I believe the character Almasy as Ralph Fiennes draws him starts out as controlling, I agree, but later we are allowed to see him as I believe he really is: kind of a primitive, desert character not used to being near people and not used to showing much emotion. He in fact does let his emotions come blathering out at the dinner party after their affair and in the little alcove where he blurts out : "I want the things that are mine". One can take this literally but I believe he was socially rather inept and had a lot of difficulty expressing himself to people in emotionally taut situations; example; trying to obtain a car at the English army base in the desert.
Hermit like dudes like Almasy who spend years alone with few women around talking very little being subjected to the strains of desert life do not show the usual "pleasantries" that other people acquire. I excused him on that basis alone.
I intend to live forever. So far so good.
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lamont-hard
12 years ago
I did not mean it as a complaint of the character but I felt this was so overlooked. I feel the person we saw at the end was a man of guilt on how he pushed the boundaries and basically got her killed. He never expressed anger at Geoffrey because he realized he was the real cause of the whole thing.
She actually made the right choice in my mind because she was thinking of the hurt it would cause where he could care less. In the beginning his personality was why are you leaving her with all of us men he did not know of the word trust and even took advantage of the situation. And In the remainder of the movie he displayed his personality not just at the dance but what he would have been with her.
He never really listened to her or understood her pain. I don't think these aspects of his personality would have gone away.
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