Squashyhat:
I think you're completely right about the scene in which Katherine says, "Here, I'm a different wife." The only reason I read through the thread was to see whether someone else mentioned it.
Look at all of the foreshadowing and symbolism in that extended stay with Almasy:
The day on which she chooses to linger with Almasy was supposed to have been her wedding anniversary, but as Geoffrey knows, she was likely to forget it anyway, which was why he intended to surprise her by coming home. In effect, it's the day on which she stops being Geoffrey's wife.
It's also the day on which Geoffrey learns of the affair because of how *long* she stays with Almasy. She stays the entire day and night, saying that she has time when Almasy assumes she has to get back. She not only stops being Geoffrey's wife, symbolically; she also becomes someone else's wife. She now "belongs" to Almasy, which is evidenced by his claim of "ownership" of her suprasternal notch. It is the first time he admits that he is so attached to her that he wants to possess her always, which he denied dismissively in an earlier scene.
It's the day and night on which the two lovers are allowed to feel comfortable being together at last without time constraints. They stop and look at Almasy's things together after lingering in bed listening to music because Katherine believes that Geoffrey won't be coming home. They do things together that they hadn't had time to do before and, despite Katherine's resigned pessimism and fear of hurting Geoffrey -- her best friend long before he was her husband -- they get a taste of what married life would be like. "Here, I'm a different wife" means both things, I think: "Here, I'm a person who would have an affair" (part of the reason she begs Geoffrey to stay with her before and return to England with her after) and "Here, I live an alternate life in which I'm secretly the wife of the man I truly love." This is also echoed in the scene in which he carries her to the cave; in which she says, "I've always loved you" and Almasy weeps openly for the first time.
When he buys her the object that she later wears around her neck -- wears it in precisely the place on her body he wishes to "claim" -- it becomes a symbol of their bond that is like a wedding ring. "I never stopped wearing it," she tells him as he carries her away from the plane.
Not "reading too much into" the story would mean not reading it at all. It would mean ignoring the thematic organization of the story and the mechanics of the plotting and writing, which involve not only the original author but also the screenplay writers who have to compress that story and tell it in far less time. The more unity, resonance and inevitability that all of those people can bring to the story, the more compelling its arc and affecting its conclusion will be.
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