I have to begin by saying that I liked this film. I'd gladly have any of the characters as my next door neighbours. It seemed to me as I watched that I was looking at something very personal and very compelling, but I wasn't really a Peeping Tom. The characters were more or less inviting me into their lives. They seemed to want me to say just what I've said. "You're all complex interesting people." Adam was not the only one with limitations.
Beth is probably the subtlest of all the characters, so start with her. If one is not careful, one could come to a very unsympathetic conclusion. She states her reasons pretty clearly.
"We would never be able to look in each others eyes and know what the other was feeling," Beth says to her mother.
That sounds like it's a cruel summary of Asperger's Syndrome, but it's really not. Beth is a writer. She makes her living by appealing to our feelings. She does not understand the problem of not being able to communicate without emotion. In a way she too is severely handicapped, so much so that her mother has to explain the difference between feeling loved and loving.
She asks Adam what he means by love. He starts off really well by stumbling through a confession of his conclusion that she was part of him. Then he makes a mistake (in her eyes) and says he needs her to help him through all the things he can't do. She can't bridge the two things; and she should have been able to.
Adam is the central character of this movie. Everything revolves around his growth. By the end, he knows how to help people, he knows how to get from home to work and back again. Instead of having to ask what people were feeling, he has clues. We hope that Beth will grow up as much as he has. It would seem I have this backwards, because it is he who cannot feel. If he cannot feel the way we think of it, at least he can navigate through it awkwardly, but he can navigate. I doubt he would blow up at Beth's small manipulation with the same energy that he damned her father for his dishonest handling of one of his client's books with which she later concurred (Beth's father is an accountant).
It sounds like I've sided with him rather than her. Not true. To her, he looks like one more relationship that failed. She does not know or she does not seem to know, how much she means to him. He is willing to go off and face his demons for her.
He knows by the end that he is ready. We hope she will hear his closing line after giving a typical Adam answer to telescopes he has learned to charm his audience. He says, "Maybe it's better to just look up in the sky."
Maybe if she remembers what she says about herself at the beginning she will be ready.
"When I was young, my father told me about the little prince. He said I was the little prince because the little prince taught the pilot to love. After I met Adam, I found out I was the pilot."
Beth is probably the subtlest of all the characters, so start with her. If one is not careful, one could come to a very unsympathetic conclusion. She states her reasons pretty clearly.
"We would never be able to look in each others eyes and know what the other was feeling," Beth says to her mother.
That sounds like it's a cruel summary of Asperger's Syndrome, but it's really not. Beth is a writer. She makes her living by appealing to our feelings. She does not understand the problem of not being able to communicate without emotion. In a way she too is severely handicapped, so much so that her mother has to explain the difference between feeling loved and loving.
She asks Adam what he means by love. He starts off really well by stumbling through a confession of his conclusion that she was part of him. Then he makes a mistake (in her eyes) and says he needs her to help him through all the things he can't do. She can't bridge the two things; and she should have been able to.
Adam is the central character of this movie. Everything revolves around his growth. By the end, he knows how to help people, he knows how to get from home to work and back again. Instead of having to ask what people were feeling, he has clues. We hope that Beth will grow up as much as he has. It would seem I have this backwards, because it is he who cannot feel. If he cannot feel the way we think of it, at least he can navigate through it awkwardly, but he can navigate. I doubt he would blow up at Beth's small manipulation with the same energy that he damned her father for his dishonest handling of one of his client's books with which she later concurred (Beth's father is an accountant).
It sounds like I've sided with him rather than her. Not true. To her, he looks like one more relationship that failed. She does not know or she does not seem to know, how much she means to him. He is willing to go off and face his demons for her.
He knows by the end that he is ready. We hope she will hear his closing line after giving a typical Adam answer to telescopes he has learned to charm his audience. He says, "Maybe it's better to just look up in the sky."
Maybe if she remembers what she says about herself at the beginning she will be ready.
"When I was young, my father told me about the little prince. He said I was the little prince because the little prince taught the pilot to love. After I met Adam, I found out I was the pilot."