My husband and I just got home from an evening out to dinner and the movies. We went to see the new film… Freedomland. I had a hard time concentrating because Julianna Moore’s character reminded me so much of a person I have had to deal with in my life over the past almost 30 years. THe film actually disturbed me because of that character. Julianna Moore plays a women who was never able or willing to get herself together her entire life. Then she becomes pregnant and shifts the burden of saving her own sorry life to her infant and eventually young son. She makes him her companion and states that he actually gave birth to her… or at least her life. But that wasn’t enough for long and she eventually shifts from constant companion and needy attachment to her child to almost being irritated that he required her attention, once she found a lover… who by the way already had a live-in girlfriend. In the end she causes her 4-year-old son’s death and her lies and actions actually cause a riot in the neighborhood where she works … and supposedly loved the people.
The real life woman I know causes the same type of carnage to everyone around her… she hurts and uses everyone around her, including her children, grandchildren and husband(s). She has on-going affairs and thinks only of her own needs and wants. When her actions cause more than the constant "normal" trauma she stands there with the old deer in the headlights look (as Julianna Moore did pretty consistantly in the movie) and says" How did this happen?? I don’t underdand!"… and then leaves everyone else to clean up her mess and deal with the problems… not that the damage she has done can ever be totally fixed if at all. Yet in the end, she always finds someone (like Samuel L. Jackson’s character, Officer Counsil in the movie) who feels sorry for and wants to help her… instead of all the dead bodies she has left in her wake (at least figuratively if not literally like Julianna’s character. The woman I know, now has her daughter following her footsteps after being a victum first.
Dealing with these kinds of people really makes you wonder and definitely tests your faith! At the end of the movie my husband and I both just looked at each other and simultaneously said, "Twila". Unfortunatly because of Twila… neither of us could enjoy the movie or many things in our lives. ~~At least Julianna ended up in prison. I suppose I could hope?!?
The San Franciso Chronicle says, "Julianne Moore plays an idiot in "Freedomland" and does it so well she probably won’t get proper credit for it.", in their review. Too bad the word "idiot" really doesn’t cover the depth and scope of this type of person and behavior!
askmarion 