There are many things that you can’t control in life, one of the biggest being pain. We can compartmentalize it, but we can’t forget it. Not true pain or the loneliness that comes with it.
We all have reasons that we hate certain days and days that we love. But for some reason it’s easier to hang onto every moment of the bad days. The bad days are easier for some reason, and maybe it’s because you’re only given a handful (if you are lucky) of really good days. But bad days, they seem more common.
For Henry, he relives the worst day of his life way too much. But future Clare can always tell when he’s been there, when he’s gone back to that day. She know’s he’s been there by the look on his face.
After all, we do wear pain the same way we wear joy.
It’s all over our face.
WHAT MAKES YOU HATE CHRISTMAS
Life change for Henry on Christmas. It was a day that he won’t forget. It was snowing and his Mom tells him that they’ve got to go pick up his father from the airport.
And you would think that would be simple. But as the many ages of Henry start appearing, you know that it’s going to be bad. His Mom is driving slow. being safe. The wind is going and the truck in front of them, you see the board bouncing. A car behind them is going way too fast and slams into the car, sending them forward, and his Mom, well, she was decapitated.
Henry was sitting in the backseat when his Mom died. He’s had pivotal moments, the difference is he keeps going back to this. It’s what makes him sad, what he keeps getting drawn back to. And it’s painful.
And suddenly we’re watching a young Clare running to her spot. She’s excited to see Henry. She gets his clothes ready, and waits. Henry shows up, and they are playing a game when she asks why he’s sad. Henry doesn’t want to talk about it – it’s a story for a different day. And older Clare. But she keeps asking and he says what is good about being sad – happy people are all the same, sad people are different. He says he’ll explain one day, but not today. She asks when. He says when the green man gives you coffee on the shorts of lake Como. She says he’s saying stupid things, but he swears he’s not. I mean in all fairness I would have thought he was saying stupid things. She calls him an asshole, which seems to be her term of affection throughout the years.
But Henry, i’d hate Christmas too.
SECOND DATES
Why Clare agreed to go on a second date with Henry, but the thing is you can’t outrun fate. She’s hostile and he’s trying to be charming and refute everything that she’s throwing at him.
Clare is mesmerized and upset that he’s staring at other girls and wants to know why it’s always blondes. He says my girlfriend is blonde, I am staying faithful. Henry knows how to get under her skin and her, you can tell that she just really cares. She wants to be with this man, not matter what happens. She’s lived her whole life loving Henry and this version of Henry, she was not thrilled with.
She asks what they are doing there, where they are going. He hops around the train and sits next to her. He says second date, lunch. She asks why lunch. He says cause first date we got drunk and had sex, I am hoping second date and lunch will provide conversation before we get drinks and have sex again.
You can’t really fight with that logic.
But Clare she’s honestly starting to make me mad because she has all of these questions all the time and she’s angry when the answers aren’t what she wanted. She’s angry when this idea of what it would be like to be with him isn’t the reality. Part of me gets her being upset with him and taking it out on him, but this version of him isn’t the Henry that she’s known.
And how is he supposed to live up to all of that? It’s all so complicated, but what about this isn’t. She tells him that she’s been waiting for him for all this time and it turns out after all that time, she doesn’t like him. And that’s hard to hear, but also I believe that it’s hard for her to say.
When she runs off the train he follows her. The truth that she doesn’t understand is that you can’t outrun fate. You can’t change it. Whatever you decide to do is what you were always going to do. That’s how it works.
But her, she’s determined that she’s getting off the train and asks where they were supposed to have lunch. He points to the restaurant and she chooses the one across the street.
I guess she hadn’t heard what he’s been saying.
THE GREEN HAND
Choices have been made and this choice, well like others, it was a part of the story. already told. The cafe she chooses, the man brings her a banana latte. Only she hadn’t ordered one. However, she realizes that today is the day. Today is the day that he’s going to tell her what he’s sad.
He remarks that she didn’t order one, but she goes it doesn’t matter. It’s inevitable, right? She’s like i’m horrible to you. Doesn’t matter, you’re pretty shitty yourself. But she does realize that she’s been horrible and that is growth.
She asks more questions and I am like damn girl, take a breathe. But I do believe that questions are what makes us open up and move forward.
He tells her that time traveling is terrifying. He knows bad stuff is coming and he’s going to be fighting and bleeding and one day he won’t survive. About the only thing that time travel taught him that wasn’t terrifying is that somehow one day he’s going to be married to a phenomenal red head.
He understands that she hates him, but she says she doesn’t but does and it’s a good type of hate.
Rose Leslie and Theo James are just magnetic on the screen. Seeing these two and the way that they bounce off each other and the way that they fit – I couldn’t imagine a better Clare and Henry.
The good type of hate is that kind where she still wants to be with him. She’d take him on the table if she could. But he’s not the Henry she wanted, except she needs to realize that he’s not that person yet.
She’s gonna make him that person.
She goes back to asking about his Mom, she wants to meet her. He tells her about his Mom and it’s when she says the name that she realizes that she died in a car accident and was with her son. When Clare realizes it was Henry, she softens up, but for him that makes him pull away. He doesn’t want to be liked because he has tragedy.
Claire tries to talk to him and he’s like you aren’t thinking this through. He sees his Mom all of the time because of time travel.
I think that for Henry, a wall dropped around him. And he wanted to let her in. He wanted to show her something important to him. He wanted to talk to her.
A WALK TO REMEMBER
Henry takes Clare for a walk so that they can talk. He tells her about his parents and all the times he’s seen them. He opens up about time travel, how sometimes it is random where he goes, but people that matter to him he sees more often. He doesn’t know why. She’s like you saw me 152 times. He’s like there you go and the two of them smile. There is a connection between the two and I love it.
He takes her to get a dirty water dog and eventually this leads to him telling her one of his secrets. The man who trained him was him. There wasn’t anyone else. He takes her back to the day where he realized that you can’t change fate.
Older him wanted to prepare younger him, to make things easier so that he hurt less. He’s putting his younger self through the ringer, teaching him how to lie and cheat and steal.
Young Henry is trying to talk to him, but he doesn’t want to hear it. And young him really just needs someone to talk to. But older Henry isn’t about to listen and when young Henry keeps trying to talk to him and wants to know why he’s not listening. Older Henry is like cause I know what you’re going to say and none of that matters but what I am trying to tell you does and tells him to listen all the time.
That’s a lot for a kid to take, but Henry has no sympathy. He gives young him some hard truths, that his Mom Isn’t dead yet, but you can’t save her. When you are a time traveler no one is continuously dead.He’s like you’re thinking you can save her, warn her, but it doesn’t work.
He tells Henry that in a minute he’s going to get up and run. Young Henry is stubborn and is trying to fight it. He’s trying so hard to prove that you can change things. But the truth, fate has a way of telling you what you need and what it’s going to give you.
Young Henry is trying really hard, but when he sees his Mom at the museum and this whole time he’s been dealing with her passing away, he instinctively gets up and runs. He hugs her so tight.
She’s confused, and gets angry, because Henry is supposed to be at school. But no matter what she says, all he can think about is when she died. He is begging for her to listen, but she’s not having it. As a Mom, she’s trying to discipline him, because she’s worried. He won’t give up on her listening and she finally does.
When he tells her the truth though, she isn’t hearing it. He tries to tell her the truth, that he’s a time traveler. But she doesn’t believe him and snaps. What he says next will haunt him – he tells her he hates her.
The most painful part of this was watching older Henry be able to repeat everything that young him is saying, word for word.
Some memories stick with you.
THE HIDDEN BOX
Henry is really doing everything that he can to let Clare in. He takes her to his job and he goes searching for something. He tells her that he wonders if his future is somewhere in the stacks, but what he brings out is the past.
It’s a box of memories from his Mom. He can’t keep it at home, it’s too tempting. He can’t fixate on the past or he’ll end up there.
Clare is looking at pictures of Henry’s Mom, and listening to a tape recording of her singing. Henry has never listened to the recording before and then he has such a vulnerable moment that I started to cry.
He tells her I am not really an asshole, but the opposite of being an asshole is caring and caring opens feelings and sometimes I fall in. He doesn’t want to make the mistake of loving someone and he doesn’t know how many times he’s gonna have to loose them.
He asks what Clare would ask if she met his Mom, but she’s not into it, she doesn’t want to play games. But she gives in and she says she would ask her how people get together.
There was no part of me that didn’t have goosebumps with the next moment. When Henry pressed play, his Mom was answering Clare. Future him had gone back and asked her Clare’s question. Which means that this questions was asked before Clare was even born.
He tells Clare that his Mom couldn’t hear you, but I can hear you and I decided the moment that you said the question that the next time I could speak to my mom next I am gonna ask her this question. And when this recording happens she’ll answer it.
His mom doesn’t know how to answer the question, but say isn’t all love doomed? It always ends, she says, so Clare if you are listening and worried my answer is couples don’t get together, they do for awhile, just a little time, and that’s ok, because it’s better to be happy for just a little while than sad your whole life.
Damn, mom knows.
Both Henry and Clare are moved. And maybe the realize that they need to take this moment to be happy.
OTHER THOUGHTS
- I don’t even know what to say about what Henry did when he was 16.
- Clare being so open and hostile – I am like umm… calm down.
- Henry figuring out the person training him is himself is kinda sad and also confusing for the kid. I’d be like why are you so mean to me if I am you.
The Time Traveler’s Wife is streaming now on HBO.