[March 1] [Big Fish] Caught At Last
Title: Caught At Last
Day/Theme: 1. love is the process of my leading you gently back to yourself
Series: Big Fish
Character/Pairing: Will Bloom, Edward Bloom
Rating: PG
Comments: I really liked the whole movie, but the part that stuck with me longest was the scene near the end with Will doing his best to finish a story he doesn't know the end to.
His father was dying. Will realized it and his first reaction was that that was impossible. His father could no more die than the sun could go out. Next came a familiar rush of frustration, heightened and intensified by anguish. His father was going to die and leave him still not knowing, still not sure of anything. He was going to die and leave the whole mess of his life unexplained.
His father, immortal liar that he was, was gasping and flailing like the uncatchable fish, caught at last. He called to his son, begging Will to tell him the end of the story. And Will didn’t know. He tried to tell his father that, hearing his voice break like the child he had been, despair choking him that now, at the end, he did not have a single story to tell the man who had told him every story.
His father gasped, again like a fish out of water. Will had imagined his father spewing lies like a river, but until now it hadn’t occurred to him that his father swam in the tales and breathed them and would dry out and die without them.
He couldn’t stand it. He couldn’t bear it. As much as he despised the charming lies and twisted truths, he couldn’t stand beside the bed and let it end this way. He scooted his chair close, forced his panicked, fluttering hands and thoughts to reach out for his father’s, and begin to retell the old stories. He had heard them often enough, and hated them for that, but even as he spoke he felt the weight of his grief begin to ease.
His father’s too bright eyes were fastened on him, rapt. A child-like smile played over his weary face as if he had never heard any of this before, as if it was all rare and new, and Will found himself reaching deeper for common threads in all of the tales, to tie them together, to reach an ending his father could be proud of, too.
Day/Theme: 1. love is the process of my leading you gently back to yourself
Series: Big Fish
Character/Pairing: Will Bloom, Edward Bloom
Rating: PG
Comments: I really liked the whole movie, but the part that stuck with me longest was the scene near the end with Will doing his best to finish a story he doesn't know the end to.
His father was dying. Will realized it and his first reaction was that that was impossible. His father could no more die than the sun could go out. Next came a familiar rush of frustration, heightened and intensified by anguish. His father was going to die and leave him still not knowing, still not sure of anything. He was going to die and leave the whole mess of his life unexplained.
His father, immortal liar that he was, was gasping and flailing like the uncatchable fish, caught at last. He called to his son, begging Will to tell him the end of the story. And Will didn’t know. He tried to tell his father that, hearing his voice break like the child he had been, despair choking him that now, at the end, he did not have a single story to tell the man who had told him every story.
His father gasped, again like a fish out of water. Will had imagined his father spewing lies like a river, but until now it hadn’t occurred to him that his father swam in the tales and breathed them and would dry out and die without them.
He couldn’t stand it. He couldn’t bear it. As much as he despised the charming lies and twisted truths, he couldn’t stand beside the bed and let it end this way. He scooted his chair close, forced his panicked, fluttering hands and thoughts to reach out for his father’s, and begin to retell the old stories. He had heard them often enough, and hated them for that, but even as he spoke he felt the weight of his grief begin to ease.
His father’s too bright eyes were fastened on him, rapt. A child-like smile played over his weary face as if he had never heard any of this before, as if it was all rare and new, and Will found himself reaching deeper for common threads in all of the tales, to tie them together, to reach an ending his father could be proud of, too.