I watched this for the second time last night, and kept asking myself why the Jack Lemmon character, father of Finnigan suddenly showed up one day and recalled the truth about why he got divorced.
When Casey is dying in the hospital, why does Lemmon just stroll away?
He was hoping to find happiness by reaquainting himself with his son and family. However he realises that he has come at a bad time when Casey dies and simply chooses to walk away from their lives..... a sad and very moving scene.
shareFor me, this is one of the saddest scenes in the film. I firmly believe it was another case of "Bad timing" as he put it to Howard when he explained his affair with Ola. He realized that once his grandson didn't have a chance at being revived, he was no longer going to have a chance to reconnect with his family. He was probably thinking to himself, "Well old man, it's Ola all over again...bad timing...just go...just...go."
"How can I move when you've stopped the music?"-me.
Jack Lemmon's character was my favorite in this film because of this scene. He did a fantastic acting job.
shareI disagree with what's been posted in this thread so far. The acting was good, but Jack Lemmon's charachter was probably one of the worst from the ensemble cast. He hears about his grandson (who he never cared about and never botters to learn his name, despite spending some days in the hospital) accident and uses the momentum to cowardly finally have some courage to explain to his son why they haven't talked ever since his divorce. I mean, come on...how can you feel sad about a charachter like this? He wasn't there to be supportive to his son, or to try to re-build a connection in between them. He was there purely just to vent out and from the moment he realized his son had grieving times ahead to be faced he walks out of his life as fast as he made a brief returning appearance onto it.
shareTotally agree with you surte, worst performance not to mention, annoying - just like what he is at Glengarry.
Also, him leaving the place...he was desperate for company...the way i see it, its always just about him, never cared for anyone else but himself. Look, some kind of reconciliation attempt ffs, leaving his son with a dead child..., his grandchild...just proves my point. He's just a sorry lonely old man. I like to think he left thinking, he deserve to be all alone.
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That's the whole point - he cannot face up to responsibilities, he cannot fae difficult times. It is sad, not for him, but for the situation.
shareYes, I thought he was running away at the end because he could only deal with positive situations. That could have been been the point where they needed him most, but he just ran out on them.
I used to want to change the world. Now I just want to leave the room with a little dignity.
Thank heavens someone else saw what I thought was so abundantly clear.
i don't suffer from insanity i enjoy every last minute of it
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He realized there´s no making good on past sins and mistakes. And walked away an utterly defeated man, unable to face up to emotional devastation his son & his wife were going to go through. He´s a vain narcisist and a coward as correctly pointed out, but not a sociopath.
"facts are stupid things" - Ronald Reagan
I think it's a testament to Lemmon's acting (and Altman's direction, 'course) that, despite his characters' selfish desire to justify his extramarital affair to his son (when there's no justification at all), one can't help but feel a little sorry for him. He made a terrible choice in life and he (still) can't escape the consequences. He knows he's wrong, he knows he f-cked up big time, but he continues lying to himself and he continues lying to others because he can't bear to accept the devastating truth about the whole situation. Terribly sad.
Clear eyes, full hearts, can't lose.
I didn't like Jack Lemmon's character because all he did was seem to put all his energy into worrying about the other couple's son instead of worrying about his own grandson, who, he still didn't even know what his name was.
he was hungry.
Where there's smoke, there's barbecue!
I really hated this character and Jack Lemmon's hammy over the top acting. I thought it was very implausible; no normal person would act that way, carrying on like that with the parent of a desperately ill child. JL was just reprising one of the character types he has done over the years, eg, Felix Unger.
shareI don`t think he was hammy or over the top in the least; in fact, he managed to build a remarkably rounded, three-dimensional character with the limited screen time he had - egocentric, smoothly slimy, sad, cowardly, but not altogether callous. He was there to pick up the pieces of a broken relationship, only to realize these pieces just didn`t go back together again.
"facts are stupid things" - Ronald Reagan
I knew almost immediately why Lemmon left the hospital and could feel his anguish and relent as he knew there would be no reconciliation with his son. The entire sequence of events from that story line pretty much explain this to us. I'd watch the movie again if it wasn't that clear to you.
shareYes, as someone upthread said, "bad timing". I think he sincerely wanted to reconnect with his son; but hanging around just after the grandson he never knew died was not the time for that.
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