Popular Culture Review Vol. 2, No. 2, July 1991 | Page 71

Displaced People and the Frailty of Words

63

dining room where she is setting the table for dinner. "Can I help?"
he asks quietly. Beth tells him to go upstairs and clean out his closet
His heart in his hands, Conrad says, "M om ..." The phone rings.
Beth answers it, saying, "Ncr, no. I'm not doing anything. Just getting
ready for dinner." Conrad leaves quietly. Eberwein notes that Beth
is "not the heavy" in the film, as she is considered by many critics.
He refers to the a nguish which communication causes for both Beth
and Conrad:
They end up talking over each other's statements,
and Conrad barks. Beth goes back into the house; her
effort at being pleasant has failed, for Conrad has
been emotionally cold to her in the chilly scene and
rebuffed the only kind of warmth she is capable of
extending to him.(8)
Similar failure to communicate occurs when the two pass in the
hall at home:
"I didn't play golf today. It was too cold."
(Beth)
"How was your golf game?" (Conrad)
"I didn't play."
"Oh, it did get colder today."
"No, I mean for the year, it's colder."
It is no accident, of course, that Conrad, played magnificently by
Timothy Hutton, is reading Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy in his
English class. The displaced Jude Fawley finds human relationships
obscure and suffers a series of losses. Hardy writes of Jude's continuing
disappointments, "Events did not rhyme quite as he had thought.
Nature's logic was too horrid for him to care for."(9) This despair is
reflected in Conrad's own life. Those around him —especially his
mother —are mysteries, and his feelings of isolation and rejection are
unclear even to him. In dismay, Conrad turns to a psychiatrist, whom
he hopes can master the hidden text of his life. The young man's cry,
"We just don't connect!" summarizes his relationship with his
mother, but it also is the theme and semiological center of the script
by Alvin Sargent.