Wow. I guess you know when you've experienced something that has touched your soul.
I had been looking forward to going to see my new favorite actor in a film that he helped make - Remember Me. He's the lead and also an executive producer. While I try not to know too much about the story of movies when I know I want to see it (I like to be suprised) - I did watch interviews about this movie. Apparently Pattinson really wanted to get this movie made.Now I see why and I say to the movie makers: well done and well done!
The emotional ride, the performances by ever actor - I think it's one of the best I've seen through my adult years. The culmination of the movie was heartbreaking and the end of the movie left an audience of New Yorkers breathless. SPOILER: The final scene involves our lead, Alex (Robert Pattinson) waiting this morning for his high-powered business-man father. Alex sits behind the desk in his father's office before finally walking to the window. He looks hopefully out at New York City. When the camera pans out, we realize where he is. He is standing in one of the Twin Towers - it's the morning of September 11th, 2001.
I had tears streaming down my face. When the credits finally began to roll and the story had been told, I attempted to recover from the brilliant film's emotional journey. Then I looked up at the sounds I heard around me.
I realized that the audience had been transformed into huddled pairs of effected and in some cases, crying women of varying ages. I had never experienced this before. I was overwhelmed by the display of deep emotion in the still dark theater. With music encouraging the final credits as they crept up the screen, friends consoled each other - one with their head down, the other wrapping their arm around a shoulder - or a hand on the an arm in comfort. Longing and heartbreaking love for those now gone and a city forever changed was palpable.
And the tears began to fall from my eyes all over again.
I was so overwhelmed by the personal display of loss and sadness the ladies around me were feeling. Here I was on a Saturday morning, in a small theatre on the Upper West Side of Manhattan...only 6 miles from where the Twin Towers fell that day. And I realize what it must have been like to be here - on the ground that day. Friends and family, friends of friends...it was real. It was terrifying and it is STILL...sad.
I couldn't control my tears as the lights came up. And for once, I didn't care that a movie made me cry - making my face impossibly red in public.
I knew that when I walked out onto the streets of New York, she would understand.
It happened to them. It was a very personal tragedy that day - and still, very close to our hearts.
Photocredit: Remember Me
