It is extremely contrived. She faces problems in the short term that only afflict people bedridden over a long period of time. It is unrealistic in a film that is not supposed to be complete fantasy but rather "gritty and realistic". This makes her choices seem more limited than they are in order to support the premise. In "Mar Adentro" the story plays out over a longer period of time. Most people who become quadriplegics want to die in the first year but most then move beyond that grief. Ramón has both time and opportunity to move beyond that grief and it is realistic in that film when he does not do so. In MDB no such opportunity is present because that would not support its contrived ending.
> >They did not even show ONE scene of physical
> therapy. [Jim]
>
> And? Eastwood didn't include a scene you wanted.
> Bad Cllint. No Oscar. When you go to hear a concert
> of Schoenberg do you complain that you cannot find
> the harmony? At a museum do you gripe that Pollack
> doesn't have horses and children and trees in his
> paintings? [Brian Dauth]
Physical therapy to a disabled person is hardly the equivalent of horses in a Pollack painting. The lack of physical therapy undermines the realism. Physical therpay gets to the heart of the matter. That with rehabilitation she can lead a much more fulfilling life rather than face the false choice of lying in bed with sore or dying with "dignity" that the film contends. There are people in such a position but this film did not deal with that issue. No quadriplegic story that is absent physical therapy can be taken seriously and I assume Mr. Eastwood does intend his audience to take his story seriously. Maybe his film is really a cartoonish fantasy instead.
I'm not that tweaked by the film but I think that the criticisms gain validity because of Eastwoods animosity towards ADA regulations. If he had produced the film in a vacuum the criticisms might be less pointed but the reality is Eastwood has an axe to grind with the disabled and so anyone using this film as a springboard for those concerns is cool with me.
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