Grace Is Gone. Grace was gone even before the military soldiers dropped by at Stanley's house to inform of her death. For Stanley, living in a life without Grace, alive or dead, was a place that is equivalent to not living at all. Stanley was seen to be in a daze or a state of nothingness, enclosed and shut off from reality. He struggles with his emotions and allowing healthy communication to take place. (Not wanting to share his experiences of Grace in the support group, not allowing his children to watch the news). This seems to become more prominent when the actual death itself was informed to him. He denies any entry for the military men and when he did, did not further acknowledge them or ask about the situation surrounding Grace's death.
Grief makes people do things. Why did Stanley decide to do things on a whim? Asking the girls where they wanted to go and decided that Enchanted Gardens was the perfect opportunity to be at instead of facing the fact that he has to tell them of their mother's death? Control Theory explains that we have a deep need to control our lives. It is the behaviours we do in attempt to gain control of our lives. News of death may have hit Stanley in the face, but he responded by wanting to take control of his situation, although at the same time we observe that he is also behaving out of denial. This would be explained by the buffer effect of social support, where people feel less stressed when others support their decision. Through this difficult times, Stanley relies on the daughters to support his decision making making him feel less guilty of the news delay. Want to go to Enchanted Gardens? Sure why not!
As grief and death is the central theme of this film, it demonstrates the different types coping styles displayed by each family member. Stanley's method of coping was denial (although he knows Grace is gone he continues to call her and leave voicemails to her), Heidi was surprisingly calm for her age which makes me wonder if she low key knows what was going on and represses the negative thoughts or just simply is a very calm and collected girl. Judging by her responsible actions of wanting to call the teachers to make sure they had their homework sent in, Heidi takes the role of the responsible role that Stanley clearly wasn't able to be. Dawn showed coping through her small gesture of remembering her mom at certain times of the day in order to have a certain sense of connection with the mother. Maybe its a placebo effect but it has worked on Dawn so far judging from her cheerful character throughout the film.
I also like to observe how Stanley goes to every stage of grief throughout the who film. From shock and numbness to yearning for comfort. To despair and disorganization to reorganization and recovery. A way for Stanley to display his inner turmoil is by physical distress. He is seen coiling on the floor after the news was delivered and again in the grandmother's house, he was seen rolled in catatonic state of depression. Stanley was emotionally shutting down and not progressing through the stages of grief. Until, he remembered that he had daughters he needed to deliver the news to that suddenly he made it a way to turn the events around him to fill the void that Grace has left him. He become preoccupied with trying to be the fun and spontaneous dad. He choose to go Enchanted Gardens because it was the last place he and Grace had a horrible encounter and going there was his constant reminder that he was doing this for the daughters. In despair and disorganisation, Stanley is in despair that he doesn't know how to tell the girls, even telling voicemail Grace that they deserve to know. Lastly in reorganizaion and recovery, after the trip to Enchanted Gardens, he knows that he must tell the daughters eventually. I like how he chose to pull over and talk to them on the beach side rather than waiting to go home and deliver the news in the home because somehow, I feel like at the beach, it is like a neutral ground where even if there is sadness that comes from the news of the mothers death, it will not be associated with the home that they are happily living in right now.
In the end, the movie is excellent in portraying a man in grief.
No comments:
Post a Comment