It amazes me how the presence of a woman can change the dynamics in a home where men live who are lost and badgered from feelings of emptiness and betrayal. Man and Woman come together for different reasons, loneliness, vulnerability, jealousy from another, and money. Most of the time people convince themselves they are in love, so they seek logic to be married, but the truth is they don’t know each other at all, because that takes a lifetime to understand. As you know, we begin life in our youth, not our old age. So therefore, we can’t live life backward, if we did, we would already have survived life’s pain.
Being “In Love” is the hardest emotion to obtain and relationships are never easy, they are filled with joy, sadness, betrayal – misunderstandings – and lack of empathy for the other party involved because many humans are selfish or just can’t cope. People are impatient and desire instant gratification. Men desperately seek a woman because he is scared of being alone. Man needs woman to understand him, be proud of who he is and what he stands for, but man doesn’t have it in him to give woman the same emotional conditions he expects from her. Man doesn't seek to understand, he seeks to be understood.
When relationships are severed from divorce or death, people feel relief – and sometimes emptiness, but vulnerability has a way of sneaking in when no one is looking. It brings out how we actually feel and sometimes we can’t even speak. Vulnerability plagues the human soul throughout our lives as we grow up. It catches us off guard and sometimes has us act out because of that emptiness and loneliness that consume our days with repetition.
Father places an ad seeking help to cook and clean, but unconsciously he needs a female’s presence to change the atmosphere in the home. “The Woman” comes to stay as a house keeper, a liven, someone to clean the home and make the men dinner because their tired of eating “Hungry man” dinners tearing off the tin foil and throwing it in the oven, while sitting alone wondering and waiting for comfort to appear at the front door. In the previous years gone by, the man grows older and the other man, his son, is unsettled and angry at his father, no communication, no understanding, no empathy, just silent anger. These two men are strangers living in the same house, passing each other by as if nothing happened to the mother. Marion was the only woman who occupied these men’s lives previous to the housekeeper.
The husband was ignored and left to fend for himself after she gave birth to their only child, while the son occupied her time giving him all her love and affection.
Death took her from these two men, which anger and emptiness substituted like a plague. As time goes by, the son grows older and the father grows old, and both can’t cope with the lack of love and understanding they are hungry for from a woman.
She arrives, she is young, pretty with short red hair, an incredible smile, and big brown eyes which look at the father with such comfort and warmth. The father presents conditions of her duties and expectations. He is honest with his reasons but holds back the truth about the cracks in the relationship he and his son share.
The father notices the scent of a woman, which gives him something to look forward to, coming home. She works hard in the home, surprising them with incredible meals and stories by the fireplace. She listens to their pain with patience and understanding.
Time goes by and the three of them live together appreciating each other’s differences and flaws. After many observations, the father can no longer hold his feelings back. He finally confesses how much he loves her. They begin to consummate their relationship, but the son is now angrier than he was before. He hides his jealousy, as both men are in competition for the same woman who changed their lives.
She wants marriage and a child of her own, but the father won’t compromise his life at his age. He convinces her to go back to school and start a career she is not expected to be a housekeeper, now that she shares his bed, and understands his needs.
At one point, the son and the woman are left alone, they share an afternoon of playing croquet and laughter, talking about their desires and dreams. The son explains his father had a child, he will not bend to being a father again. Not because of his age, because he is unwilling to compete for affection and love, and will not compromise his needs for another.
The father returns from his trip and the woman tells him she must go; she has to leave because she broke faith sleeping with his son. An argument begins and the father is enraged, but he didn’t realize she is leaving for many reasons, and one of them is that she knows this man is not seeking to understand the woman; he is seeking to be understood by the woman, and she is not willing to compromise what she wants. A child of her own.
written by AngryGirl March 4th 2025
I was inspired by this movie, well written and well acted. The actors expressed real feelings of emotions of how "a woman"
can change men's lives so deeply.