pervert dad???
what was the deal with alan arkin feeling up his niece? was it supposed to be an accident? or was he supposed to be a pervert?
shareThe niece explains it right after it happens. He's lonely, drunk and in confusion makes a mistake of reaching out for human contact. At least, that's probably the PhD explanation of his actions. I think he was just horny and was too loaded to realize the implications of trying to get some from a relative.
shareplus she prance around half naked all the time. She is highly inappropriate with her relatives.
"You're like a life support system for a c*o*c*k!"
Hardly. All the family were very open sexually - the brother 'pranced around half naked' a lot too, they were all quite comfortable discussing Vivian's breasts and the brother's 'morning boner'. Rita wasn't behaving inappropriately at all. (And the fact Alan Arkin immediately apologised rather than blaming the victim like you just did, indicates that he recognised that he was in the wrong.)
shareI really got the impression that he abused her/touched her when she was a little girl growing up, and that he hadn't done it in a while, and then he just had a "slip" or whatever because he's going through a rough time. And she's not making excuses for him, but she kind of understands where he's coming from because she has had slip ups with drugs her entire life. And that she's always been closer to her uncle than her father because they both share that personality trait.
I always thought this was the case, also. Plus, Rita seems like she's been used/mistreated by men so much it's like nothing to her.
shareRemember when Rita and Vivian are in the bathroom later and she confronts her about it? Vivian says something like "sometimes a person can get so hungry and so desperate they might do something they will regret." That sums it up right there. She understood that at that moment he lost control and she knows all about losing control. Mind you, there is NO excuse for his behavior. I think he deserves a good, long and sever beating for it. But that's me. The point is that Vivian understood and she was not willing to place blame on him for an act of desperation. She almost saw it as a starving man stealing food from a sacred place out of sheer desperation.
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