MovieChat Forums > Afternoon Delight (2013) Discussion > What was the point?

What was the point?

posted 11 years ago by youvegotyale
15 replies | jump to latest

What was the point to this entire film? This bored, unhappy, unfulfilled privileged white woman takes in a stripper/escort in a bid to help her turn her life around, but by the end of the movie disregards her and puts her back on the streets where she found her?

What did she expect was gonna happen? a troubled young woman with abandonment issues, daddy issues, alcoholism, addiction problems, currently working as an escort and stripper at 22 to make ends meet was gonna be a non-issue? She confided in Rachel that she was struggling with sobriety and was on day 55, then when her actions at the poker game were a direct result of her relapsing, Rachel throws her out? Why not just send her to a rehab and actually help her? Encourage her to go to AA or go hunting for real jobs instead of accompanying her to her escort sessions?

[–] mslady89 10 years ago

Exactly what im wondering, because after it all happened, she lost 2 friends who she clearly didnt even like and got back a decent relationship with her husband. The main character was too reminiscent of a teenager with her feelings and indecisiveness. The ending wasnt this one big closure to me, honestly felt like a waste of time

[–] RadioTherapy 10 years ago

I see the points you made, but I thought the overall theme was that such people are kind of beyond help/can only be helped when they help themselves first. McKenna didn't seem to have a real interest in getting better. Rachel gave her an out if she wanted one (she was living rent free, for Christ's sake), and she still continued escorting. The point of the movie was pretty much that you can't fix other people, they can only fix themselves. Rachel had great intentions (as do most people with the same mentality - I've been in Rachel's shoes quite a few times, although in less extreme situations) but great intentions aren't enough to save people and not all endings are happy.

[–] prplayer 8 years ago

the movie would have been a complete waste of time were it not for the fact that Juno Temple is a very cute, hot, sexy and beautiful woman

so many movies, so little time

[–] mobocracy (894) a year ago

Usually in a film like this you expect a character like Hanh's to have some kind of enlightenment about Juno Temple's character being more than just the label applied to her (stripper or whore). Hahn seemed to both fall for Temple sexually, want to save her and be repulsed by her. Yet the repulsion is what wins out? It's a weird take on Hahn's transformation that indulging in the worst stereotyping of Temple (whether her actions at the end made her blameworthy or not).

I don't see how her relationship with her husband or her own sexual dysfunction get better from this experience.

Some of this film's problem is that it seems to want to set this situation up as something of a comedy, with Hahn playing a stereotypical hapless middle-aged Jewish mom (a role she's transcendent, if not typecast for) while at the same time trying to be this weighty marital drama.

I liked it, but it ultimately came off confused.