The most beautiful scene in the whole film...

is when Sigourney Weaver returns home from the key party and we see her pacing around the basement before collapsing on the water bed. That whole scene is quiet and nothing happens in it, but it's just one of the accomplishments that film can get away with compared to theater or books. All we can hear is Mychael Danna's music which is somber yet beautiful in how it fits the quiet mood of the scene. The way Sigourney acts in this scene with no words is so powerful. She appears very human in the exhaustion she expresses as she takes off her coat and boots and in the quiet shame she feels as she stands outside her sons' room. It makes me feel sad for her despite how cold and icy she's been throughout the film. Then as she collapses on the water bed in her fetal position, it shows her trying to become so self-protective from the pain she's feeling. The way the scene ends there with that overhead shot of her on the bed is so haunting yet dazzling in how it gets away with depicting a broken woman who can do nothing but feel sorry for herself, which fits in with the whole film with its theme of family dysfunction. This scene just about summed up how powerless and lonely the adults and the children were about their lives.