King Rat (gkr) wrote,
King Rat
gkr

Intensity

I sometimes have a problem watching certain scenes in movies or reading some passages in books. I have to look away. They just make me uncomfortable.

One class of these are those based on a lie. This is when the character lies about something and the premise is that he now is trying to cover his tracks. The Truth About Cats And Dogs is once such movie. Janeane Garofalo's character goes through ever greater contortions to avoid facing something when it would be much easier just to tell the truth in the first place. Strangely enough, About a Boy with Hugh Grant starts on that premise, but manages to pull it off without setting off the cringe factor.

Another class is really intense scenes where something bad is going to happen to someone because of some sort of miscommunication. I have to know what's happening though ahead of time. If I don't know, it's not an issue. This one is a bit harder to explain, cause it's not as broad as that seems. An example would be when a character interprets his wife's actions as she's having an affair, but she's really planning a surprise party for him. He gets jealous and kills her. I cringe at that and can't read it except by putting it down frequently. Unless I don't know what's coming.

I say this because I am currently trying to read Mystic River. I know what's going to happen, because I saw the movie. This one has elements of both circumstances described above. I'm a little apprehensive about some things at work, and combining that with my aversion and discomfort at such scenes, and I have to put the book down frequently.

Yeah, I know I'm weird.

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