First let me state that I am a Vera Farmiga fan. I've noticed her in many obscure films such as 'Quid Pro Quo', 'Joshua', and the 'Hard Easy' and she has always intrigued me. The downside is that her face is so mesmerizing (those eyes!!!) that I sometimes find myself distracted from the film itself. That said, I was not dissapointed with this movie. Though 'Never Forever' was certainly not a perfect film and I could spend a lot of time tearing it apart at the seams I still felt it was WWW and for me, quite thought provoking on numerous levels.
I found the plot itself to be a darn good yarn. It was never overly dramatic, the sex was dead on and never gratuitous, and the main characters were all portrayed with gut wrenching honesty and compassion. I felt that the soundtrack was well matched to the emotions and events and did not attempt to manipulate my responses, something I despise in the majority of mainstream movies. In the end I felt bad for only one character, the Korean girlfriend who got dumped. Otherwise I felt everything turned out as it should. Which brings me to the main reason I chose to discuss this movie on the blog.
I have a very strong almost fanatical belief in fidelity. Because of this I normally have ZERO compassion for any film characters who are cheating on their partners. I dislike them, have no respect for them and therefore usually find it hard to maintain any interest in what they do outside of that. My door is closed to any consequent pain they may feel.
So you can imagine my surprise when I realized that (at least initially) Sophie and her sperm donor's sexual involvement was acceptable to me. I've spent a lot of time trying to figure out why and have come to understand my reasons and feel comfortable with them. I have learned something new about myself that pleases me. I can truly say now that my negative reaction to infidelity is not just some knee jerk moralistic stance, or an automated response triggered by personal family history but a solid belief that as committed partners we owe each other the respect and dignity to honor the trust we have invoked. Let me say too that I mean emotional fidelity as well as sexual. If we need more than we feel our partners are giving us we owe them the communication that would open up the possibilities of fulfillment WAY before straying outside of the relationship to find what we think we are missing.
In Sophie's case that form of communication was not available to her due to her husband's mental illness and complete lack of ability to connect with her on any level. I think she rightly felt that there was no time to wait for him to recover from his depression so that she could rationally discuss other options with him. It was pretty obvious that he was going to attempt to kill himself again , probably sooner than later. She had tried on her own to find another way to give him the baby that seemed the ONLY way to keep him from committing suicide. To say that she was stuck between a rock and a hard place is an understatement.
So her original arrangement with this man was to me just a business arrangement and one in which she was making an extreme sacrifice for her husband. And ditto for the Korean man who I think rightly felt that this was the only way he could financially reach a place where he could bring his girlfriend to America . He would have been a fool, I thought, to pass up this opportunity. He too seemed to feel dirtied and humiliated by the experience. I found that I could not fault either of them for their choices.
Of course when they began to fall for each other their sex was no longer just a sacrifice for their partners and here things became much more complex and questionable.. It would take me pages to express the reactions I felt from this point on and perhaps I will write more once the discussion gets going but right now I am really interested in hearing from others as to their own responses.
And hey, thanks for listening.
I found the plot itself to be a darn good yarn. It was never overly dramatic, the sex was dead on and never gratuitous, and the main characters were all portrayed with gut wrenching honesty and compassion. I felt that the soundtrack was well matched to the emotions and events and did not attempt to manipulate my responses, something I despise in the majority of mainstream movies. In the end I felt bad for only one character, the Korean girlfriend who got dumped. Otherwise I felt everything turned out as it should. Which brings me to the main reason I chose to discuss this movie on the blog.
I have a very strong almost fanatical belief in fidelity. Because of this I normally have ZERO compassion for any film characters who are cheating on their partners. I dislike them, have no respect for them and therefore usually find it hard to maintain any interest in what they do outside of that. My door is closed to any consequent pain they may feel.
So you can imagine my surprise when I realized that (at least initially) Sophie and her sperm donor's sexual involvement was acceptable to me. I've spent a lot of time trying to figure out why and have come to understand my reasons and feel comfortable with them. I have learned something new about myself that pleases me. I can truly say now that my negative reaction to infidelity is not just some knee jerk moralistic stance, or an automated response triggered by personal family history but a solid belief that as committed partners we owe each other the respect and dignity to honor the trust we have invoked. Let me say too that I mean emotional fidelity as well as sexual. If we need more than we feel our partners are giving us we owe them the communication that would open up the possibilities of fulfillment WAY before straying outside of the relationship to find what we think we are missing.
In Sophie's case that form of communication was not available to her due to her husband's mental illness and complete lack of ability to connect with her on any level. I think she rightly felt that there was no time to wait for him to recover from his depression so that she could rationally discuss other options with him. It was pretty obvious that he was going to attempt to kill himself again , probably sooner than later. She had tried on her own to find another way to give him the baby that seemed the ONLY way to keep him from committing suicide. To say that she was stuck between a rock and a hard place is an understatement.
So her original arrangement with this man was to me just a business arrangement and one in which she was making an extreme sacrifice for her husband. And ditto for the Korean man who I think rightly felt that this was the only way he could financially reach a place where he could bring his girlfriend to America . He would have been a fool, I thought, to pass up this opportunity. He too seemed to feel dirtied and humiliated by the experience. I found that I could not fault either of them for their choices.
Of course when they began to fall for each other their sex was no longer just a sacrifice for their partners and here things became much more complex and questionable.. It would take me pages to express the reactions I felt from this point on and perhaps I will write more once the discussion gets going but right now I am really interested in hearing from others as to their own responses.
And hey, thanks for listening.
17 comments:
In case you didn't know there has been no access to the comment section on this new post until today. I'm not sure why but it seems to be working now.
The only thing I didn't like about this film is the title, 'Never Forever'. Too trite. But the plot was interesting and had many unexpected twists. Even though it was filled with sex it really wasn't if you know what I mean. I found the 3 main characters believable although the Korean family may have been a bit of overkill. However, if the family hadn't been like that the rest of the plot wouldn't have made any sense. WWW. EOS.
I can see why you might have questioned a lot of things about this film, Lee, but I am really glad that you chose it. True it is an imperfect movie, some plot gaps etc. but it was a brave attempt by director Gina Kim to look at many interpersonal, family, sexual, and societal issues. The question I found most provocative is can two human beings have an ongoing sexual relationship on a strictly biological level and not have it affect their emotional world. Certainly this case would lead towards an answer of no on that one. There is a lot of food for thought here and I'm looking forward to hearing what other's have to say.
Hi, obamahigh. Go Obama and Biden!
Um, I thought I'd chime in my two cents on your question. I understand when people have sex, there's this hormone oxytocin that gets released, and that's the hormone responsible for bonding between humans. So assuming that bonding is something that affects a person's emotional world, Sophie and Jihah didn't stand much of a chance at keeping things strictly business because their bodies were chemically poised against it.
To say nothing of the fact that they were both nice folks. You throw a couple of nice folks together and practically bathe both their parasympathetic nervous systems in oxytocin, I mean, forget it, right?
Well said Cherry. In response to you and Obamahigh this reminds me of the recurring theme of the male and female leads in so many movies ending up leaving their real life partners because they have fallen madly in love with their costar. Perhaps that type of closeness where two people are involved in such a 'rush' producing high intensity time together to say nothing of the repeated physical 'faking' of the sex together is causing the same oxytocin outpouring and makes their behaviors inevitable. Intense and somewhat disturbing film but I'm glad I watched it.
Interesting post and comments everyone. Hey Lee, where's your Just Watched list? Are you on a movie vacation? EOS factor high.
No.it was not the perfect film,but i enjoyed the whole movie.The orininal premise was believable,however ,what happened between them was so predictable (oxytocin or not}. She is just a delight to watch and i wish them all well.
Sorry about the comment blocking problem guys, somehow I disabled it. But thanks to our brilliant friend Cherry for diagnosing the glitch in about 2 seconds...
Welcome Obamahigh (aren't we all?!!) and Moonlite and good to hear from Cherry, Carolynrt, Jimmy and Silver (formerly known as Bitsie.)
Finally had a chance to watch Never Forever, and I’m still not entirely sure what I think of it. While there were certainly elements I enjoyed – I loved Vera Farmiga’s performance – in the end I’ve just never been a fan of melodrama, and this was melodrama verging on soap opera complete with cartoon characters: uptight bigoted Korean family, deranged mama’s boy/husband, sympathetic sexy victim/adulteress and cute hunk from the wrong side of the tracks as well as an utterly unbelievable plot/premise. What, Sophie never heard of a turkey baster? I mean she wasn’t going to have sex with the sperm donors at the clinic. Why then does she offer to pay Jihah for sex rather than a “donation” if all she really wanted was a baby for her husband? Bottom line is the sex, itself, was necessary only to supply this movie with a plot, not to enable Sophie to conceive, And even if you accept the sex, if this was really something she was doing for her husband then why does she immediately remove every stitch of her clothing the first time she and Jihah are together? Again, as uncounted numbers of back seat babies can attest, this was absolutely unnecessary for any other than cinematic purposes. And a $30,000 baby bonus? Come on! And her husband wasn’t supposed to notice that little chunk of pocket change missing from their accounts? Don’t get me wrong. If I were locked into a marriage like Sophie’s I’d want out too, but this is precisely where the problem with Never Forever lies. We are supposed to accept that Sophie wants only to save her husband and believes having this baby will accomplish that. To that end she is willing to make the ultimate sacrifice, having hot sweaty naked sex with a young stud over and over and over and over again. The problem is, of course, we don’t believe this; we can’t believe this. If what she really wanted was the baby for her husband she would have gone down to her local WalMart and paid the $3.99 for a turkey baster; end of story. The problem is, though, that if we don’t accept her initial motives as “pure” and selfless the movie’s plot falls completely apart as Sophie is no longer nearly so sympathetic a character. Remember too, Sophie is portrayed as a reasonably intelligent mature woman. She’s married to a passive-aggressive man-child with serious mother issues who also just happens to be clinically depressed and suicidal with a barely contained homicidal streak. And she thinks bringing a baby into this situation is going to fix it? Obviously Sophie wanted more than just a baby for her husband, more than just the sex she paid for so generously as well. In the end she got it – and most likely hastened the death of her husband in the process. Good for her. But in what way were her actions truly any different than those of any other suburban wife who has an affair because she feels unappreciated and unfulfilled at home? Face it, even the baby was never really for her husband. Sophie, herself, says as much toward the end of the film when she tells the husband it isn’t his baby, it’s her baby. It was always her baby, her little package of warmth she hoped would thaw out the ice palace/family she lived in just a little bit. In the end Farmiga’s performance made Never Forever worth watching, but the story simply did not add up.
> turkey baster?
Whoops, I almost forgot. Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!!!
oldman, I seem to recall that you're a former priest. I imagine it's a characteristic of the occupation of a priest to negotiate these sorts of birth/life/death situations in his ministry. From your calling and life experiences, you must have a uniquely informed window into these matters. Thanks so much. You've provided a lot of honest and absorbing food for thought.
For the minute, I did want to pipe up on one cultural issue:
> a passive-aggressive
> man-child with serious
> mother issues
He's just Asian, that's all.
:) :) :) Hope everyone's having a great time preparing for Thanksgiving!
Cherry,
Good to hear from you, and thanks so much for your comments. I’m uncertain what the significence of your turkey baster “question mark” is, but if you are simply wondering what I meant, just ask Melissa Etheridge – or any gay female friends you may have -- about turkey baster babies, especially any who have conceived without a man “in their life.” As I write this, an old friend – though nowhere near as old as me -- is very near her due date thanks to the intervention of that handy appliance – and, of course, an obliging male friend (who was not David Crosby). As to the “cultural issue?” When it comes to any unique characteristics of Asian family dynamics I am pretty much totally ignorant. On this I am happy to defer to you as you clearly have an insight I do not possess. As my future daughter –in-law who is staying with us this week is Vietnamese perhaps I had better – or will – learn something about this subject. My son lived and taught there for a couple years, and is headed back with Na for another six months this Friday. Perhaps he can clue me in a bit. That said, when I read your comment, “He’s Asian,” I did actually have some idea what you meant. My college roommate was Korean, and his family, frankly, was remarkably similar to the family in Never Forever – without the extreme caricatured elements -- right down to the religiosity. I even remember when we were in England together my friend, Young Kim, calling his mother back in the states on a regular basis. Doesn’t sound like anything today, but this was 35 year ago when a call like that cost a fortune. Not only did I never consider calling my family while we were over there, chances are my parents would have had me committed if I had. Letters were expensive enough! Still, where the movie is concerned, even if these traits are, indeed, common in Asian families, Sophie was not Asian and would likely have viewed her husband’s behavior as I did, not as a fellow Korean might have. Just check out the “look” she gives her husband as his mother’s piano is being moved into her apartment, a little thing he had not even seen fit to mention to her to see what I mean.
i HAVEN'T HAD A CHANCE TO WATCH THIS YET BUT HAVING READ cHERRY AND oLDMAN'S COMMENTS YESTERDAY HAS REALLY MOTIVATED ME TO FIND THE TIME. i LOVE IT WHEN THE TWO OF THEM GO BACK AND FORTH, IT ALWAYS MAKES FOR A VERY DYNAMIC DISCUSSION!
MAn, you guys are awesome! Lee, I think you should consider publishing a book eventually highlighting the back and forth conversations between Oldman and Cherry. They are entertaining, informative and really well written. As for the 'turkey baster', I must admit, surprising as it may seem, it never occured to me that women could conceive through that method and I consider myself to be mature and worldly. Perhaps in Sophie's panicked state she was not thinking clearly enough to investigate this type of option. Having never been in a fertilization clinic, I wonder if they use a more high tech version and most women are not aware that this simple device would be equally effective. If they were these clinics could not rake in all the money they obviously do!
That aside, I didn't feel she was that mature or intelligent. She seemed to me rather childlike and naive. As to the nakedness, I saw it as her not wanting the smell of this other man to get on anything she owned. Notice how she put her underwear in a sealed ziplock? But of course that is ridiculous as his smell is on her body and then she puts the clothes back on. There are a million and one plot glitches in this movie but I, like most of you here, enjoyed it none the less. And Lee, I liked reading your essay, you shared some really interesting personal stuff which I always find refreshing and engaging.
I want to go a level back from OldMan (turkey baster). Hey Lady: Lying to your husband won't make you a martyr or noble. All it will do is mess up your head, confuse your child and destroy the most important thing your marraige has: TRUST. Here's an idea: instead of LYING to your husband, why don't you get him some REAL PSYCHIATRIC HELP??!! You live in a major city,there are many therapists available to help him. Some are even Korean, if you think that will help. He won't go? That's why they invented INVOLUNTARY COMMITTMENT! Your in-laws won't accept it? Then that is not a healthy place to raise your children, or to live out your life. But no! Instead of being mature and facing your troubles head on you hide and make up this silly game that ends up destroying your marraige anyway. And what about Jihah's poor girlfriend ... waiting for him to bring her to America, only to find that not only he has fallen for a rich American bubble-head, but he is bringing the rich American back to Korea. How will she react when she sees them on the beach?
On a personal note - I got to see what happens when someone hides the truth to "protect" someone they love: Onr day my cousin's fiance broke off their engagement and ran off. My cousin was devastated, lost self esteem, moved back in with her parents, and was in a real bad mental state for years. Later on we found out he had died from some terminal illness, and broke it off with my cousin to spare her the pain of watching him decline. Well that jerk created more pain by "protecting" her than his disease ever would have. She could have mourned him like a lover/wife should, them moved on with life. Instead he treated her like a child and destroyed her whole self-image. There was nothing nobel in what he did. With luck, he is in a nasty nasty place now.
Well, I have a head full of grog this morning; will see if I can't muddle it out here somehow.
Congratulations on your son's engagement, oldman! If your daughter-in-law to-be can make even halfway decent pho, I'm inviting myself over to your house for dinner some night. I grew up in California where there was a large community of Vietnamese folks. Not to speak in generalizations, but talk about a bunch of extremely talented and nice people.
breather, thanks for sharing the story about your cousin. Hope she's in a better space right now.... Also how nice of you to care for her as you obviously do. Your post reminded me of one of the two other films on this blog that _Never Forever_ reminded me of, which was _After the Wedding_. I don't know if it's Lee's, uh, triage? uh, what's the word--criteria--for what would make a suitable film for this blog, or if it's just what makes a story at story, but it seems a lot of the films here deal with, uh, hubris or free will or responsibility or subsuming it without the right to do so or unjustified violations of others' right to free will or something like that. Perhaps there was some of that in the effects of your cousin's fiance's life decisions -- I hope he's in a better place, too.
It reminded me sort of of this random page for kids on birdfeeding in Wisconsin. The page said something like, hey kids, why not do a fun hobby this winter and put out a birdfeeder where you can watch pretty birds from the comfort of your living room window. Which sounds like a really nice thing to do. It went on to say that this was a nice thing to do for the birds because food is scarce in the wintertime. Then it went on to say but watch out for pesky squirrels and predators like hawks -- you'll want to shoo them away.
And it brought back questions of like, hm, how much responsibility for the food web do you want to introduce children to. In some ways, a hawk eating a pretty bird is just a fact of life. In other ways, it's kind of an awesome responsibility of life and death best left to Mother Nature and not to little children. Who don't have any responsibility over it to begin with, but I suppose a more sensitive child could feel quite bad if a bird died at his/her feeder.
Likewise with _Never Forever_, except instead of birdfeeding it's childbearing/keeping a suicidal spouse alive. I suppose part of it was about cheating on a spouse. I don't know. What got to me more than that was a) that she never told her husband about the abortion she had before they got married, and b) that she was possibly going to go through and have a child that wasn't his and go through the rest of their entire life together without telling him.
My boyfriend's reaction to her never having told her husband about the abortion was interesting. Also immediate. Like, practically the second she said the line in the movie, he said out loud, "She's lying." And whatever it was, that resolved all the dilemmas for my boyfriend. Or something like that. Like, she lied about having an abortion beforehand so that getting pregnant now would seem plausible. While I think there's nothing to go against that theory in the script of the film, I guess there's nothing to corroborate that, either. I agree with him that that's very possible, but just not sure if it can be refuted or supported. For him, that made everything else go smoothly.
For me, I don't know. I guess it's certainly definitely one thing to cheat on your husband. I guess it's another thing entirely when it involves a baby. I'll say for the record I'm pro-choice. That said, I guess my reaction has something to do with the awesome responsibility of conceiving and bearing a new life. Almost like the responsibility is almost too large to be in the hands of mortal beings. Or like, perhaps, people should take a breatholizer test before sex to determine sanity/level of desperation/clarity of reason before attempting to conceive.
As for the $30,000 bonus for successful pregnancy, that didn't seem out of range somehow. I remember in college, I saw a flyer on a bulletin board. Was by a couple wanting to have a child, and I believe they were willing to pay somewhere between $20,000 - $30,000 for healthy eggs. I don't know what the going rate for sperm is, but I'm generally guessing it'd only be fair if it were about the same.
Um. As for being an Asian person watching the movie, uh, I suppose the only place where I had a reaction where perhaps a non-Asian viewer might not have, um. Hm. Gina Kim, if you ever read this, first off, wonderful film! I loved it! Second of all, to pick a really random point, the part where Jihah tells Vera Farmiga's character that her husband looks like him. Uh, I know we all look alike, but are you saying we all look alike? They didn't look anything like each other to me.... I mean, they looked more like each other than either of them resembled, say, Mr. Yanagi from _The Karate Kid_ or, uh, Mickey Rooney playing Mr. Yunioshi in _Breakfast at Tiffany's_, but other than that, they, uh, didn't.
(But that's a really, really small point....)
oldman, your point about Asians and filial piety was pretty spot on. I just randomly watched Yasujiro Ozu's film, _Tokyo Story_, this past week. Has a boatload of parent-child stuff in it. There's a lot in there; I'm certainly not immune to it myself. There was a Chinese(?) film director in the dvd extras who said _Tokyo Story_ healed him in his own feelings toward his own parents, and he quoted a Chinese proverb: "The wind never lets trees rest calmly. Practice filial piety." Now there's concrete proof that the Chinese are a great people. Like, some sense of, they could have equally said, "The wind never lets trees rest calmly. Eat at Joe's." But instead, they said, "Practice filial piety." There's something there.
Uh, the other film on this blog this movie reminded me of was _Kitchen Stories_. Basically a getting-to-know-you under unusual circumstances kind of story.
Er. I think that's it for this morning. Thanks so much for a great movie recommendation again, Lee. My boyfriend and I talked longer after this movie than any other movie so far on this blog.
Hope everyone had a nice Thanksgiving. I really enjoy reading everyone's comments on this blog; was certainly one of the blessings I counted this year. Thanks so much Lee for creating it!
Hello Cherry -
Loved your comments (esp. the "we dont all look alike" one) and the insight you showed in finding a common thread through so many of the movies on this blog.
Also, sperm cost much less than eggs--there's so much of it on the market. Maybe the suppliers should organize into an OPEC-like organization to control the supply & raise prices..hmmm.
But your boyfriend's reaction to the abortion confused me. If she had an abortion, then she knows she needs someone else's sperm to have a baby. If she didn't, she would just be guessing. Her obvious desparation and disgust at having to find a strange sex partner (at least until the hormones kicked in) makes me think she is SURE of herself.
ONce again you guys all kicked in to make for a wonderful discussion. Unfortunately I was not free to write more so thank you all for hanging in and watching and writing!
ONce again you guys all kicked in to make for a wonderful discussion. I wish I had been free to write more so thank you all for hanging in and watching and writing!
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