I usually wait a day or so after watching a movie to write these posts, but I had some big issues with Deep Impact so I want to write them out while they’re still very fresh in my mind.
Does anyone really remember this movie? It’s the one that came a bit before Armageddon and wasn’t as memorable (probably because it didn’t have an Aerosmith song forever associated with it). Anyway, a comet is on its way to destroy Earth, astronauts try to explode it, and they… fail. They split it in two. Eventually they sacrifice themselves to destroy the larger piece, but anything along the Atlantic Ocean is destroyed when the smaller hits. Ensemble cast, yadda yadda yadda.
I want to talk about Mrs. Téa Leoni (she was married to David Duchovny at the time), the character that is arguably the mainest of characters. She’s a reporter, mad at her dad, gets the call that her mom committed suicide while whimsical music plays in the background, and is… fine. She’s fine. But I want to talk about her “heroic” sacrifice late in the movie.
There’s a helicopter to safety that doesn’t have room for everyone. Lots are drawn, and a woman with a small child is to be left behind. Leoni decides to let the woman take her place so she can reconcile with her dad and die on a beach. Bittersweet but kind of nice, right? WRONG! When she finds out the woman is staying behind, instead of saying a single goddamned thing, she grabs the child and rushes towards the helicopter. The mother is, rightfully so, confused and hysterical. Even if she thought that her daughter could survive without her, she never even got a chance to say goodbye! And editing makes it look like Leoni quickly explains what she’s doing, but she does that on the roof. That means that the mother was sobbing and chasing after her for AT LEAST one floor. What a fucking bizarre thing to do.
I don’t want this post to get too long so I won’t go into how Leelee Sobieski’s parents are awful and that the movie is an overflowing basket of daddy issues, but who knows! Maybe someday I’ll review Armageddon but continue ranting about this movie instead.
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