This is my reaction to the film. There will be spoilers so read this after you've seen the film. It's not to be read by anyone wondering whether or not to go see the film because it will ruin the ending for you and even the middle. Nikki follows Tom because she is struck by how much he looks like her late husband. The likeness is exact, actually. What happens is that she gradually gets involved with Tom but doesn't tell him why she's so smitten. He basks in her love gaze and returns the affection. I had a lot of trouble watching her conceal the true reason for her attraction to him. It was dishonest and set a poor precedent for any future the relationship might have. Since his looks are exactly like her husband's, he has a right to know this so he can decide if her feelings for him can ever change and be about him, Tom -- not him the Garrett look-alike (if that was his name). So my stomach churned more with each dishonest date they had and with each evasive act she committed with her neighbor and daughter. Why? My goal was for her to find another relationship and she was ruining it. When he did discover the truth he was going to be very angry and never trust her. She had to be the one to tell him how things really were. But she didn't. She didn't because, I figured out, she didn't want another relationship. She wasn't over the old one. In fact, she wanted to keep on living the old one. She wanted to use Tom to fantasize that the old one wasn't over. Perhaps it never needed to end after all. Logic would have told her she couldn't play that game forever but she was quite drastically short on logic. One example of this was when her daughter showed up while Tom was upstairs in the bedroom. To prevent a scene she should have said, "Daughter, this new man looks exactly like Garrett. That's weird but you should get ready for it because he's coming down. It's partly why I am attracted to him." Instead she tells her daughter stuff that isn't useful because there's no groundwork. For, "Please understand, I really need him," to work you have to first know what the odd part is (that he looks like Dad) and Nikki leaves that out. So the daughter freaks.
So it's not a movie about a woman getting on with her life. It's a movie about a woman who found a way to stay stuck and not get on with her life. I found that very hard to watch. And the ending didn't make it any better. In fact I wanted to see a couple of other paintings by Tom, not just the one of her in the pool. Was that all he did of her? He had a year after their breakup.
I don't know what to make of the film. I do know I lived part of my life that way -- not getting on with my life but in my case it was my unhappy childhood I couldn't or wouldn't get over. And I was mostly powerless even with therapy, to move on. It is a sad kind of craziness. It's a waste of a life to be stuck but I don't know that everyone has the same chance of changing that . . . or what happens that allows them to move on. For me it was a change of therapists and approaching old age. I don't know if Nikki ever did move on. We don't get to see that part. As we watch her taking in that painting at the art show we see her with a chance to get to know Tom for himself and of course, it's too late. So now she has another loss to deal with.
So it's not a movie about a woman getting on with her life. It's a movie about a woman who found a way to stay stuck and not get on with her life. I found that very hard to watch. And the ending didn't make it any better. In fact I wanted to see a couple of other paintings by Tom, not just the one of her in the pool. Was that all he did of her? He had a year after their breakup.
I don't know what to make of the film. I do know I lived part of my life that way -- not getting on with my life but in my case it was my unhappy childhood I couldn't or wouldn't get over. And I was mostly powerless even with therapy, to move on. It is a sad kind of craziness. It's a waste of a life to be stuck but I don't know that everyone has the same chance of changing that . . . or what happens that allows them to move on. For me it was a change of therapists and approaching old age. I don't know if Nikki ever did move on. We don't get to see that part. As we watch her taking in that painting at the art show we see her with a chance to get to know Tom for himself and of course, it's too late. So now she has another loss to deal with.