What kind of person commits suicide to be with someone decades ago? Yes it’s romantic, but very silly. Richard had to realize he had to return to the future someday. I guess the time machine sex was too good to live without.
Its a movie
shareTroll Alert.
shareReally? You can't think that he killed himself to be with her. He lost the will to live. Simple as that. Maybe I get it because I went to college?
shareWatched the movie for the first time in near 20 yrs, and did find the ending a tad lame. If he truly believed he had travelled in time, there was nothing to stop him from doing so again later in her timeline.
Also what has always bugged me is the "is he a fellow time traveller or isn't he" regarding the W F Robinson character. He clearly knew how her career would shape itself, and that a man would come along and ruin it, so anyone else think he was another like Richard Collier?.
Si vis pacem, para bellum
But he did try. Prior to having success the first time it was extremely difficult. That was made very clear. It's heavily implied it took too much out of him physically.
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"He clearly knew how her career would shape itself, and that a man would come along and ruin it"
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No he did not. It was just a typical line when one has suspicions of what is inevitable. She's beautiful, young and successful, not in love yet? If Robinson had that crystal ball, he would have known his efforts to physically harm and threaten Collier would fail.
Robinson was just a desperate control freak losing his apparent control.
I think he knew he would never get back no matter how hard he would try.
Back from the future he must have been recallled the old eloise approaching him during his play telling him to come back to her.
Eloise approaching him in the future, and his seperation from her in the past made him realize what actually happened and made him realize why he cant return.
I think he knew he would never get back no matter how hard he would try.Also, a lot has to do with the fact that the past cannot be changed. He was able to travel into the past after he determined (through the old hotel record) that he had been there. But he knew from the history books that he hadn't been with Elise for more than a couple of days. All he could do was travel to the past to fulfill a destiny that was already written; he couldn't alter the past no matter how much he tried. It's a little like those old Greek myths (e.g. Oedipus) where you try to escape from a fate that was foretold by prophecy, but no matter what you do it ends up happening anyway. share
Robinson didn't know the specifics of the future. He was simply an overbearing yet keen manager who knew that someday love would enter her life and jeopardize her focus on her career - things like that. See?
shareyes i agree with you the ending was lame but if you were in his position what will you do ? if you know the only love of your life is some other place ,
and i agree with you i thought Robinson was a time traveler too but seems not but he knew something about him that the movie never explained how did he know that ?
He didn't exactly killed himself, but died of a broken heart. The ending might be sappy, but it sure is an effective tearjerker.
shareThe only tears I shed were at the beginning. I was wishing that another actor was in it because I miss Christopher and it was difficult to see him as he was then.
The story itself ... not a drop and I am a confessed "movie weeper" !
He could have tried going back there again. It was silly to kill himself.
He was able to do it once, he can do it again.
He tried to do it too soon and wasn't in the correct state of mind for self hypnosis.
He should have stayed calm and not panicked. Waited a week or so to get ready, and used the same technique to go back to her.
What he's done is ruined her life as well as his own. She spends the next 50 years alone, waiting for him so she can give back his watch. She could have met another man, had a family. Instead she stays single with a man she can never be with.
Did he commit suicide? That's not what the film suggests, rather that after being abruptly torn away from the past he left a bit of himself there, his body was in the present but his mind was gone.
Imagine finding love the likes of which you never imagined possible, live in it briefly and then lose it forever, it would consume you.
Richard had no will to live without Elise but he didn't willingly commit suicide, he left his soul in 1912.
Oh yes, as for the ending being lame, I can think of nothing more wonderful and beautiful than spending eternity with my true love, it's far more rewarding than the short years we'd spend together here in this plain of existence.
shareIt's interesting how many male fans of Somewhere in Time there are. It makes for a much different discussion than what usually happens about romantic movies. Thanks for your perspective!
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"How was the war, sir?"
"As any war, ma'am, a waste of good men." (Poldark)
Imagine finding love the likes of which you never imagined possible, live in it briefly and then lose it forever, it would consume you.
This will be the only comment or reply you'll get. Like I give a sh!t about YOUR interwebz opinion.share
I never read the ending as "suicide" either. Just that was was so devastated he shut down and couldn't do anything else.
shareAmazing how many dumb people show up in this topic. Suicide? You really think if he wanted to kill himself, there weren't ways that would be quicker, easier, less painful, less likely to be thwarted than starvation and dehydration?
What time machine did he use? For crying out loud, such stupidity.