wayneholland.org

 

THE FOUNTAIN

July 13, 2010

 

My Netflix movie this weekend was The Fountain, a 2006 piece of crap starring Hugh Jackman and Rachel Weisz (as husband and wife). I didn't even finish watching it. It was that bad.

God-in-heaven, what bullshit. The only good thing about it were some of the visual effects. They were, I will admit, interesting, but at the same time somewhat vapid.

I normally like Rachel Weisz too, but not in this crapola.

It was grossly overacted, which is a bad sign right off. It kind of reminds me of that old saw about substituting emotion for substance. If your argument holds no weight, you don't really improve your stance by being emotional about it, which is the very thing that many (if not most) people do.

There was a lot of that in this movie. It really didn't have a whole lot to say so the actors tried to make up for it with hammy performances.

And yet, at the same time, it was a bit too understated. I mean, holy crap, if you hadn't read up on it (I checked out the IMDB synopsis), you wouldn't have had a clue what was going on.

Hugh Jackman is floating around in the depths of space inside of some mysterious sphere, which is totally unexplained, engaging in incomprehensible shenanigans, dabbling apparently in some sort of alchemical stuff, all the while he's whispering to some tree, which is subsisting somehow inside the gigantic bubble he's living in.

But without question the thing that got me the most was his over-response to his wife's debilitating disease. The husband's handling of the situation was in essence the movie's guiding premise.

Please do not misunderstand. I am in no way suggesting that a man should be unmoved by such a circumstance, but in this movie the response was way overblown.

I have seen this posture presented before. The movie Return to Me comes to mind. David Duchovny had a similar breakdown over the death of his wife. I remember my response to the scene where he sunk down to the floor, propped against the front door, sobbing out of control.

Yeah, I remember well my response to this. I believe it went something like, "What a bunch of fucking bullshit. Nobody's going to react like that to the death of a spouse. A child perhaps, but not a spouse."

It hasn't been that long ago that marriages were purely business arrangements, ways to keep money (i.e., resources) in the family. Hell, in a way, it's still like that.

Read your Fromm man, read your Fromm!

He hits the nail on the head when he describes the way we market ourselves (our very souls) in this marketing culture that we're all drowning in:

How does this "marketing orientation" affect the relationship between the sexes, between men and women? I think, in the first place, that a great deal of what goes on under the name of love is a seeking for success, for approval. One needs someone to tell one not only at four o'clock in the afternoon but also at eight and ten and twelve: "You're fine, you're alright, you are doing well." That is one factor. The other factor is that one also proves one's value by choosing the right person. One needs to be the latest model oneself, but one then has a right also and a duty to fall in love with the latest model.
—Erich Fromm (Man and Woman)