MovieChat Forums > Catch Me If You Can (2002) Discussion > One think I never understood

One think I never understood

posted 11 years ago by beril_kin
9 replies | jump to latest

is that did he consider marrying Brenda because his father is an lawyer so that with this connection he can also be, or he truely loved Brenda?

[–] paul-2219 11 years ago

It might have been just a desire to stop running and settle down, but I think he really loved her. I think he knew he was taking a chance staying with her and with one of his forged identities, but like Carl said, "If he loses the name, he loses the girl". And at the airport waiting for her to meet him? It looked to me like he was heartbroken when he saw that she'd come with all those undercover feds to capture him.

[–] beril_kin 11 years ago

Yes you are right.. if he hadn't loved her he wouldnt have come to meet her at the airport.. but the thing made me think this way is that the minute Brenda told her father is a lawyer he recommended they can marry he come up with a marrige idea just Brenda told that. Maybe at first he just wanted to become a fake lawayer to make money but after he end up loving her and her family

[–] paul-2219 11 years ago

Maybe but I doubt it. He could have become a fake lawyer anywhere, and he knew that Carl was close on his trail. It sounded to me like the one way he could make Brenda happy again was to show up as a rich doctor asking her dad for permission to marry her.

[–] theteeto 9 years ago

He loved her and risked everything for her. He only "became" a lawyer after meeting her father and wanting to get in good with him.

[–] jhrmiah 9 years ago

I don't think his first motivation was love really, but his motivation to keep running and of course, money, pushed him into the marriage with Brenda. And the marriage was a definite cover, as was the becoming a lawyer.

However I think he begins to develop feelings and truly care about Brenda gradually, as is in the scene where he's watching tv with Brenda's family and he begins to slowly realize that a settled life might not be so bad. Also his showing up to the airport like someone else on here just said, was proof of his feelings for her, I mean he did risk capture just for her. so it must have been real.

[–] PaladinNJ (21510) 6 years ago

The movie took two different stories from his book and merged them into a single story. The girl who turned him in & the lawyer experience were two different incidences in real life.

[–] redban (6203) 4 years ago

He did love her. Staying with her almost got him caught, as he couldn't change his name without losing the girl. He took that risk out of love.

And he goes through all the trouble of trying to arrange for her to meet him at the airport. If he didn't like her, he would have just left without her.

[–] bigbadwolf666 (4707) 4 years ago

Which was a fatal mistake cause she was willing to turn him in and she was too stupid to help him and not mature enough to make the sacrifice needed for him to be successful.

[–] Otter (24464) 4 years ago

FYI normal, stable, healthy human beings will not "make that sacrifice" for love, not if you tell them that everything you ever said to them is a lie and that you now want to skip town and live a life of crime. No, the normal, healthy, psychologically stable, *mature* response to something like that is to realize the person you thought you loved never really existed, and that you've been duped by a sociopathic liar, and that your best course of action is to turn him into the police and get a quick divorce.

Any *mature* person would know that, but Abengale wasn't mature. Remember he'd embarked on his crime spree at 16 and was caught at 19, he would have been maybe 18 when he was married and really pretty clueless about love.