Three West

When I first watched this movie I liked it but didn’t like the ending. It felt like “oh god, not another lazy writer who wants us to finish telling their story to ourselves”. But a day later the movie kept playing in my mind. I just couldn’t let it go. Eventually it began to all make sense. I couldn’t believe the depth of the messages that began to reveal themselves the more I processed the movie.

One thing that threw me off was the feeling that the story was about just the woman and possibly the young man; until I realized the story was actually about the woman and her husband. I believe the young man was a younger, nicer version of her husband and represents how he was when they were dating or first married. One thing that first lead me to this was the golf. What are the chances of this drifter coming into her home who happens to also be good at golf? Perhaps she was trying to stop him from playing golf because it may have been the first thing that caused her husband to become the man that he is (for instance, golf symbolizing business and affluence that her husband obviously strives for, (the ball hitting the woman in the car was to show how his goals in life have hurt people and have been destructive) Then there are other things; like with the police when they checked the young man’s background they said he had a degree, etc. (I also noticed that while this guy was a drifter he drove a nice BMW bike, his character was almost to say there was a balance between the finer things and being humble (i.e. hand washing clothes when you don’t have to, yet driving a nice vehicle). And once this guy was locked up, the woman’s husband tried to be much nicer but this is what lead me to think that the story is also just as much about him. I thought the husband trying to be nice once the drifter was “locked up” represented the Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde personalities of a lot of abuse spouses/significant others. It reminded me of when abusive persons beat their loved ones then try to act nice or remorseful afterwards; claiming they will never do it again. In this case, the husband was trying to reassure his wife he was a changed man.

I asked myself, why would the husband be able to interact with the young man? His interaction with this young guy is a war between the mean person he is and perhaps the good person he used to be when he was younger. His current self is so determine to stay on the path to what he thinks life should be like, it drives him to fight the more carefree side of himself. I mean the end is like “I know that nice part of me is somewhere around here threatening to ruin all that I’ve worked hard to get at his expense.”

The zero on the scale is pretty straight forward. Who they used to be when he was a different person, doesn’t exist anymore… If you want to get more silly you could say, when he fixed the scale, he weighed 60 she weighed 40 = 100 which could be taken as together they are 100% or that their relationship is uneven with him being more important than her.

One could also see that this young guy was just in the wife’s mind also because he seemed to do some dumb things that if you are a seasoned drifter, you probably wouldn’t do. Like, just hanging up the phone on the dead guy’s son AND still staying in the apartment like nothing is wrong. I mean, I’d like to think that a seasoned drifter would know he should bounce. Or always leaving his bike right outside the houses they break into. I mean really? But if this man is created by this woman’s mind, I can see why these mistakes were made because its really her who is making them.

I also think that whole prison scene again was back to being directly about the husband. He was trying very hard to cage that part of himself. The nice part of himself or who he used to be. So the nice part of himself, learned to be there stealth-fully(and in the end, the wife learned to relate to him as if he were still that nice guy he used to be. i.e. see past the abusive person who he’d become like so many abused women do). The cops were a part of the husband’s reality. They kept his nicer self in check.

I also think the couple who’s home they went back to and just let her sleep, represents what they could have been. Those two were shown watering or tending to plants whenever they were in a shot, representing two nurturing people; which would be required for a good relationship.

In the end, the wife decided to stay with the husband because as the scene would show, she was determined to hold on to the person he used to be (i.e. the young caring man). By the end of the movie, the husband had not changed. So this movie was simply a glimpse of the dynamics of abusive relationships. It covers some of the common behaviors and decisions of both the abused and the abusers.