CAUTION: SPOILERS
This movie had me in tears just about every 2 minutes at least. While a young man maps out his ambitions for the future, he meets a woman who sees the world with eyes that are similar to his, but a bit more outspoken. They fall in love, and would be the perfect couple if not for their conflicting political views and family traditions. While Fielding (a beautiful Kleenex-box devouring performance by Billy Crudup) works for the Coast Guard and then thru law school, Sarah (an equally wonderful Jennifer Connelly) is an independent Peace-Corps worker of sorts, working for the Catholic church in different and dangerous situations that take her far from home into hotbeds of political strife.
Fielding's life is shattered when Sarah and 2 Chilean diplomats are killed in a car bomb in 1973. For the next decade, he tries to move on without her, and presses on until he becomes a candidate for public office. Suddenly, he begins to...hallucinate? Dream? Have visions? of the woman he loved. He begins to believe he is losing his mind, and it affects his campaign.
The one thing that confuses me and kind of pees me off is when Sarah suddenly seems to reappear for real, first via phone call and second, with a surprise visit. She apologizes for hurting him, and if what she's saying is true, she really did nearly kill him by faking her death. Did she fake her death because of the Chilean Resistance? Or did she want out of the relationship because though they love each other, their beliefs and politics don't match. Fielding wakes up the morning after this cryptic 'visit' and wonders if even this was a reverie. But somehow, the fact that he never has visions or hallucinations of weird phone calls ever again, says to me, Sarah had been alive all these years and had faked her death for one reason or another. I really should watch this again to get a better clarity on exactly what her motives were, but I cried so much that I don't think I can go through this again. The one consolation is that Fielding won the election and began to help make a difference in people's lives. Sarah influenced him in a major way, but I was so sad to see that they couldn't have a life together working side by side.
This movie had me in tears just about every 2 minutes at least. While a young man maps out his ambitions for the future, he meets a woman who sees the world with eyes that are similar to his, but a bit more outspoken. They fall in love, and would be the perfect couple if not for their conflicting political views and family traditions. While Fielding (a beautiful Kleenex-box devouring performance by Billy Crudup) works for the Coast Guard and then thru law school, Sarah (an equally wonderful Jennifer Connelly) is an independent Peace-Corps worker of sorts, working for the Catholic church in different and dangerous situations that take her far from home into hotbeds of political strife.
Fielding's life is shattered when Sarah and 2 Chilean diplomats are killed in a car bomb in 1973. For the next decade, he tries to move on without her, and presses on until he becomes a candidate for public office. Suddenly, he begins to...hallucinate? Dream? Have visions? of the woman he loved. He begins to believe he is losing his mind, and it affects his campaign.
The one thing that confuses me and kind of pees me off is when Sarah suddenly seems to reappear for real, first via phone call and second, with a surprise visit. She apologizes for hurting him, and if what she's saying is true, she really did nearly kill him by faking her death. Did she fake her death because of the Chilean Resistance? Or did she want out of the relationship because though they love each other, their beliefs and politics don't match. Fielding wakes up the morning after this cryptic 'visit' and wonders if even this was a reverie. But somehow, the fact that he never has visions or hallucinations of weird phone calls ever again, says to me, Sarah had been alive all these years and had faked her death for one reason or another. I really should watch this again to get a better clarity on exactly what her motives were, but I cried so much that I don't think I can go through this again. The one consolation is that Fielding won the election and began to help make a difference in people's lives. Sarah influenced him in a major way, but I was so sad to see that they couldn't have a life together working side by side.