It may be true that within every relationship there is the lover and the one who is loved and that love is generally unequal. At least, Eric (Jericho Rosales) feels himself to have been the lover and is resentful that Ellie (Anne Curtis) did not seem to love him as much as he loved her, but the irony is that Ellie may feel the same. She kept trying to get through to Eric, but he never really seemed to listen to her nor did she feel him to be very interested in who she actually was as opposed to what he wanted her to be.
In any case, it’s clear from the offset that Eric and Ellie are entirely unsuited. The qualities that once drew them to each other are exactly those which later drive them apart. Told mainly from Eric’s perspective, the film nevertheless paints him as an incredibly dull person, which wouldn’t really be a problem in itself if he didn’t resent other people’s desire to go places and do things quite as much as he does. He’s a bit of a fuddy-duddy and, as his mother puts it, “traditional” which is to say socially conservative with some fairly right-wing, authoritarian views which are in direct contrast to Ellie’s bohemian outlook. Eric’s attracted to her because she’s a free spirit, a dynamic and mysterious young woman who likes to have fun but also wants to make a difference in the world.
But Eric’s also insecure in himself and at the end of the day wants Ellie to lead a more conventional life. Ellie comes from money, and Eric can’t escape the sense of inferiority he feels around her upper-class parents who disparage his occupation on their first meeting and make no secret of the fact they think he’s not good enough for their daughter only to come round to him later. In some ways, Ellie may be attracted to him because he reminds her of her father and aside from his working-class background is exactly the sort of man she’s told she’s supposed to want. Nevertheless, he becomes jealous and controlling. He pushes marriage with thinly veiled desperation, as if by putting a ring on her finger he’d have won her forever. Ellie, meanwhile, tells him she doesn’t want to be “trapped” by him and has no interest in getting married. All she wants is to live with him, though Eric isn’t all that keen on the business of living so much as the external validation of social success through ticking off milestones like marriage and children and career achievement.
Ellie doesn’t care about any of that. When she tells Eric that she’s quit her office job because the corporate life isn’t for her, he looks on in total horror as if he can’t believe someone would do something so foolish as to quit their job with no plan for the future. He puts up with it when she starts doing humanitarian work, but thinks of it as a hobby or a passing fancy and never takes it seriously. It doesn’t occur to him that something that doesn’t make money or improve one’s social standing could be fulfilling, and worse than that, he resents what he sees as Ellie’s unseriousness thinking that it’s born of the confidence and security that comes with privilege. If he once thought of her as a free spirit, he comes to see her as flaky and fails to notice that she is always growing and changing as she pursues the person she’s supposed to be while he remains defiantly as he is, resenting that everything is changing all around him.
Still, Ellie keeps trying even though this relationship is clearly not working for her. She begins smoking to deal with her anxiety which mainly seems to be bundled up with her relationship with Eric and breaks down in tears listening to a woman trapped in an abusive marriage tells her of her struggles to leave while working at a women’s association. Eric is often cruel and thoughtless, selfish and controlling, pissed off when she talks to other men but flirting with a woman at work with whom he almost starts an affair. He thinks that “almost” is his saving grace, but really it doesn’t matter. Eric has treated both women disrespectfully and already cheated on Ellie emotionally if only in his reluctance to go home knowing that she’s there. The generous conclusion that Ellie comes to that they were both too much for each other. At the wedding where they reconnected, Ellie asked Eric if he thought their friends’ relationship would last and love was enough to see them through. Eric thought so, though she wasn’t so sure. It worked out for their friends who might not have had such a tempestuous love story and settled into a much more conventional married life, but no matter how much they may have loved each other, Eric and Ellie’s romance was always doomed. “How did they survive each other?” Ellie asks as she and Eric look on at an older couple celebrating a birthday surrounded by children and grandchildren, while all they’re left with is the smouldering embers of a failed love.
Trailer (no subtitles)
Windows on Worlds 