The tagline is something like, "He knew how to die, she taught him how to live" and I was thinking that's kind of the opposite of what's going on...like he's preoccupied with dying and desperately trying to hold on (as evidenced by his interrogation of the injured driver as to what went wrong) and Lillian is dying of cancer, she's kind of detaching herself from everything and letting go. Anybody else get this feeling?
"Say hello to my little friend!"
Just saw it this morning and I got the impression that the movie was saying when its your time to go, you cant fight it. Rather than dread it (death)you might as well try living and loving to your last days. Not to became preoccupied with the minute details that sometimes overcome people. Very underrated movie imo.
shareThematically I think it was sort of similar to Harold & Maude.
shareThere was nothing that Lillian could do to keep herself from dying, but Bobby's situation was much different. He could do things to keep himself from dying on the track -- inspecting the track and his uniform and his car -- and it didn't seem to me that he was particularly obsessed with death, just cautious as someone in his profession would be. However, despite all his precautions and calculations, he has an accident anyway. Upon learning that Lillian is dying, I think he realized that life is a wild card and there are no guarantees on how long any of us will live, so he was then able to let go and enjoy his time with her.
shareThat's an excellent summation of the moral of this story, Aliencat! I only wish it could have been told better in the film – and that Lillian had been slightly more likable.
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