I found this film unsettling and unsatisfying--but that is exactly the point! For it deals with a character so flawed, one must accept the uncomfortable reality that these profound personal deficits will never (realistically) be resolved.
Which leads the husband to ask the pivotal question in the entire film: "But is it enough?" Clearly he is in great pain as he wrestles with this quandary in which he finds himself stuck.
Max married this woman who APPEARED to be a highly successful, beautiful woman physician. But marrying across different cultural lines can be tricky to ascertain authentic personality vs. unfamiliar social customs. When newly in love, we have a blind spot to deficits in our partner and easily rationalize them away.
Sadly, this woman's actions--and subsequent reactions--reveal her personality has suffered from arrested development. She is a Narcissist who doesn't care how her actions affect those who love her. Gratifying her ego trumps all other considerations.
She never makes ONE display of empathy or compassion--not once does she even frown or show appropriate discomfort (while her husband cries in bed..). Her affect and behavior are HIGHLY abnormal. (Also, note that she is NOT primarily a clinical MD, but rather a researcher; this has allowed her deficit in compassion to slip through the cracks).
It's a social statement on how highly we value physical beauty and academic achievement--so much we might miss the person inside is incompletely formed(!).
In the final scenes, her husband realizes the extent of her deficits and must weigh two traumatic alternatives: leaving her (mother of his three children) or staying with her (denying him a compassionate, sensitive partner he desperately wants and needs).
It's a very grim prospect for Max, and he knows it. Coming from a traditional Indianbackground, I infer that he will choose to stay with her for the sake of children and social pressure.
The film leaves us somehow feeling "ripped off" and unsatisfied as viewers--but this is by design because they mirror Max's reality. There will be no resolution of the core problem, only a lifetime of painful coping. Ultimately, he will have to decide if indeed "it is enough"---or not.
Which leads the husband to ask the pivotal question in the entire film: "But is it enough?" Clearly he is in great pain as he wrestles with this quandary in which he finds himself stuck.
Max married this woman who APPEARED to be a highly successful, beautiful woman physician. But marrying across different cultural lines can be tricky to ascertain authentic personality vs. unfamiliar social customs. When newly in love, we have a blind spot to deficits in our partner and easily rationalize them away.
Sadly, this woman's actions--and subsequent reactions--reveal her personality has suffered from arrested development. She is a Narcissist who doesn't care how her actions affect those who love her. Gratifying her ego trumps all other considerations.
She never makes ONE display of empathy or compassion--not once does she even frown or show appropriate discomfort (while her husband cries in bed..). Her affect and behavior are HIGHLY abnormal. (Also, note that she is NOT primarily a clinical MD, but rather a researcher; this has allowed her deficit in compassion to slip through the cracks).
It's a social statement on how highly we value physical beauty and academic achievement--so much we might miss the person inside is incompletely formed(!).
In the final scenes, her husband realizes the extent of her deficits and must weigh two traumatic alternatives: leaving her (mother of his three children) or staying with her (denying him a compassionate, sensitive partner he desperately wants and needs).
It's a very grim prospect for Max, and he knows it. Coming from a traditional Indianbackground, I infer that he will choose to stay with her for the sake of children and social pressure.
The film leaves us somehow feeling "ripped off" and unsatisfied as viewers--but this is by design because they mirror Max's reality. There will be no resolution of the core problem, only a lifetime of painful coping. Ultimately, he will have to decide if indeed "it is enough"---or not.