisis, but Agnes does not seem to have enough self-possession to experience such a thing.
Given that, in the end, she strikes out on her own, abandoning both her husband and her puzzle partner (and lover), I think that this film may have been intended to express some sort of feminist triumph, wherein the female lead wakes up to her true potential and how she has sacrificed her entire life for her family. But of course she had the choice not to marry her husband, not to have children, and not to be a stay-at-home wife and mom. These were all choices which she herself made. In contrast to the 1950s, any woman who makes such choices in the 21st century bears full responsibility for them, given the many avenues open to women (at least in first world countries) today. Oddly, her character harks back to the time when all ¨normal¨ women were expected to fill that role. The tables have been turned, however, and stay-at-home wives and moms are becoming so scarce as to make them seem like the exception, not the rule.
All in all, I would say that despite some good scenes, the pieces don´t fit together and never end up falling into place in a satisfying way. My impression is that the filmmakers intended to depict Agnes as someone with autism, but the path to her transformation to a liberated, outspoken and bold free thinker is not convincingly paved. Totally introverted people do not travel to New York City to meet strangers about whom they know nothing.