Fair. Come on Eileen is one of the greatest songs of all time. Not blowing smoke. Absolutely adore it.

But don’t listen to everything you read. I loved the movie Eileen. Even did a podcast episode about it on my new podcast, Film Exploder (completely selfish link included! https://open.spotify.com/episode/67mjgfTYDd07msee9GHM03?si=c8deee7041ce47b7) And if you enjoyed a movie like Another Earth (did you watch Brit’s show The OA?) I bet you probably would dig it.

Don’t be a stranger.

Thanks for the tip about the movie with my name. Looks like not a great movie, unfortunately. Unlike the song Come On Eileen.

Thank you for the reply. Nice to see people keeping track of their past posts and incoming comments.

I am sure, at one time, I would have understood this comment. HAHAHAH. Need to read back through this post to make sense of it. But kudos to you Eileen (have you seen the recent movie named after you??) for bringing me back to this really awesome movie.

The story begins with there being a primary (invented) cause for the accident. She was distracted by something very distracting to an avid astronomer. My god, another Earth has been discovered?? People get distracted and make mistakes, it’s human, a tragic accident doesn’t make you a terrible person who must carry the guilt. The healing has begun.

The plot thickens. John, who in reality died in the accident, is now alive. There mercifully now exists a person to whom she has a chance to apologize. Even with that chance, it is still extremely hard for her to do. When it does finally happen, he understandably can’t accept it. But the literally fantastic “another Earth” comes to the rescue again. She selflessly gives him her ticket, so that he might be reunited with his family that she took from him. John eventually does realize the whole situation was the result of an accident, that she is deserving of his forgiveness, and he does forgive her by accepting the ticket. John leaves and is now gone, matching with reality, and setting the stage for the final act of her temporary sanity-saving fantasy.

She meets the symbol of her real-world self and realizes that the person who truly needed the apology, and truly needed to both grant and receive forgiveness, had been herself all along. The 2 Rhodas merge and the fantasy ends. Now grounded back in reality, with the unbearable burden now lifted, Rhoda can begin anew and live the rest of her life like she had always deserved.

Oh nice! Thanks for the app tips. I’m always searching for new ways to find movies.

As for why he blinded himself… no they didn’t directly answer that. But my own personal theory is that he blinded, (and deafened himself) to empty himself. I think it was sort of a religious expression of coming to peace with himself? He was sort of treated in the movie as the spiritual guru. The individual that could be sought out for answers.

I also think there was sort of a confusing moment when she writes on his palm. I took that to mean the advice that he would be giving to her. BUT, he knows that she doesn’t need it. And she lets him know he doesn’t need the advice to forgive by writing it on his palm. And that is true, she did need to figure out how to forgive herself for the manslaughter of three people. And I believe she eventually figured it out in spite of herself.

I use Hoopla and it’s all online from my library. I get the movie on the app for 3 days on my smart TV. It’s great! My mom has been on an old movie kick and I rented Throw Mama From the Train last week.