MovieChat Forums > The Prince of Tides (1991) Discussion > Lila and Tom Wingo

Lila and Tom Wingo

posted 14 years ago by hinebabe8
5 replies | jump to latest

Why does Tom hate his mother?? In the movie it's just sort suggested that he hates her cos she made them promise not to tell about the rapes and it screwed them up. But what was the whole reason behind it in the book? I know she had a desire to be considered a part of high society and be rid of her "white trash" label and sort if sold her family out to get it. Was there anything else left out the movie from the book??

!!!MEAN *MAORI* MEAN!!!
!!!!TINO RANGATIRATANGA!!!!

[–] 14 years ago

[deleted]

[–] hinebabe8 13 years ago

I just read the book a couple weeks ago, and it gave me a lot more insight into the story. I wish the movie had shown more parts that Lila and Henry Wingo were in, because the scenes they had shown wasn't quite enough to show their relationship with one another, and how Lila came to be how she was. It did not show how she wore Gardenia's in her hair in the spring and why she never wore them again, and it did not have the character of Isabel Newbury to set another factor in Lila's life. I just think they would have done the film more justice by adding these factors to their plotline, but I know you can't have everything from the book condensed into a two-hour movie.

!!!MEAN *MAORI* MEAN!!!
!!!!TINO RANGATIRATANGA!!!!

[–] 13 years ago

[deleted]

[–] steveintucson 13 years ago

I wondered that too. I think part of the problem is that this was an early drama incorporating a dysfunctional family as the motivation behind the action but when the "secret" is revealed it turns out the parents were not responsible for the trauma.
In the movie and the book, the father seems pretty grouchy and crude but he was much less physcially abusive than say... my father was. And the mother; she always appears to be doing things with the children, letting them in on things like serving dog food to the father, etc. She doesn't display hostility, hysteria, or other behaviors that would damage children like say... my mother did.
All of the "problems" of this family seems to be caused by a couple of escaped criminals whose memory is repressed. In all honesty, something I would speculate would be easier to work through psychologically speaking than hostile and destructive parents.

[–] hinebabe8 13 years ago

Yeah, the movie definitely skipped some important points from the book. In the book, I believe Tom started hating his mother when she married Newbury, because she changed and felt like she
denied her family was hers. The part where Luke got involved in the whole government taking over Colleton, so Newbury could profit, I think was the icing on the cake. Those parts needed to be shown, as well as the parts where Lila started to become bitter because of her husband and the rich women of Colleton, and they needed to show more of Henry's violent episodes, because the Henry in the movie was not nearly violent enough. He was horrible in the book! I would have loved to have seen Amos and Tolitha in the movie too.