Beginners : When Anna's phone rings? (maybe spoiler)

When Anna's phone rings? (maybe spoiler)

And she unplugs it and then says something to Oliver about " no matter where I go...he(?) can always find me"..... Who is it that is calling her? Did I miss something? Thanks!

Re: When Anna's phone rings? (maybe spoiler)


It is her father. She explained early in the film. The father is troubled and she keeps space between them.

Wit pending, please hold.

Re: When Anna's phone rings? (maybe spoiler)

Thanks!

Re: When Anna's phone rings? (maybe spoiler)

she does say it's her father, but i wonder if she has a boyfriend or husband or whatever that she is ignoring. i suppose ewan doesn't find any evidence of a prior relationship in her flat in NY but still, i'm not inclined to believe it's her father calling her.

Re: When Anna's phone rings? (maybe spoiler)

The film would have mentioned if she had a boyfriend or husband. I,m sure it would have came up somewhere in the film. She was a bit clingy and liked him from the start. Would have been just a little bit odd if there was already a significant other.

Re: When Anna's phone rings? (maybe spoiler)

I thought her father killed himself. I was thinking the phone ringing could be anybody (mother, old boyfriend, the bellboy etc) but the painful memory of her father haunted her and she hated to pick up the phone. Perhaps she heard the news while staying at a hotel?

Re: When Anna's phone rings? (maybe spoiler)

My understanding was that her father calls her and threatens to kill himself, in an emotional blackmail sort of way, which is why she doesn't like to answer. Perhaps I misread it, but that seemed to chime in with the whole Freudian theme of the movie.

I think there may have been just a suggestion of child sexual abuse in there also but that may be overanalysing.

I used to want to change the world. Now I just want to leave the room with a little dignity.

Re: When Anna's phone rings? (maybe spoiler)

Yes, Krustallos got it right. The caller is Anna's father, who has not (yet) committed suicide.

Re: When Anna's phone rings? (maybe spoiler)


she does say it's her father, but i wonder if she has a boyfriend or husband or whatever that she is ignoring.

I kinda got that vibe too! in the scene where she is in LA, and it's a close up of her in bed, I was totally expecting the camera to pan out and reveal a lover lying next to her.

I noticed she did have a small gold ring on one of her ring fingers, dunno if it was the 'marriage' finger or not though haha.

I got the overall impression that her father WAS in fact dead and she used the whole "joke phone call re-enactment" with Oliver as a defense to hide the fact that she was avoiding a call from an important person she didn't want Oliver to know about. It was like "ooh, let's talk about my father's suicide so you will focus on the sadness of that and not the suspiciousness of me not answering persistent calls around you".


The caller is Anna's father, who has not (yet) committed suicide

I dunno if I misinterpreted something in the film, but how exactly do you know this for sure?


[formerly sweet_lesus]

Re: When Anna's phone rings? (maybe spoiler)

see it whichever way you want, but your interpretation doesn't add anything to strengthen or deepen the plot at all, it only complicates it in a rather pointless way. the scene was designed to let her reveal something personal to him, that's all.

Re: When Anna's phone rings? (maybe spoiler)

I agree with what you are saying, the thing is everyone is sure of the caller being the father and all it takes is for one or two posters to have imagined something else and all of a sudden it becomes something rediculous as she telling him lets role play about her father and her to change the subject of who is really on the phone. There is absolutely no hint of a former boyfriend or husband what so ever in the film, but some posters could care less as long as there theory gets explored.

Re: When Anna's phone rings? (maybe spoiler)


I actually came to the board to see if anyone else thought that Anna's re-enactment of her father calling suggested that she may have been sexually abused...or at least that her father had an inappropriate fixation/dependence on his daughter.

That's what I got out of it.

Re: When Anna's phone rings? (maybe spoiler)

Yes, I agree with Krustallos. Even the last line, I got that suggestion too but wasn't sure.

Re: When Anna's phone rings? (maybe spoiler)

I had to watch it again to be sure, but it's her father.
When the phone rings, Oliver wants to pick up the phone but Anna tells him not to. She says it's her dad. Then he asks: "He's that bad?" They start the roleplay and she says something like: I'll my dad. You'll be me. During the conversation Oliver calls her 'papa'. No doubt it's her father.

"A night of honesty ends at daybreak"

It's definitely her dad on the phone

The one time we see Anna answer the hotel phone, it is her father calling. Later she tells Oliver about how her father calls her frequently, telling her how depressed he is, and saying he may kill himself. (An aside: She appears to have kept her cell phone number--and probably even the knowledge that she has a cell phone--from her father. He is probably the only likely person to be calling her on that phone, as others, like her agent, friends, etc., would call her cell phone. In 2003, she may well not have had a cell phone for very long, and, in any case, it's easy to imagine her deciding not to give her father that additional way to reach and torment her.) Later in their relationship, when it rings and she looks sorrowfully at the phone, and tells Oliver not to answer, he says something like "It's not fair for him to do this to you," and unplugs the phone (though wouldn't the ringing continue, since that's only one of at least two in the suite? Never mind, let that slide...)

Re. possible sexual abuse by her father, I also agree that it's a possibility, given what we're shown. The line that brought that out for me was after Anna tells Oliver about the nature of her dad's calls. She says that she asks her dad, "Shouldn't you be telling all this to your shrink?" (I *think* she says shrink or therapist or something; it might be "your wife," in which case it would have to be different one to her mother, since she's already told us--in mime--that her mother shot herself and is dead). And she says her father replies, "YOU'RE my girl," at which point she looks particularly sad and haunted. That triggered the idea that he might have abused her in ways other than torturing her with threats of his suicide (if he does have another wife now, his reply would be even creepier, but I'm just not certain of the line). It is definitely not made explicit or even clearly hinted at, but there's a very slight whiff of a possibility.

But even if there has been no such abuse from him, she has plenty to be sad and haunted about, with a mother who shot herself, and a father who continually calls with threats of doing the same, about which she's probably already done everything she has power to, and can do nothing more. The history of just her dad's suicide threats and depression is probably long and complicated, with lots of attempts on her part to help, and she appears to have sadly settled on the facts that 1) she can't control or help him further, beyond giving what love she can, and that 2) she must protect herself and try to heal, so must not be constantly hearing this stuff from her dad. There is so much just in the facts of her family that we know for sure, to make it difficult for her to commit to and enjoy any deep, long-lasting relationship or marriage. It's no wonder that she cries, upon moving in with Oliver, and can't jump into things whole-heartedly and quickly. Still, I choose to believe they manage to build a life together and be more happy than not, at least.

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