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The Woman Who Runs the Newspaper

posted 2 years ago by ecarle (14979)
2 replies | jump to latest

Was she a professional actress?

Maybe not but..what a nice sweet role, well written, well played.

Cluing in Will Forte that she was a rival for his father but lost to Forte's mother because "I wouldn't let him go around all the bases."

One comes to learn that the burnt-out old Woody was evidently quite the catch as a young man(hey, picture, young, tall Bruce Dern -- he was fit and could be handsome.) And that he seems to have lost a much "nicer" young girl to a woman who "gave it away.'

We suddenly picture all these old people as the young, loving...lustful ...people they once were.

But this gal has "something extra." A kind personality...the revelation that the man she DID marry gave her children and grandchildren(even if, maybe, he wasn't the love of her life that Woody could have been.)

She gives Forte the crucial information that his hard-drinking stoic old man was a Prisoner of War in Korea during that war.

And when Forte says "He drank a lot even back then, didn't he?" Her answer is sweet and direct and only a little sad:

"Well a lot of them did. It starts early in a town like this. There is nothing else to do. Of course, now, its worse." (Drugs, unspoken.)

We flash to the fact that the two main businesses on this two block town seem to be bars where men -- in the main -- can drink away and hang out with aging buddies. This woman with the newspaper knows.

I like how she sent a young boy to take a photo of Woody about his "million dollar winnings." And she's the ONLY one in town who BELIVES Forte that the father has won nothing. She't intelligent.

And she knowledgeably tells Forte how she will write the article about Woody: "I won't say he did(win a million dollars) or he didn't. I'll just write a story about how Woody and his wife returned to town for a visit."

Nice chaceter. Right to the end of the movie. Well written. Well cast(her looks.) Well acted.

[–] hoosiergirl (217) 2 years ago

I agree. Wonderful synopsis of her character. The first time I saw the movie, during the scene at the end when Woody is driving the truck through town and she steps out in time to see him drive by, my husband said "she still loves him". I suppose Payne could have meant to imply that, but I tend to think it was more wistfulness on her part. I feel she was probably thinking about how "the roads untaken" in life affect us and how things might have been if life events (war) and weaknesses (drinking) didn't change us.

[–] ecarle (14979) 2 years ago

The first time I saw the movie, during the scene at the end when Woody is driving the truck through town and she steps out in time to see him drive by, my husband said "she still loves him". I suppose Payne could have meant to imply that, but I tend to think it was more wistfulness on her part. I feel she was probably thinking about how "the roads untaken" in life affect us and how things might have been if life events (war) and weaknesses (drinking) didn't change us

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Well said. I suspect it had been a long, long time since the woman had even SEEN Woody and some spark of nostalgia was still there -- but their lives diverged and what was done, was done.

Reversably, you can say that had Woody gone with THAT woman, his later life might have been less "damaged." The wife he ended up with sure was a meanie -- but, in the final analysis, a meanie who fought hard against the predatory relatives and friends who came to Woody with their hands out. Maybe Woody NEEDED that meanie, not the nice newspaper lady.

And this: I daresay that a few women have won their men (in competition with other women) by "putting out more" than the competition. Its a fight to the finish to get a man for some women, they use everything sexually they've got -- the men take the bait and then find out if it's gonna last like that for decades or what. Sometimes, actually, YES. But sometimes...no.

I can't remember if Woody ever even sees the newspaper lady. Might have mattered to him if he did. Might have broken through his sad, murky mind.