Vera Farmiga's performance was VERY effective. I HATE the Abby character. Joshua should have pushed her down the stairs in addition to Grandma. Maybe Joshua is so evil because his mother is so absorbed in her own self pity that she can't love him the way she should?
Joshua implies this before playing hide & seek with Mom by saying that Dad can't love him like a Mommy can.
Having Abby's gens is quite a burden for her children. However, and more important, living with a mother who is such severely disordered person must have been generating a lot of disorders Joshua.
We never know what her real diagnosis is, but it must be something deep psychical disorder (psychosis) and, very important, we are not told how long has her condition been treated after having her first child. They had been waiting and delaying having second baby for so many years, and everybody was so worried about it, so it obviously wasn't a simple puerperal depression. Therefore, we can conclude that in first months (probably years) Joshua was mostly or completely separated from his mother, and for the rest of the years also most likely Abby not only couldn't have compensated it but even aggravated his lack of normal emotions.
Surely, having Hazel around simply had to influence on Abby's psychical condition. Such a person could drive mad anyone. Just read posts from American fundamentalists here on IMDb, and - regardless how much you say that you hate her - you'll find at least some sympathy for Abby.
Abby made a comment that she had "given 17 years of my life to psychiatrists and what have I gotten in return?" So she obviously has a history of mental illness. And yes the grandmother would drive even the most stable person to insanity. I definitely had a lot of sympathy for Abby's character. That doesn't make her any less irritating though. :)
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If her history of mental illness was so long, wasn't is very irresponsible to have another child? (Of course, the responsibility is shared with her husband, and at least partially a psychiatrist who should have made certain advices - or maybe he did but we have no such information.)
Her husband maybe wasn't ignoring the problem, but was devoted to his wife and his promise (till the death...). You maybe, possibly due to youth (I didn't your age) or circumstances, traditions and culture you live in, don't have chances to see it, but there are countless husbands and wives who suffer and sacrifice because they love their spouse and also feel devotion and obligations after commitments they've made at the wedding. Also, though declaring to be an atheist, he was raised in religious family and some of their values haven't been just wiped away.
As for grandmother, being such a fundamentalist, she found it to be her mission, her task, almost the meaning of her life to save their souls, and whatever Abby was doing for her she accepted as a temptation sent by God, so we can imagine that she was even glad for that, because she could have proved her faith to God. If she had left, it would mean that she gave up and failed, so she would lose her place in heaven.
When did the dad ever declared being an atheist?
shareO.K., that was rather clumsy by me. I meant that, as much as we can see, he never shows much interest for religion, we never see it has any importance in his life. He might have not declared being an atheist, but comparing to grandparents he led a life of a (practical) atheist. And that was the main motive for grandmother's activities - to lead him on "right" way and "save" her grandson.
shareOkay, got'cha
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If I had to watch my mom mope for years as if my life wasn't enough to sustain her I might get creatively psycho too...the only person I felt sorry for the whole film was the husband..
Oh, and the poor uncle who will also have his life ruined all because psycho depressed abby decided to reproduce. Maybe her antipsychotic meds fcked up josh as a fetus.
Vera farmiga is a great actress...I was hard on her in the departed and running scared mainly due to accents but she is top 5 easy. I've now seen her in 6 or 7 films and she's transformed in every one of em. Love her. Usually hate her characters. She needs some awards.
do you like fish sticks?
Having a baby puts a woman's body & mind through the wringer. No doubt about it. Most women recover in the first year. Abby shouldn't have had a child if she's not even available for the one she already has. Did she think having another baby was going to be the magic fix? I thought the character was a self-centered histrionic nightmare & had no sympathy for her. Sam Rockwell is an amazing actor. I kept wishing he'd leave her. The actress did a great job as seen by my strong reaction.
Don't get me wrong, mental illness is awful. But people like Abby create psychos by bringing children into the world they aren't capable of nurturing. Maybe that's the moral of the story?
Abby was terrible as a person, a wife, and a mother. She was vey annoying with the crying all the time. The husband should have left her sick a$$. She was so into her depression that she couldn't see that her little boy was a sicko. She was very disrespectful to her mother-in-law - the husband should put her in check for that. Instead, he tried so hard to play husband, father, and mother (because she was incapable of being one). There were too many times that I wanted to jump into the TV and shake the sh!t out of Abby and tell her to snap out of it.
shareAbby was a terrible person. She shouldn't have had kids if she didn't want to take care of them.
shareAt one stage I thought that maybe her character was the step mother as opposed to Joshua's real mother
shareCompared to her character in the Orphan, I didn't like her. She was in the same situation but in the Orphan she was a lot more likable. Though also with Orphan the parents aren't responsible for Esther--she just shows up and wreaks havoc, whereas you can sort of make the case that the parents may have spawned Joshua, treated him a certain way, etc.
shareBeing this was fiction and not based on a true story or something, I feel that I can without guilt say that I was disgusted with Abby and that she could react towards her kids that way. Now before I make any enemies, let me start off by saying that I do realize that there is such a thing as Post Partum Depression and other such issues. I don't deny that. That husband was MORE than patient. That wasn't the issue in the movie but I have to agree that I absolutely hated Abby. Now the kid was causing her to be a little off balance yes, but after watching her with him as a baby and seeing how she acted towards the husband just made me hate her even more. I came into this movie late, missing the beginning and only stopping to watch it upon having noticed the Title (my own son's name is Joshua) and was intrigued. The actress definately did a good job on making her character so dislike-able.
shareRight near the end it is revealed to the father (while he's incarcerated) that her meds were tampered with, which of course makes him realise what happened to her. Obviously a lot of Joshua's condition was handed down through genes, and bay_area_wonderland makes a really good point that it may have been her meds that screwed him up in the womb.
A really well-written film.
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