I am drawn to Nancy Botwin’s character for another reason. She misses red flags, or is so trusting, she might possibly just tell herself that it’s all in her head. This fascinates me, more as a concern than as an appreciation for the particular trait.
Example: She’s at a dinner table with the DEA agent who, in an astonishingly brief incubation period, decides he’s so in love with her that he’s willing to risk his drug enforcement career to preserve her drug dealing career. He admits that he’s known about her job since the day after he met her because he looked her up. He investigated her.
Eeeww. First of all, he’s not attractive enough for me to consider allowing this sort of behavior. Second of all, how is this not screaming “Obsessive stalker! Corrupt agent! Get out now!”
Buuuut, Nancy has some things working against her – she’s recently widowed, and it sounded as though her dead husband was the one major relationship/dating experience she had before she got married. On top of which, they were married at least 15 years or so. Believe it or not, being away from dating behavior for that long really leaves you a little bit stupid.
Also, she’s drunk when the d-bag makes the statement. And she’s reeling from the knowledge that she’s gotten herself wrapped up with a DEA dude who actually knows what she does. So of course, she might sidestep some issues just to save her sweet little bedunkadunk.
It’s all hard for me to swallow, though, because my hope is that as I get older, more and more I will see right through the bs. At least more often than I did when I was a fresh young lass entering the world of men. So I don’t like to see mature women, fictional or otherwise, falling for it.
This entry all takes us back to a previous fixation of mine. When I finally watched The Departed I got stuck on it for a few weeks, not only due to the incredible acting esp. in the hands of Matty Damon and Leo DiCaprio, but the feminine love interest – well, her story line was muddled at best. I just didn’t buy her. I couldn't get this movie out of my head b/c I was trying to figure her out.
She’s a thirty-something woman, a professional counselor – you actually see her cringe at the red flags that she’s getting from Damon’s character, and yet she still soldiers on into a bad relationship. I don’t get that. She should know better, just based on her occupation.
Then, she suddenly gets pregnant, and she is so pregnant that she can tell him the gender when she’s telling him the good news. Which puts her at approximately 16-20 weeks. Then she walks away from the bad guy at the funeral, who’s asking, “what about the baby?” My question exactly. She was too far along to have an abortion, if she was far enough along to know the gender. So, Mr. Scorsese - what about the baby? But I digress.
