MovieChat Forums > Carriers (2009) Discussion > Kate - completely superfluous character

Kate - completely superfluous character

posted 15 years ago by j-cameron22
65 replies | jump to latest

After watching this movie I was bewildered by the inclusion of Kate's character and suspect producer meddling to be the cause. I have no problem with her acting - she is a perfectly fine actor and a beautiful too. The problem is, her character adds absolutely nothing to film and actually ruins it to a great extent. I get the definite sense that the script didn't originally include her and she was quickly added in the final hour at the insistence of money hungry producers requiring a more bankable teen-friendly picture.
MAJOR PLOT SPOILERS AHEAD...
In the scene where Bobby is ordered out of the car, how much more impact would there have been if Bobby was the only girl in the car with them? Just the two brothers left alone.
Similarly, when Danny shoots his brother, the impact is lessened by the presence of Kate, her only justification for being there seeming to give him the gun to do the deed.
When she washes herself at the well it seems a blatant attempt at a Michael Bay style iconic shot and I'd bet good money that the Blu-ray/DVD will include that shot on the back when it's given a release.
Kate virtually has no screen presence throughout and the only time anyone acknowledges her is when they refer to her as Danny's 'girlfriend' and are then vaguely informed that she is in fact not his girlfriend. We are never informed how any of them know the girl.
Most crucially, the end scene where Danny reaches the beach and says "We made it" is pretty much neutred by the fact that she's there with him. Imagine, if he was alone and said "We made it". Now that would've been a tear-jerker and a half. No girl, no hope for recreation. Just one guy on a beach with his memories. Not surprisingly, Kate then conveniently disappears leaving Danny standing alone in the final shot. It's not like anyone can fight the case that she never really existed in the first place and was some kind of ghost/projection because as mentioned his brother actually acknowledged her in that one scene.
To be fair, I think this film was pretty damn good and a refreshing break from all the zombie clones out there but wonder how great this film might have been had Kate been excised from the whole thing.

--I do wish Imdb wasn't so riddled by bugs and popups--

[–] saymercury7 12 years ago

Kate was the survivor character out of these four. In real life, among people faced with a critical situation, "Kate" is the most common and obvious prototype. Very few are able to come forward and be the leader like Bryan(whether a good or a bad one), few are willing to be the bleeding heart like Danny and thankfully not many are as stupid as Bobby (i don't just mean her reaching out to the girl, i mean all of her disastrous actions in the movie). Most people will try to keep their heads down, stay out of sight and out of trouble, don't burden themselves with unnecessary risks and time and energy wasting tasks, don't let emotions override the survival instinct, save yourself first.
This movie was also not supposed to be a tear jerker (replying to a 4 year old post here but ok), there was nothing touching or sentimental about it.

[–] j-cameron22 12 years ago

Wow, 3 year bump, awesome. Thanks saymercury7! Memory of the film is a little hazy now but I remember it enough. I find your post very interesting if a little bit disturbing tbh. I personally found the film very touching, emotional AND with a healthy dose of sentiment, particularly the whole backstory about the beach and him standing alone at the end. The beach is the ideal, the utopia, the main sentiment part of the story. The idea of spending your life alone in utopia or even without the one person who shared that ideal is heart-achingly bittersweet, at least to me. The mission of ANY movie is to engage in some way with your emotions, to make you feel something. You really felt nothing? Your assessment of Bobby's actions are also very cold. What a bleak and narcissistic view of humanity you paint, where everyone should be out for themselves and always put themselves before anyone else. Yes you may survive, but at what cost to your humanity? Kate's contant checking of the phones does contradict your argument a bit though I think. I hope you don't find this post offensive as I truly don't intend it to sound that way. Just saying that I really had a very different emotional response watching this film than you did. It's the polar-opposite view to mine in fact and I welcome the discussion

[–] saymercury7 12 years ago

well, i'm not saying this is how people *should* behave, I'm saying this is how they usually do (if you study events like war, famine, genocide). It's horrifying because it's supposed to be, the movie is supposed to shock you because it's so radically different from most post-apocalyptic movies where empathy and chivalry prevail and the heroes are magically rewarded with a solution.

real life doesn't work that way most of the time though. you know the proverb, "all the brave men are dead". people who survive horrific events are often not heroes, but cowards, snitches and opportunists. And they are not necessarily a minority or less human, they have feelings and hopes too, like Kate who checked the phones trying to call her parents.

As for Bobby, she was truly a stupid character, not just because she wanted to help the little girl, but because she constantly endangered herself and them all with her stupidity (her behavior in the car for example). she's also not really morally superior to any of them since she knowingly hid her disease and infected her lover.

[–] galluslass 11 years ago

Kate was interesting as she was the coldest in the end - the survivor and would do whatever t takes.

Also, I think the end g would have been less powerful without her. Danny makes it to the beach with a beautiful companion, they can be together and start afresh and even perhaps have children. Instead, he realises how lane he is and it all wasn't worth it in the end.

[–] brain_red 9 years ago

i like your proposed ending with just danny solo in the beach. which is why when the girls were told to strip and it was discovered bobby was infected, but not kate, the hazmat men should've kept kate with them so it would set up the stronger and impactful final act that you proposed with bobby being ordered to get out of the car, danny killing his brother, and arriving at the beach alone.

bobby and danny's bro didn't really care for kate so leaving her behind with the men is believable and danny would eventually have accepted it.

[–] bottleshock34 9 years ago

The men didn't know if the rest of the group was infected too so that's why they didn't keep kate. It makes perfect sense that if one person in the group is infected it's most likely the others would be to.

"Some of the worst things imaginable have been done with the best intentions"

[–] brain_red 9 years ago

but they asked both girls to strip and kate wasn't infected since she had no visible marks, they should've kept her so the final act would've had more impact as the op suggested.