That was really disgusting the way they left moldy food and dirty clothes all over the place. I'm surprised the priest and boys did not hold their noses upon entering the house. For a middle class family they sure were tacky. I understand they were distressed over Cecilia's death, but maybe cleaning up could have cheered them up a bit. I'm surprised rats and roaches were not roaming around.
shareThis is ridiculous. They were a large middle class family who probably couldn't afford the privilege of the maid. This is also an obviously dysfunctional family in mourning so cleaning clearly wasn't at the top of their priority list. In any case did you really watch this entire movie and come up with THIS comment out of all you could have made??
sharethey had 5 girls and the father was a teacher in the 70's. back then teachers did well but not great. and they didn't have to spend an awful lot of money on their classrooms/students like I have to now.
and good point about the mourning. people mourn in different ways. this mother kept her room a shrine.
Oh Thank you God! Thank you so BLOODY much!Basil Fawlty
They were an intensely private family. They wouldn't have wanted a maid poking around their house, discovering all their secrets to share with the rest of the town.
Depressed people often let themselves go: their houses get messy, they might stop bathing, and they might wear the same clothes over and over. Usually it's because they don't have the energy to clean up or they see it as pointless. I doubt having a clean house would have made all their problems vanish or become easier to manage. Cecilia would still be dead even if the house was clean.
I think you'll find throughout the film that the house and property becomes an outward manifestation of the internal breakdown of the people within its walls.
When Lydia Perl comes for her first interview, she carefully dodges the many rain-soaked newspapers that line the front path, demonstrating that in the immediate aftermath of Cecelia's death, nobody has even got as far as the front porch, let alone left the house.
By the time of the homecoming dance, Lux says "I think there's a leak"...so we know that the roof needs repairs that haven't been attended to.
By the time Lux is forced to burn her records and Mrs. Lisbon brings the crate of unburnt records outside to be taken out with the trash, we can see that the "7" from the "2037" street number above their door has come loose, and nobody has bothered to repair it (which simply requires a screw and screwdriver, so we know that the house is really being neglected if such an easy fix wasn't done).
By the time we see Bonnie's death, we find that the basement is left as it was on the night of Cecilia's death, with deflated balloons, presumably rotting food, and what appears to be another leak.
The house is both a monument to a family that never dealt with the death of their youngest child, and a mirror to the "internal rot" that set in from the time that Cecelia killed herself, culminating in her sisters own suicides.
Oh, and if you read the book, that half-eating sandwich you see on the stairs is mentioned as being abandoned by someone who was too sad to finish it (sorry that I'm paraphrasing...that was from memory).
You're being shown their grief; Someone's inability to finish even half a sandwich, or pick up an item of clothing. People who can barely function, and when they do, are doing so at a minimal level where house repairs are not on the agenda.
This is a film that tries to pack in a great deal in a very short space, and does so through a whole lot of imagery.
If you wonder why you're being shown something in this film, I do recommend you pick up the book by Jeffrey Eugenides and consider what Sophia Coppola was trying to convey in whatever snippet of footage has left you scratching your head. Chances are it's the tip of the literary iceberg upon which it was based.
Remind me never to invite you to my house! Heaven forbid that we leave a pair of stockings out.
share