MovieChat Forums > Maggie (2015) Discussion > Not zombies or Schwarzenegger but someth...

Not zombies or Schwarzenegger but something else

posted 10 years ago by DMarkwick
2 replies | jump to latest

While plenty of people here moan about the definition of zombies, or the lack of action in this non-action movie, or Arnold's accent or whatever, I'd like to put out another experience of this film.

My own daughter, who was nearly sixteen, was killed a few years ago. Since then, I am regularly visited by certain kinds of dreams. Some are cruel, some are poignant.

One of the dreams I have is that just after she is killed, some kind of medical procedure is performed that gives her back to me, but only for a short while. I experience this dream in the knowledge that, eventually, I have to say good-bye again to my little girl.

While watching this film, I was filled with this feeling I get in the dreams. It's a very particular feeling, I don't know if this is experienced by anyone outside of my own kind of experience.

I guess this film is just not aimed at people who cannot fathom what this would be like. For me, I watched it very quietly and spent a long time afterward also very quiet. I might guess that parents of terminally ill children also experience this, but that this wasn't the direction the film decided to go.

There is space for all kinds of movies. They don't all need to conform to arbitrary, but somehow fiercely defended, themes.

[–] princeariom 10 years ago

Sorry for your loss.
I have a daughter. Fortunately my baby is fine and i have no personal experience with this sort of situation with a child (and i hope i die well before my kid). But this movie got to me too. I often placed myself in the position of a father faced with such choices. I could understand the father's actions. I think that the whole character was very believable.

To be torn by impossibly hard choices about his daughter like that. It was something i allowed my mind to sink into. Putting myself there was emotionally distressing.

Most of the people criticizing this movie don't have the life experience or context to allow them to really get what this is about. They understand it, but they don't feel it.

That is why this was the wrong movie for them. Not to mention having Arnold playing a non action character... That attracted people waiting to see bloodbaths. Instead they get this emotional experience they really were not seeking or wanting.

[–] vortexrider 10 years ago

As I read your post I felt very sad and empathetic for you. In my case I experienced a very close brush with mortality personally due to illness, so I am still traumatized.

For that reason I know I'll feel strongly about movies like Fault In Our Stars, Million Dollar Baby, or 50/50, even though they're less grim than this film seems to be.

I am still paranoid about watching movies where someone has illnesses or where people grieve about someone dying.

I couldn't describe this as entirely negative emotion. But more like it makes feeling about the film way too real. My persisting memory of the experience, however, makes some of my convictions and world views much stronger today. For example I am very strongly pro-life and a more convinced in my belief in God.