Like everywhere else, dimwits are marginally functional. ( special note to all of them : don’t go deer hunting with friends who are impulsive and reckless)
But smart folk are in trouble, too: they want to kill themselves.
Olive, the protagonist puts a gun to her head at the very beginning. Her fantasy lover salutes his hero, the suicidal poet John Berryman, by crashing his car into a tree. A local girl at the diner jumps off a cliff ( or did she just “slip”?). And she’s rescued by Olive’s star math pupil who takes a break from medical school to come back home and shoot himself with a rifle. Didn’t his depressed mother kill herself, too ? The comedian, Bill Murray, plays a wealthy, aging widower who falls down in the woods and just doesn’t want to get back up. What is it about this place ?
Actually, Olive’s husband, Henry, is an exception. He’s cheerful, kind, generous, helpful. What a man! Regretfully, however, he only serves as a foil to his wife who regularly skewers and demeans him. I remain perpetually curious how he got to be the way he is. All we know is that he grew up on a local farm. I’m guessing that his dad was alcoholic, and he survived by cultivating a cast iron positive attitude. Or maybe he’s just a reincarnated Buddhist monk. He is so compassionate. He probably married Olive just so she wouldn’t be tormenting someone else.
As a viewer, however, I am annoyed - and a little bit of Olive goes a long, long way. She does try to help people when she can - but definitely not by cheering them up.
A bleak view of rural America - but probably an accurate one. If you hate life - wouldn’t you want to vote for Trump ?
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I began watching this series at the end - then went to the beginning - and finished with the middle - which is definitely the best part. Their son’s wedding to a West Coast proctologist is priceless. Olive is on her absolutely worst behavior: frightening children, scolding caterers, stealing her daughter in law’s earring and shoe.
Should probably note that her son, Christopher, appears to be a well adjusted adult - but then it’s also true that he decided to stay in California after his divorce. His mom may have been a nut job, but both his parents loved and nurtured him.
It’s my theory that what the smart, unhappy people in that town were missing was art - a stimulating experience for minds that can connect to it. Olive’s suicidal love interest was into poetry - but it was the morbid kind, appropriate for depressed academics. It’s surprising that he lived as long as he did.
Olive and Henry echo a similar polarity in secular America: the cheerful optimism of commercial advertising versus the angry cynicism that follows disappointment.
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I read the first few pages of the original, Pulitzer Prize winning novel, and the difference in tone is remarkable, I’m sure the characters in the novel are just as depressed, but the mood of the writing is as light and cheerful as a grade school reader. You feel the air and smell the pine trees and sea. The film version is more claustrophobic. The viewer is locked in rooms with too much dark green and dark brown, and never any views of the family homes from the outside.
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