Saber69 wrote:
What kind of father would he even have made . . .
A very good one, I believe, but he has to have a home of his own with Ashley away from his mother.
except for maybe showing his totally different personality outside the family
That is exactly what the scene shows, and it is key to the movie. Johnny's real personality comes out when he is away from his mother. It shows the person that Ashley married. Johnny is basically a very happy person. He is amazingly happy at a routine and boring job.
which may lend to my subject line.
It shows that your subject line is wrong. He just has to get away from his family and he is a completely different person.
The back story to this movie is so obvious to me that I have trouble understanding why it isn't obvious to everyone.
Do you remember Cain and Abel? Cain killed Abel because he was so angry that Daddy preferred Abel. It is an old, old story and it happens all the time and always will.
George was always a star. He was successful at everything, he went along with everything, he did not fight with his mother because that is not his style.
There was no way that Johnny could equal him, and whether explicitly or not -- I expect that it was explicit -- Peg continually compared him unfavorably to his brother. She loved her older son more than her younger son and she made it clear. Can you imagine what it was like for Johnny growing up like that and with that mother?
That is why Johnny hates George. It was not to George's fault, it was his mother's fault, but George was always the ideal that he could never achieve and get his mother's love.
Look at the expression on Johnny's face when George is the admired center of attention at the church supper. It is pure hatred. George has always been the admired center of attention and Johnny ignored.
That is why Johnny reacts the way that he does after George comforted Ashley in the hospital. Once again, George has succeeded and Johnny has failed. It is particularly bitter since it was absolutely Johnny's responsibility, but he could not deal with it and his brother could.
Johnny was already quite unhappy, not having a home of his own and having to live with his mother, and then the arrival of successful George with his sophisticated and gorgeous wife brings back all the nasty childhood memories.
Get Johnny away from his mother and his brother -- the brother part of the problem is solved for the foreseeable future -- and he will be fine.
As picky and negative as his mother Peg was throughout the visit . . .
Peg's best chance of ever seeing George again, short of a funeral, was to accept and be nice to his wife and appeal to her, woman to woman, to encourage George to visit.
Instead, Peg is openly hostile and emphasizes that no other woman will ever understand George the way that she does. She doesn't understand George at all and she never has.
You speculated on what kind of a father Johnny would be. I don't worry about that, but we know Peg was a truly horrible mother.
There is no way to deal with a woman like that except stay away from her. Eugene loves her, but he hides in the basement.
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