Awe

Some of my favorite movie dialogue comes from a 1999 movie called Guinevere, starring Sarah Polley, Stephen Rea, and Jean Smart. Jean Smart delivers an ugly monologue with so much venom that it required a mental shower after I first heard it and I still feel a little icky reading it now.




-Oh, before I go, I would really like to ask you a question. And I can't tell you how valuable an honest response would be to me.

-She's starting.
-I have my own theories about this, but I really would love to hear it from you.
-Ask away.
-What do you have against women your own age?
-Mom, please don't.
- Shut up, Harper. Look, I'm smiling. I promise your answer won't hurt my feelings.
- I don't have anything against women my own age.
- Sure you do. I tell you what. I'll tell you my theory, and . . . you just jump in any time. All right? Oh, you can sit. For starters, I don't really think . . . that your young girl predilection has much to do with . . . their firm, young flesh. I mean, when someone like you is out with someone like Harper, you must invite all kinds of comparison and ridicule, which can't be much fun . . . for either of you. Right, honey? So then, what is . . . a man of, uh, your age . . . doing with my 19-year-old daughter? It'd be easy enough to say you're afraid of mature women, but that's so glib. Afraid of what, exactly? So I kept thinking. And then it hit me. I know exactly what she has that I haven't got. Awe. That's it, isn't it? I mean, no real woman -- no woman of experience would ever stand in front of you . . . with awe in her eyes . . . and say,"Wow, look at that man. Look at that bohemian wedding photographer with . . . holes in his jeans. Gosh, isn't he something?" No. I mean, it takes a naive girl for that. It takes Harper for that. So what do you think? Am I right?
-You're some woman, Deborah.
-Mrs. Sloane. I'm Mrs. Sloane.

The elation of awe clouds reason and all you can see is what you want to see. It's painful and terrible when you eventually and inevitably lose awe and the object of your awe turns back into the shmo that he or she really is. Self-loathing sets in for having thought this once awe-inspiring person was ever worthy of your adoration in the first place and you hate this person even more than you ever adored him or her because you feel tricked and deceived. You feel like an idiot! The first time it happens is when you're a child and you revere your parents until you become old enough to realize your parents are human and have weaknesses and foibles and are not invincible and all-knowing as you once thought. That is our first experience with awe and after, we are much more careful about doling it out until one day we lose any sense of awe at all. Losing the ability to have awe may be worst of all.