Grace is gone
Summary
Grace is gone tells a story
about the grief of a husband towards his wife death. Stanley Phillip is a
veteran army, married to Grace and have two child 8-year-old Dawn and
12-year-old Heidi. One day, two army officers visit his house and inform the
news about his wife’s death while serving her duty at Iraq. As he hears the
news, he does not know how to response. He is so shock to the sudden news that
he becomes numb. After the army officers leave, he sits on a couch to
comprehend what just happens. Later, he gets ready and wait his children to be
back from the school and inform them about their mother. However as the two
gets home, he cannot brings himself to tell them so he just take them out to
dinner. Later, he finds himself unable to bring out the topic. Thus, at the
moment he decides to bring her girls to Enchanted Garden, a theme park located
at the Florida. Throughout their trip, they stop at the grandmother house
(Stanley mother) and find John (Stanley younger brother) instead. Stanley asked
John to take the girls out for lunch. When John and the girls are out, he lays
at the bed and start to break down. He cries and mourn for the loss. After John
and the girls are back, John receives a phone call. He now knows about Grace’s
death and start to question Stanley why he’s keeping the matter secret to his
children. To his surprise, Stanley gets agitated and tells John to stay out
from his problem. John later hugs and comfort Stanley. Subsequently, Stanley
and his girls continue their trip to Florida. They arrived at the Enchanted
Garden and have fun. During their trip back home, Stanley stops the car near
the beach. Together, they sits and talk. Stanley informs the children that
their mother is gone. They sits and cried grieving for their loss. Heidi has
written a eulogy to his mother and reads it during his mother funeral.
The Theme
The main theme for this
movie is death and grieving. Throughout this movie, the audience could
empathize with Stanley. I could feel his longing to Grace. He fights so hard
not to show his sadness in front of his children. Stanley has illustrated the
emotional journey of grief that has been proposed by Elisabeth Kübler-Ross. The emotional journey of
grieve is not a rigid stage that a person will go through phase by phase
instead it is a mix of intense emotions that has no fixed sequence. So, the
stage or phase described next is only a model to illustrate how the grieving
process is sometimes related to each other. The first ‘stage’ is disbelief and
denial. When Stanley received the news about Grace’s death, he just stay still
and calm. He is in shock and in disbelief of what he just heard. He is also in
denial for a seconds. This can be described by the way he response to the army
officers saying that he was in a shower and they cannot just barge in to his
house and deliver this kind of news. He basically saying that he is not ready
to accept this fact. His denial is also portrays where he does not allow his
children to eat some food given by their neighbours as eating that would be
acknowledging the condolences expressed by their neighbour towards his loss.
Besides, his action of taking his children to Enchanted Garden might also be a
way of him to deny that Grace is no longer with them. He might just want to
feel the presence of Grace in their trip while getting close to his children to
be able to tell them the news.
Secondly,
Stanley shows a little sign of ‘resentment’ towards Grace’s death. For example,
he calls their home number just to hear Grace’s recorded voice saying to leave
a voice message to them. He leaves his message as if he is sending the message
to Grace. He also ask Grace what should he do now. How about their children?
Perhaps it can be translated as him to resent Grace’s death and leaving him
with a great responsibility. However, the resentment period only last within a
short duration as he enters the bargaining and guilt period. During his call,
he mentioned that he is so sorry about everything and how he should not be
angry the last time they met before Grace deported to Iraq. So he feels very
guilty by sending his wife with a bitter feeling. During the phone call to his own home, he
leaves a voice message saying that it’s supposed to be him who goes to the war,
it would be better for the children. It can be translated as him saying that it
supposed to be him that dies because it might be better for Grace is more
capable to raise the children instead of him. Next, he enters into depression
when he realizes the reality that Grace is no longer with them. Perhaps this
can be illustrated in the scenes where he just lays on the bed and cries when
John and his children go out to have lunch. In this period, he might feel
overwhelm and become depressed as he also fighting his sadness so that it would
not be shown to his children. Finally, he accepts the truth that Grace is gone.
During their trip back to home from Enchanted Garden he tells the children
about it and they cries and mourn for their loss.
The Character
I applaud
for John Cusack brilliant interpretation of a person who is in grieving
process. A brilliant script and interpretation of the cator has allowed me to
feel the loss and longing of Stanley towards Grace without even viewed of
Grace’s character in the movie. However, I totally could feel the presence of
Grace throughout the movie from the remembrance of Stanley and his children
towards her. Besides, John Cusack character and behaviour as a person who is
losing someone and at the same time restraining his sadness is really hard to
be done. If it was me, I do not think that I am able to restrain myself from
expressing sadness if I loss someone that I really love.
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