Sam Did Both Him and Fran a Favor (Major Spoiler)

joyce,

Your take on this only takes one so far, imo.

First of all there was nothing inherently required as you imply that they would have to return to the town they lived in while sam was still working. Unless one assumes that Sam is in effect incapable of changing, and living differently in a different place, as for one Edith does not seem to think, and what we see of the begining of his life with her in Naples or wherever else they go suggests is not at all the case, then it is simply incorrect to say they would have returned to such a life.

There is nothing of course to suggest that Sam will be returning to that "boring" life with Edith, so why do you assume Fran had no alternative to look forward to if she stayed with Sam?

But you may be correct about the favor part in any event, since Sam is better off without Fran, quite obviously. Whether Fran will be better off without him? Well, on a going forward basis, at least I think it fair to say Sam's eyes had been opened, and he would not look at her the same, so yes, she might as well try to start over with someone else who might not mind her "the grass is always greener" approach to life.

Fran is perhaps too much the cliched example of the type, but is the type of person who fails to understand the simple maxim that wherever you go, there you are. It is an open question whehter she would ever find an adequate level of happiness, but yes, she may have the chance for it with someone else. After Sam met Edith, I would guess that option was foreclosed for both Sam and Fran.

My take on Fran is the same as Sam's take on her -- she was going through a midlife crisis and did not want to grow old. She went to great lengths to present herself to others as a young, desirable woman, and attempted to marry a younger man to prove to herself that she is still young.

The gist of it is that Sam tried to wait her out, as we see so many wives in the same situation do -- he believed it was her "last fling" and subscribed to the old saying "if you love something let it go. If it comes back to you it is yours. If it doesn't, it never was". Many times the mid-life crisis is a temporary thing, and the wandering spouse comes back home when s/he realizes that they were pursuing a fantasy which has no substance and does not make them happy. In Fran's case, she simply refused to ever accept the fact that one chapter of her life was ending and that the next chapter has its own fulfillment if she would only embrace it and pass the baton of youth and vibrancy to her daughter and son-in-law as they start their own family and assume their place as pillars of young adult society. She took Sam's love for her for granted -- assuming that he would always be her safety net, and would wait forever for her and would always take her back, no matter how often she callously ripped his heart out. The fact that she was willing to abandon her daughter and deny her new grandchild in order to hide her age from a bunch of society snobs who probably don't really even care about her says to me that she is incorrigibly self-centered and is obsessed with perpetuating the facade of being a young, glamorous society butterfly who is still found attractive by dashing young men.

An older man can marry a younger woman and still start another family after his children from the first marriage are grown. Fran, however, would not have been able to do that at her age -- we are led to believe that she is at the end of her childbearing years. It wasn't until her new beau's mother bluntly pointed out that ugly truth to her that she finally realized that she had only been kidding herself -- she was never going to be able to turn back the hands of time and if she continued down this path, she was ultimately doomed to be a pathetic old lady who is used and discarded by shallow young men who did not love her, over and over again. Unfortunately for her, by the time she finally realized this fact, Sam had already moved on.

If this movie had taken place today, Fran would have spent untold thousands on plastic surgery and botox to try to keep that illusion of youth going (and would have ruined her looks in the process (a la Bruce Jenner), and would likely jump from relationship to relationship for as long as she was desirable. Eventually she would become just another used-up old woman who constantly gets her heart broken by pursuing younger men who inevitably end up cheating on her with younger women.

Life's a banquet, and most poor suckers are starving to death!

[deleted]

Actually Fran found it quite easy to attract men (for some reason) and had money so I suspect she was always going to turn out just fine.

I've said this before, but I'll say it again....

My view of Fran is that she's always been someone's daughter, someone's wife, or someone's mother, and never really had a life of her own and never been just Fran. She was having a sort of midlife crisis where she saw her chance to life the sort of life she wanted passing her by...but at the same time she was trying to have it both ways, having her flings and romances and adventures, but always going back to her accepting husband in the end.

When he leaves her, Fran is suddenly getting what she wanted, to be on her own, and she realizes she doesn't want it. Really, she lacked the maturity and grace to be a success on her own before, and the shock of him leaving her might (maybe) force her to realize that it's time to grow up and take responsibility for herself. I can see Fran still going around being the snobbish flirt who tries to pass herself off as younger than she really is....but I hope she comes to her senses and accepts herself, and her age, and works with what she has.

"Value your education. It's something nobody can ever take away from you." My mom.