stellala's Character Notes
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| Alex Wyler – The Lake House (2006) |
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| Alex is less a three-dimensional character than the ideal lover. He is beautiful, sensitive, talented, smart, sensual, financially secure, and faithful. He falls in love after a series of letters, a single dance and a kiss. He is faithful to the kiss: he waits four years for Kate, and he'd probably wait forever. He has the required prestigious but difficult background, as he's had his Kerouac days and horrific family problems. His dad, however, is a world-famous architect and Alex and his brother eventually move into a posh office in Chicago. A good match for Kate the physician. A good match for anyone.
So...he's pretty, sensitive, talented, and well-to-do and absolutely faithful. What more can any woman want? | Scott Favor – My Own Private Idaho (1991) |
| Rich boy who goes slumming, Scott is ambitious and willing to sacrifice those around him to get ahead in whatever world he finds himself. Though he leaves his family, he has no intention of losing his inheritance or his family's political clout. He uses the promise of this inheritance to gain Bob's trust, which gives him prestige in Bob's world.
Bob's world, however, is less promising for an ambitious man than politics. By the time we meet Scott, he is almost of age, bored with Bob, and ready to return to his family. Before he does so, he decides to have one last adventure: he will help Mike find his long-lost mother. Mike is an ideal companion: Scott likes Mike as much as he is capable of liking anyone, and on some level he does want to help Mike find his mom. I think that the campfire scene and Mike's confession of love shock Scott but don't change his mind. Ultimately, whatever he feels for Mike is immaterial. He is determined to leave Mike's world and enter another, and he has no intention of taking Mike with him into that world. By the end of the film, Scott has betrayed almost every person in the film other than his Italian girl friend. He ditches Mike in a hotel room in Italy, with plane tickets to the States. This is probably the nicest thing he will ever do for people like Mike. His response to reading about his dad's death is to smile. He betrays Bob, lying to his family about his past at the same time. I think of Scott as Van Sant's idea of a young politician: politicians can't be heroic. They are unreliable betrayers of public trust. | Kevin Lomax – The Devil's Advocate (1997) |
| An odd take on the everyman character, torn between God (mommy) and Satan (daddy). I am a medievalist, I saw this film before becoming a Keanu fan, and I was so surprised to see such a character in a modern film.
Lomax has his virtues: he loves his wife and his mother; he knows what is good and what is evil; he knows that as a human being he has free will to choose good over evil. However, being a fallen human being (and the Son of Satan to boot) Lomax is sinful: he is vain, and he is lustful. All this makes him a delightful catch for Daddy Satan, who plays his son's character the way Hendrix played the guitar. The script makes it clear that Kevin always knows which choices are evil, and which choices are good. However, after leaving his mommy's influence, under his daddy's tutelage, Kevin makes one bad choice after another. He is lustful: he chooses the red-head over his wife. He is vain: he chooses his career over his wife and chooses to defend murderers and pedophiles. His actions drive his wife to suicide, which drives Kevin to his final confrontation with his dad, when Kevin finally redeems himself. However, Kevin is everyman, and traditionally, everyman faces temptation as long as he lives. When the film ends, we know that yet another cycle of temptation is beginning for poor Kevin, we really haven't a clue how this one will end. |