Intersection (1994)

Starring Richard Gere as Vincent Eastman
Sharon Stone as Sally Eastman and
Lolita Davidovich as Olivia Marshak.

It was showing on HBO when I was finishing my previous post so I was a bit distracted. But I forced myself to divide my attention and watch it because it was one of those Richard Gere films that I haven't watched. And what can I say, Gere's ma baby. :D

Anyway, the movie started at the end, where Richard Gere was about to get into an accident, and the whole plot unfolded through a series of flashbacks. It was very dramatic and all tied up in knots.

Vincent Eastman is in a dilemma choosing between Sally, his wife of already 16 years, and Olivia, a new love interest that he was slowly but surely falling in love with. This is basically the heart of it all, the main point that the story revolves around. It was basically about the decisions we make in life and in love. It doesn't go any deeper than that. Life is short, and sometimes decisions don't have to be as complicated as we make them to be. Sometimes the good decisions are the most irrational ones. And sometimes it doesn't even matter how irrational they may be, what matters is that it's what makes us happy.

It was a struggle for Vincent who to choose. He was married, but he wasn't happy. He was in a conflict. He didn't know how to get out of it. Somewhere in the middle of it, he even wrote a letter to Olivia saying that it wasn't going to work. But he never mailed it.

Towards the end of the movie, Vincent and Olivia gets into a fight where it eventually leads to their break up. He drives around a little bit more, and eventually comes into a profound realization that it really was Olivia that he wanted to be with and spend the rest of his life with. I especially loved that scene when he made a call to Olivia and basically poured out what he really felt and what he should have already told her. He proposed to her and asked her to meet him at this certain place.

The ending is my favorite. The movie held up its one last twist for the end. He then drove out to meet Olivia, driving at around 80-100, and then we go back to where it all began. He got into a car accident. He was rushed into a hospital. And he never made it out...

Sally, being his wife, received his belongings. And among those was the letter that Vincent wrote to Olivia ending their relationship. The last scene was when Olivia and Sally ran into each other outside the hospital. They merely acknowledged each other, and gave their condolences, but neither mentioned the letter that she read, nor the marriage proposal that she got. In the end, Vincent died happy finally able to make the choice that he really wanted, and both women believing that it was her that Vincent chose.

The movie actually received a rather bad review, with Sharon Stone receiving a Razzie Award for Worst Actress. I think the movie deserves a bit more credit than the reviews and critics gave it.

Only Richard Gere could pull off the unfaithful husband bit making both women happy in the end. Haha.

Oh and I was actually surprised to see little Jennifer Morrison in this film as Gere's 13-year old daughter. She still has that fierce look about her when she's in a serious mood which we all see so much of in House M.D. :) And if I'm not mistaken, Intersection is actually her film debut.

Dystopia

The world that we live in is ugly just as it is beautiful. "How can something so beautiful be equally just as ugly?" I find myself asking the world. I find myself asking God. I find myself asking myself.

No one answers.

This is how we are structured to be. We all have our so-called functions in this interplay of things. This is what they tell me..that things are the way they are JUST BECAUSE. We have to accept it--our past, present and future situations are all merely consequences of social patterns and social norms.

We all dream of a utopia. Of course. What else can be expected when we live in such a dystopic society where things, no matter how beautiful, are still evil, harsh and horrid...

There is poverty at every corner. There is starvation under the bridge. There are deaths by the hour. Tears fall with self-pity. Can you just imagine? Do we even dare imagine? There are houses merely standing, nearly tumbling. And the spirits of those who live in them, almost crumbling. Is this the social pattern we have to accept JUST BECAUSE? It this what the social norms call for?

Hopelessness, deprivation, misery,... with all these, you have to ask: where do I stand?

Contrary to the lives we lead, if we are fortunate enough to belong to the upper part of the social hierarchy, are we really spared from it all? We may be lucky enough to be born at a social advantage, or maybe lucky enough to have risen from disadvantage. But are we really spared?

We may not know it, but we thrive at others' disadvantage. This is why we are the advantaged. The gap becomes bigger and bigger, everyone is busy trying to get ahead. Who's bothering to bridge the gap? The rich becomes richer, the poor just becomes poorer... this is our world. And utopia will merely just be the ideal society, and will merely stay an idea.