For every
decision which we have made, there are consequences that follow. There are
times we wish we could go back in time and undo the things we have done. We
wish we would be given a second chance to correct some steps we have taken or do something better. We will never know
what could have been if we have made different choices and taken a different
decision but various decisions and choices have to be made
from time to time.
In the novel “Landline” written by Rainbow Rowell,
Georgie McCool is a TV writer and something has come up just before she and her
husband are supposed to visit his family in Omaha for Christmas. Georgie tells
Neal that she cannot go as she has to stay back in Los Angeles to work on her
show. Neal is upset with Georgie and she wonders if she has ruined everything
when her husband and the kids go to Omaha without her.
Would she and Neal be better off if their marriage had not happened? Georgie is miserable when she decides to stay back and work on her script. She is distracted and she discovers a way to communicate with Neal in the past. It is like time travel but it is not . When she cannot get through to Neal on his mobile phone, she tries the landline at his mother’s house and it is always busy.
Georgie was back
to the past looking at the future which is her present. She thinks about their
almost breakup one Christmas fifteen years ago before they got married.
‘Not fine . Completely not
fine.
‘I should have told you ? I did
tell you. I said, ‘ I can’t do
this anymore.’ I said, “I love you , but I’m not sure if it’s enough. I’m not
sure it will ever be enough,’ I said. ‘ I don’t want to live like this,
Georgie’- remember?’
It made sense, really. If
Georgie was going to have a delusional, paranoid breakdown about her husband
leaving her ,it made sense that she ‘d flash back to the one time Neal actually
had left her.
Sort of left her.
Before they were married. ‘
Georgie is
obviously miserable and tries to resolve her conflicts. She is not that likeable a character as she
seems self indulgent but aren’t most of us self involved even though we may
try not to show it?
‘Georgie wasn’t better off. Even
of Neal was right – even if they’d never make it work together, even if they
were fundamentally wrong for each other -- she still wasn’t better off without him. (Even if your
heart is broken and attacking you, you’re still not better off without it )’
Georgie’s mother
is the “cougar” as her dates
become considerably younger and Georgie finds that her mom is a pervert, a
libertine when she checks out twenty-something guys at forty. The other
character in Georgie’s life is fun and trendy . Seth is Georgie’s writing
partner since college days. She went to University of Los Angeles because of
The Spoon which was the Harvard Lampoon of the West Coast. Seth was a sophomore
and already an editor. He and Georgie work well as a team. One can imagine them
as buddies starring in a sitcom
where their lines are witty and funny.
‘ Seth’s chief pastime back then
was paying attention to girls. ( Another thing that hadn’t changed.) Lucky for
him, then and now, girls usually paid attention back.’
Huangshan, China |
Relationships are never easy. In some
cases there may be no degree of atonements that can ever reverse a situation. There
is no turning back. The British film Locke tells such a story. The protagonist Locke was played by Tom
Hardy whose performance is compelling.
Locke is about Ivan
Locke, a successful construction manager and a family man who has to ring up
his wife, Katrina to tell her that he will not be home because a colleague with
whom he had a one night stand is having his baby. His wife and sons are waiting
for him to watch a football match with him and his job is at stake. He is in a bind, and he has to be
present for the premature birth of his child whose mother needs his support as
she lives alone in London. He has not been able to tell the wife about his infidelity until then. The entire film takes
place in his car and you get the story
from the phone conversations he has with his colleagues and wife and
sons. He is also seen to have an imaginary conversation with his own father who
has abandoned him as a child. Even
though how his life is turned topsy turvy within a span of two hours’ drive
does not seem possible, it is not improbable.