Double standard

I don't think the audience is supposed to feel "happy" for Michelle Williams in this film. If anything, I felt sorry for her; she had her personal problems that seemed to prevent her from ever truly finding happiness. And I'm not just saying that because of what happens in the end of the film; throughout the entire film I couldn't help but feel sorry for her to some degree.

Normally I'd agree with you on that point, of a double standard. However, were you asleep during the film? Or perhaps not even watch it? This is not a simple "case of girl cheats on boy."

1. It was not a case of simple adultery. It was more a case of this- an emotional affair and/or "an affair of the heart" as they call it. They did not consummate the sexual act, until she had walked out and left her husband.

So yes, while this is still "cheating" IMO, it is not quite the same a literal adulterous sexual intercourse. In fact, during the scene in the pool, when it appeared things might start getting intimate, she jumped out of the pool and headed home.

2. She admitted this "affair of the heart" to the husband, after his suspicions arose when the neighbor moved away and he observed her staring blankly in the street. And he basically threw her out of the house, upon learning of this "emotional affair- His words- "Go, Just go, GO..." And she did!

The husband was a loser. A simple tip for married men-

If you have a wife who looks like Michelle Williams, and she starts kissing your neck and seducing you whilst you are cooking on the stove, please screw her, and forget about the damned chicken cacciatore!! He was an uncaring, neglectful slob, and did not fulfill her emotional or sexual needs, was a lousy lover, overweight, etc.. Just a pathetic human and Rogen played that part perfectly.

First off, clearly you missed some things. One being how upset "Margo" was when "Lou" said "Some things you do in life stick". There may have been a cliched, happy ending at the lighthouse, but was she really happy and satisfied?

Two people who love each other don't just say it, they show it. Pouring cold water on your wife every morning when she showers and letting her think the shower malfunctions isn't a sign of love or a long-term joke. It's a sign of some deep-seated issue. A game of comparing who loves one another more by talking about hurting one another physically might have been funny one time, but not as an on-going mantra.

This movie doesn't make out Margo as a hero, or that we should be happy for her. But if you don't love your spouse, leave and find someone you do love. That's a good, clear, strong message.



Jules Winnfield: "I'm sorry, did I break your concentration?"

I think you misread the movie, we're not meant to sympathize with Margot as such. There are several things that indicate this, for instance when Geraldine tells her she's *beep* up because everybody's empty but it's a part of life. Or where she's asking Lou if it can one day be them again. Or how empty and lonely she feels at the end even with Daniel.

I don't think there is really a double standard. I can think of a lot of movies where the guy finds the girl cheating on him- Love Actually, Barney's Version, 50/50 are some that I just watched recently. In Barney's Version, he is cheated on by a really unsympathetic wife and this is after he tried to run away with another woman DURING their wedding, later he gets with that girl and then he cheats on her while drunk but is still a sympathetic character. The Heartbreak Kid is about a guy who meets a new woman on his honeymoon and realizes she is right for him. In the movie Major League, the baseball player cheats on the girl and gets a paternity suit and wins her back. How about Forgetting Sarah Marshall and the whole "He stopped mid blowjob for you!" joke?

If you think about it though, traditionally it has been that a man who cheats loses his wife, a woman who cheats loses her husband and also gets social stigma. So I think that the second story is more interesting in that perspective, like why does she do it? But yeah, doesn't mean that a-hole girls don't exist. I think we do see them in movies sometimes though, often at the beginning of the movie before the guy goes off and finds the dream girl. I can think of Eurotrip as an example if anyone remembers "Scotty Doesn't Know".

I honestly think that it is just about the portrayal. Like I think we all know that cheating is bad 99 percent of the time (I think it's acceptable in some movies like Titantic where the other partner is a crazy a-hole, arranged marriage situations, etc). But I mean, I think characters can do bad things and still be sympathetic people. They can also do bad things because they are *beep* I don't think gender really enters into it. Like if someone in a movie is emotionally upset and goes off and gets drunk and cheats, we are more like understanding to them but can still think that they are totally wrong. In the TV show the Wire, pretty much all the cops cheat on their wives but we still like all the characters. In the show Curb Your Enthusiasm he cheats on his wife and so does his manager but they are still funny characters. It is something we can understand (not accept) if we see the person as genuinely flawed and human I can think of movie examples where that applies to both genders. But if someone cheats just to be like "f you" to there partner or can not mentally understand that cheating is wrong then they are unlikeable. I think men do that more.

You mention Tiger Woods, but what about Kristen Stewart? She is the one being blamed even though she young with just a boyfriend and the other guy was 20 years older than her and married with kids. I just don't think it's so black and white.

Further, I think that some people on here really don't understand the concept of social inequality. It's like white people who think it's "not fair" that they can't say the n-word, they don't even realize that that's because them saying the n-word has a totally different context. Now, I think cheating is wrong for everyone so that doesn't really apply to that. But to those discussing sexism, you need to realize that it's not a tit-for-tat thing when one group makes all the rules and gets all the power.

Did all of you actually watch this film all the way through? If so, you are complete idiots and totally missed the point of the film. In the end, she regrets leaving her husband, even asks him if he would ever take her back. He says no and she goes back to the guy she was cheating with. The new and exciting relationship she thought he was getting when she left her husband had become boring. She is pathetic and broken... the feeling one gets is that she is an idiot and made a huge mistake. The last scene is her alone -- she's not going to be completely fulfilled by any man.

Not sure what movie you guys were watching but she is not portrayed as a saint... I actually really didn't like her character at all and was yelling at my TV that she was an idiot.

*beep* Feminist *beep* are the reason why movies like these exist.

Metal forever.............