Son's girlfriend
...certainly pulled a 180.
After the funeral she was all sweetness and light and singing the boy's praises. Afterwards she was bitter and accusatory.
WTH???
She went through something pretty awful.
WTH???
It was 2 years later and she said she had to change her name and move b/c people were harassing her about it. She basically became a shut in. She even says in the film this was the first night she went out in a long time.
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Yes, yes, yes ~ of course she did "go through something pretty awful."
But since the son wasn't some breaking bad, Goth, head-banging neo-Nazi (you get my point) MOST people were shocked at his egregious behavior, and the girlfriend probably most of all. If she suffered, and the boy's gravestone was always being covered with hostile graffiti, then she must have known that the parents were suffering too. It seems strange that she would just mark the Dad as exploitative instead of something more complex: like trying to understand his son through his music, trying to resurrect the best, most creative parts of him...
I just think that if she was a good girl, and there's nothing shown to indicate she could have been complicitous in her boyfriend's crime, people would have surrounded her with protection.
I can't remember ~ did her family move away afterwards? They should have...
If she suffered...
She did. There is no if.
It seems strange that she would just mark the Dad as exploitative instead of something more complex...
She bumped into him by coincidence (said it in the film) and heard him playing his son's music (possibly profiting from it) while passing it off as his own. She was also upset that he got to go hide and start a new life as a musician while she got harassed constantly for 2 years (then moved away herself).
Did you watch a pirated version? Most of the problems you have with her were covered in the film.
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I agree, I found her part to be written rather poorly. I also feel like Sam wasn't trying to rip off his son or even personally benefit from it at all (certainly not monetarily anyhow), but just to try and come to peace with it and understand it all through the music. While one could argue that the girlfriend was simply portrayed as a bitter self-centered person with little thought to what other's feelings or motives might even be, I think the fact that nobody questioned it and that the rest of the band (especially Quentin) reacted equally outraged shows the film was essentially condoning that perspective - or at least acknowledging its almost unquestioned veracity. Off hand, its the only part I the film I could really take issue with, though.
But what do I know. I'm just a girl.