Of all the memorable movie scenes, this is one of my very favourites: so straightforward, so descriptive, so harsh and life-like, so telling of women’s feelings…
It belongs to the film Closer (Mike Nichols, 2004. Very recommended). Dan and Alice have been arguing, and he leaves her hotel room in anger; but when he’s about to catch the elevator, he suddenly regrets and comes back to the room; back to Alice. But… unfortunately it’s too late. Wretched Dan! It’s simply too late:
— I don’t love you any more –she tells him, her eyes full of sadness, but determined, resolved, firm.
— Since when? –he asks. He is still unexperienced and has not gone through this before; so he doesn’t quite understand the full scope of her statement.
— Since now. It’s over. You can go.
Just like that. And Alice is completely serious. She means it. Oh, yes!, she does. In the lapse of a single minute she has gone from love to not-love. And there’s nothing, absolutely nothing he can do or say, make a fool of himself, now or later, for his years to come, to make her change back her mind. Thus young Dan learns tonight this little feature about women’s hearts, getting a wound that will never fully heal; while Alice, sweet Alice, will carry on her own way not ever thinking of Dan again; smiling; without looking back a single time…
Such is life, and such are women, indeed; for, what man in his thirties -leave aside his forties- has not gone through some I don’t love you any more or other? There are way too many Alices out there ready to perform on us this funny trick, and their passionate loves of a while ago, their staunch cares, great concerns or strong fires may suddenly, for no apparent reason, vanish into thin air as if never existed.
For me, though, the most disheartening side of this is… we never get to know why! No, no; they won’t tell, our beloved women. They’ll say nothing, not out of spite or meanness (there’s no ill will within their bosom, no resentment probably), but out of sheer insouciance! Because when they stop caring about us like that, then they care so little that don’t even bother explaining what happened — if anything at all. Was it our mistake? Then we’ll make it again next time, since we can’t learn what we did wrong. No matter how much you ask them, they won’t tell. We have to guess for ourselves, or be damned.
So, that’s why I like so much this harrowing and realistic scene: it’s one of the very few I’ve watched setting forth in its full crudeness this particular side of the female heart.
And, yet, as the Mexican song goes: Women, oh divine women!, we can’t choose but worship them!