[Windswept]

Originally Posted by SKMDC Or perhaps the director is taking advantage of how we're conditioned to watch movies, something bad usually happens, then good triumphs over evil etc.

I'm perfectly willing to allow the filmmaker to manipulate my emotions if this is done with a satisfactory conclusion regarding the plot. But I guess I *do* object to being misled, that is, to have my emotions stirred up and then abandoned for no reason.

Here the characters (all three) are experiencing internal struggles with their loneliness, it manifests itself differently in all three, and the three of them together manage to make a whole person propping each other up. When Olivia and Finbar have a falling out they both recede as human beings, when they reconcile they become whole again, or as complete as they can be given their particular circumstances in life. That's all this movie tries to do, show us their character development, no great breakthroughs are made, and the camera could pick up and drop down on another segment of their lives and we might not feel any different about them, but you're right, the plot takes a back seat to the study of the characters.

Well, that's perfectly fine, valid, and worthwhile as the goal of a film. I guess I got the wrong impression: that the viewer is 'caused' to feel a sense of impending doom that never materializes. Maybe the filmmaker never intended any such feeling in the viewer. Maybe many of us are so used to normal plot complications and conflicts that we become hypervigilant when expecting *major things to go wrong*.