FALLING DOWN is a story about the decline of America as seen through the eyes of an “average,” middle-aged, hard-working, suburban/outer city White Male. Or so it might seem. The film, like most, works on a few levels. At times I will speak of a conscious narrative and an unconscious one. The Conscious Narrative, as I use the phrase, will present as notes on the cinematic and narrative elements that add up to show us a man breaking down much as his society is. He is a part of that breakdown as well as a cause of it as well as a reaction to it. Bill Foster is on the edge of both madness and awareness. He is meeting the ultimate disillusioning and disenchantment and dissolution of the American Dream, to which he gave full and total allegiance. He is also losing his mind.

The Unconscious Narrative, as I use the phrase, is not always unconsciously wielded, but sometimes it is. What I mean by this is that under and along with the first narrative I speak of, there are the messages that women are superficial, weak, ineffective creatures; that Blacks are criminals, pawns, and a threat to America’s fiber; that Asians are either smart and by the side of the White Male, or Otherly conniving overcharging storeowners (also weak and easily dominated); that Latinos are thugs and women-haters, also a threat to America’s fiber and cultural makeup; the usual nasty hype about Gays; that a privileged attitude is normal, that misogyny is normal, and some others. At times this is purposely achieved. And I offer the benefit of the doubt to these writers that at other times they are just writing women, for example, as they think of them and see them. 

The front cover lets us know that our protagonist is “an ordinary

man at war with the everyday world.” “Ordinary man” is key, as is “the everyday world.”

The back cover blurb sums up the theme as “Are we falling apart?” and tells us the protagonist is”slipping over the edge” and “ready to get even” with the “pressures of big-city life” that “can anger everyone.”

MEET YOUR (ANTI)HERO, BILL FOSTER. We first see him becoming very agitated as he is stuck in a traffic jam. The scene very consciously references the opening of Fellini’s 8 1/2. In the Fellini film, the man finally floats up, up, and away—out of the traffic jam that is pressing in upon him. In Falling Down, this scene serves as an introduction to the theme of the film. As a study of cinema will teach, a viewer will see the theme laid out very barely in the first ten minutes of a well-made American movie. It will often be done in one phrase, or one image. Or it may be made repeatedly, on different levels during this window of time. The intent is to prepare the viewers mind for understanding that theme as it plays out. This makes for a full emotional and mental experience of that theme.

NOTE: the Conscious Narrative is that Bill is freaking out because he is simply boxed into his car on a hot day. It represents his inner turmoil, of course.

Slowly, his pent up angst is bubbling free. He begins freaking out. Sweating. A fly crawls on him, the windows won’t open. He swats at the fly with a rolled up newspaper. The sounds of honking and laughter and angry chatter assault him. He grows increasingly agitated, feels trapped. These are all elements of the theme, some direct metaphors.

A POV shot from Bill’s car. In the film, the camera PANS RIGHT and then TILTS DOWN the American flag down to the car below it. Here, we see a bus with the word “Bus” visible in case we need to be reminded that we are seeing a bus. Who is sitting “on the back” of that bus? A Black boy and girl. Can we possibly see a Black person on the “back of the bus” (labeled BUS to trigger the historical phrase) and NOT reference the Civil Rights movement? To make the allusion complete, we see a Black girl who throws a paper airplane, and the shot moves on and leaves her arm high, and her smiling triumph burned in our mind as if she is cheering. “Fist in the air in the land of hypocrisy” are the lyrics that come to my mind, from Rage Against the Machine. That music is not playing. But we all understand the triumphant gesture. When you add the American Flag directly under the two Black children, it says a lot. Especially in the context of Bill watching all these scenes “locking him in” or “trapping him” or “closing in on him.” Civil Rights struggle? Giving more power to minorities? Who’s next? Is there room for Bill?

Note, we shoot them both with a Low Angle, up from underneath, giving them a sense of might and the feeling that they are above Bill.

ANOTHER POV shot. This is the girl right in front of Bill. She glares at him. Directly at him. We see her in a shot that ZOOMS in slowly, and in which the camera wobbles first over to almost center the girl’s blonde/fair doll, and then, back to the Brown little girl’s face. Each time this happens, the next insert shot is a maniacal, grinning, Garfield® doll. They are paired. This is to add a threatening feel to her, and possibly to speak of the danger of a certain type of child growing up in our midst. Note the College sticker on the window. That’s where she’ll go one day, to enter the system and gain power. What is missing from this description, of course, is the pace of the cutting of the shots, which causes them to rain down upon Bill like a hail of stones.

The blonde doll in her hands may be just to let us know/remind us that this girl is Brown. Not Fair. Not Euro, like our Hero, Bill Foster. It may also be read that this girl is appropriating culture, using a toy that is “meant for someone else.”

A POV shot, and they are coming fast and furious. The editor, adept at his craft, is tightening the edit, raising the suspense, communicating Bill’s agitation and fear.

Here, we are tightening up on the frame. ECU they say, Extreme Close Up. IT is a low-angle, so you feel the boy’s laughter (a Black man to-be) up close, and in the context of Bill’s agitation and claustrophobia.

The scene ALSO shows two “Guys” on a cell phone, a Latina woman smearing lipstick over her scowl reflected in a side-view mirror in which we get to feel the glare of her intense concentration/angst.

AFTER we cut to a quick shot of another fair-skinned child, we sandwich back to this shot. The Black child is no longer laughing. Now he is looking down at Bill with a Direct Address (right to camera), dark brown eyes still and strong, as if judging or weighing you.

As the other children laugh now, neither he nor the Brown girl in the car with the fair doll are laughing. They sit and watch bill squirm in the growing heat.

A bumper sticker we cut to twice in the editing sequence above, where Bill is being pressed in upon by all these threatening moments and feelings. It shows when the shots are cutting quick, right before he busts out of the car and begins walking. I save it for last because here is your theme, dropped in tidy.

Bill is a victim of the system, and he will die for our nation’s sins. It reinforces what so many scenes tell us: somehow, this killer is blameless. A martyr, even.

This is a shot of PRENDERGAST, the cop who tracks down Bill Foster eventually. He is played by the ever-affable Robert Duvall.

This is our other White Male protagonist. I won’t go into his character yet, but we see him for a moment in this scene, sitting a bit more patiently in a car stuck in the same traffic jam as Bill Foster was a moment before.

He looks to see a sign on the side of the road as he waits.

POV: Prendergast. This is the sign that overlooks the area of the traffic jam. The Duvall cop looks up at it and laughs. It seems like he is laughing at the graffiti on the sign. But other things are at work.

Sign: A Brown-eyed/copper-skinned girl looks down from on high. Next to her is the word WHITE, although the “E” is mising. (We see later it is indeed “White.”) Maybe it’s “Whitney.” Maybe it’s “Whitish.” But given the mix of Black and White face Close-Ups we’ve just been peppered with, a viewers mind is now oriented on race, and given the amount of skin showing and all other factors, it is likely to read as “White.”

On her right is a word we cannot make out. Is it “tan?” Maybe, maybe not. But she is in a bathing suit looking rather bronzed.

A graffiti-man is crushed inside the woman’s cleavage yelling “HELP!!”

These images should be read in the context of the intro scene provided above. They come directly after many images telling us the future will be changed and experienced and framed by the many different minority children around “us.”

This quick seemingly inconsequential sequence serves to reinforce the meme that the Average White Male is being squashed, edged out by sex/breeding of the non-White. It also serves to frame women as objects, which they are in this film.

Gaze closely from your roadside seat. Laugh, like Prendergast?

We see that Bill’s license plate reads D-FENS, and this not only notes the Department he works in, but his role as a defender of the Average (White) Man’s space and authority and privilege. 

This moment serves to both intrigue us, tell us he is now unpredictable—despite his buzz cut, white collared shirt, and briefcase—as well as endear us to him. Who doesn’t love a protagonist who says to hell with breathing exhaust, pops open his door and walks away from the whole mess? When the man behind
him yells “Hey! Where are you going?” Bill Foster turns briefly to say “I’m going home!”

We don’t know yet that he lives on the far side of the moon.

Meet MISTER LEE. He speaks broken English. He grunts. He arches his back slightly and scratches his polyester-clad belly. You see him here rubbing his neck. He is always rubbing, scratching…is he getting himself off, or cursed with a rash? Whatever it is, it subtly makes him feel sleazy, and dirty. When he speaks, he pulls his lips down into a frown. Not visible in this particular shot, but in others a bit wider of the same man, we see American flags behind him. Also, the shot of Bill from the side shows us American flags in a pencil can on the counter. Again, the theme is reinforced. Who is this foreigner to set up shop here?

Bill needs change, and asks for some, but the grocer abruptly and pointedly shuts the drawer and tells him he has to buy something.

Note the BLUE sheen in his eyeglasses. We will return to this.

Theme reinforced. Foreign elements intruding on the White Male’s ability to live a comfortable,deserved life and enjoy those things he has worked so hard for.

The film does this a lot. Once the viewer is inflamed by having tiny privileges denied, he/she is to cheer on this “common man’s” rejection of such obstacles to a well-enjoyed American life. We are to at least minimally approve his refusal to “take it anymore,” as he beats up people, insults them, rocket-launches them, shoots and stabs them. It’s true that the movie bills him as “falling down,” and acting “psychotically,” but the way his dialogue is written, and the scenes shot, you are to be feeling vindicated for someone finally standing up to all these annoyances that enlightened people don’t make a big deal of.

When Bill Foster has the man on his back on the floor and cringing; after he has swung his bat and smashed various displays, goods, and items, costing the grocer hundreds of dollars at least; after forcing him with a bat over him to charge him what he wanted in the first place, the scared man says “Take the money! Take the money!” But Bill is shocked! How dare he insinuate that he is the ladrón! He lets him know this, and “bargains” a price from the terrified man threatening to slam a soda into his face.

Bill Foster gingerly rings open the drawer and makes change. Showing that he is paying (his own price), and not stealing. He makes a show of it so we can see how “honest” he is. Drops in the bill, close up, takes changes, takes soda, leaves. This is reinforced later when the Japanese American cop takes Mister Lee (who files a police report) away from the Robbery division, because he suddenly realizes that there was no theft at the scene (baseball bat doesn’t
count).

The picture clutched to Prendergast’s wife’s chest is not a casual prop. It is a photo of her daughter, who is dead. We do not yet know this is what drove her over the edge. Also, the locus of the woman’s mental instability is somehow never really pinned on this, which would render her sympathetic, rather than ridiculous and annoying. Prendergast later frames his loyalty to her based on what she sacriced to him to have this child—her figure. And so, it never feels like she is forgiven for going crazy.

Also revealed at this time, but not shown here is that Prendergast is the butt of many jokes at the office, and seen as a pushover. We also know that he doesn’t have to weather it much longer. This is his last day. But on this day, the ribbing is especially intense.

It is significant that HE is the one we see staring at the photo of the girl’s face at length. When we see the wife, it is as shown, here. The picture is assumed. Just as it is assumed that she feels the same way. But in a film, emotions are most strongly drawn from what we SEE. And so the weight of our understanding always rests with Prendergast, instead of his wife, who ultimately is there to help highlight Prendergast’s character arc, and not as her own character.

You know Prendergast’s singing ritual is something already established to soothe his wife. She begins to calm down. You sense that something is wrong with her emotionally. Prendergast is our hero, for being so nurturing. Especially after watching another White Male in a Tie be so vicious to another human.

The intelligent, well-spoken cop role of Prendergast’s co-worker does nothing to treat Asians fairly, it does not compensate for the Korean grunting, scratching, scowling, shifty-eyed role. The Japanese policeman (here pointing out the difference as he corrects the White Male who asks him to translate Korean) is simply another
stereotype.

Here he is weirding us out whilst the refined and authoritarian Japanese man oversees his strange ways.

In this scene, while she is on this call (again I stress: she is busy, occupied), the mother fills a watergun for her daughter, who takes it outside to play. This comes just after a ECU on the framed photo of Prendergast’s (Blonde) daughter. The shot that follows it is the dangerous territory of the gang members. If you don’t think these edits and implications aren’t well planned out, you don’t understand media. Me, I see can see the writers and director doing high-fives on some of these calls. They work well!

This use of gun handed to the child by the parent is speaking to the theme of growing violence in America, and how the adults are complicit in inducting the children into it. The fair dead child intercut with gang activity highlights who is in danger and from whom.

. Note the BLUE color of the gun. We will return to this.

A great shot. One of my mis favoritos, in terms of Art Direction and narrative expressed through props. Sure, it’s way over the top, but it’s such a strong image. It builds tension for the incoming scene. Here, it will highlight the part of the Conscious Narrative that tells us America is being rotted by many elements—one of them, gang violence.

This paints him as a brave man in the film’s context, and he looks down upon these two circling aggressors from his perch. He mocks the concept of gangs having territories, mocks their graffiti, gives no respect at all that he might be a lost letter in someone else’s lexicon for a moment and that he should listen for language. But that is his character. He is above all that. He reinforces the anti-multiculturalism happening today (and when the film was made) by telling them “Maybe if you wrote it in fuckin’ English, I could fuckin’ understand it.”

Yet, he then attempts to “be reasonable,” barely straining out his disgust. This is so the watcher can agree with him later when he claims that he tried to treat these thugs with respect.

A reader has pointed out quite astutely that the concrete is the front steps to a house. Yet another sign of the American Dream being ruined by the crime and advancement of the Brown.

It is important, and not accidental, that Bill Foster takes all his weapons from the situation around him. This not only says he is adaptable, it takes some locus of blame off of him, and reinforces the “violent, rotting land” that America is within the context of this film. The fact that he takes the weapon forward into the next scene is adept storytelling, raising the stakes, increasing the drama and tension and inevitable moment of climax.

He gets to tell them that he “Tried to treat [them] like a man,” but we see that sure didn’t work. 

This is another scene where we are to cheer on the Conservative White Male for finally standing up to these pinche gangbangers.

Bill mocks them as they run. “You forgot the briefcase!” It is lines like this that inform the audience to laugh with him, and to feel strong with him.

Bill calls the woman, and the child—who turns out to be his daughter, after all.

We begin to identify part of his conflict. This is the element that makes him human and sympathetic. His arc of wanting to get home for his daughter’s birthday. We don’t understand, as an audience, why he can’t see her, but everytime we see him speak to his wife, we get a little more of the picture. Something went wrong. He seems like an okay guy. Yes, he does the quiet stalker thing, but then when his ex-wife gets a note of genuine fear in her voice “It is you, isn’t it?”) he quickly soothes her. He laughs in a self-deprecating way. “Yeah…it’s me.”

He reminds the woman that it is “Adelle’s birthday…”

This withholding a reason from the viewer is not accidental. This is so we can begin to bond emotionally with Bill, who will need our alliance if we are to justify his behavior in even the minimal amount that an Anti-Hero requires.

These vatos scope out Bill, and open fire on him, carelessly spraying the entire area with bullets as they try to hit him at a payphone. But Bill walks on water, in a manner of speaking, and defies physical laws by remaining untouched in a crossfire of bullets. Instead various random people are wounded/killed. Driveby amateurs to the end it seems, these gangbangers not only miss our protagonist, they steer out of control, and crash the car in a dramatic head-on collision.

Directly behind Bill, in this shot, is Christ. As we know, these choices are not casual, nor accidental.

Bill Foster stands over the wounded men. Dig the low angle. Standing in judgment, he is not only the Martyr, but God Above.

The Latino, like the Korean, is now at the feet of the White Man.

Vato certainly looks powerless, and unlike Brave Bill, he begs for mercy when a gun is pointed at him.

It is of note that he missed once. He can’t look expert at any of this stuff. It makes him seem a “victim” of the system, then. Driven to violence, certainly not prone to, or practiced at it.

He carries violence further into his arc. We began with a bat. He is now toting a small gun shop.

You can tell Bossman cannot stand Prendergast. Even before he tells him so. That is because the Boss fella is a true AlphaMacho male, and Prendergast is but a Wimp. In fact, the Boss is boxing a heavy bag when Prendergast enters the office! In this shot, he is “taking the gloves off.”

As he talks to him standing, while Prendergast is sitting facing him, Bossman has his fly and pants open, and is standing tall and confidently tucking his shirt into his pants. I don’t think it needs further comment that Prendergast is being emasculated here, and the role of the Macho Man being revered, on top of that.

Prendergast is our true Protagonist. He is the White Male that is All Those Things That Bill Foster is not. He is comfy around Minorities (works with them after all, and is close to a Brown woman, his partner!), he is accomodating to women….like his batshit wife. He seems to let everyone poke and push at him. He lets his boss unload on him.

And poor Bill Foster is subjecting himself to it because he just wants to “go home.” When he left the gang turf, he threw the bat and shouted “Clear a path! I’m going home. You hear me? I’m going home!!” or something close to that. It’s intended to be a Spine-Chills-Cheer moment. One of my past best friends would use that line in life at times. We loved this movie. He was a very cool, writer cat. And I had no idea of all the things this film was telling me every time I watched it. I had not yet gone to film school, worked as a cinematographer, or “remembered that I was Mexican.”        

Bill now has the knife that the gang member pulled on him. When he picks it up, he makes it clear that (again) he is not of this violent world. He doesn’t know how to use it, tries to twirl it (butterfly knife) and mumbles “how do they do that?”

And we again reinforce part of the theme. That all these other elements are crowding out the average, conservative, White Male.

When Prendergast needs to brainstorm on where Bill Foster is headed, who does he talk to? His partner, Sandra? No! The Smart Asian, of course.

We enter a second park (if we count the Ese Park as the first). Again we appeal to a certain “Bill Foster” point of view. The park is crammed with many threats and our narrative follows the Bus Stop with an intensification of progression.

Note: this child’s shirt echoes the American flag motif.

This shot serves to place him alone and isolated as a White Male, and also as a Father. It is this father who has been cut off from his daughter that helps to render him sympathetic at all.

Bill, being a fair man reacts to being told “you don’t need both of those bags; gimme one” by agreeing, and giving up his briefcase. The conning, lying, Homeless Person yells with indignance to only find food inside the briefcase.

Bill stops into a “Wammy Burger.” We reinforce part of the theme of this tale, that of a violent (and corporate) culture. Violence is also foreshadowed by the sight of the blue car. The only car we’ve seen (and recently) that looks like this one is the wrecked gangbanger’s car.

The ubiquitous American flag flies high.

In this scene, the aggressor is twofold: Corporate America, and the inability for a decent working (White) man to get a burger when the hell he feels like it. This latter complaint is what predicates the entire Conscious Narrative. Bill gets pissed off because he wants a breakfast item, but it is not even five minutes past the cutoff time, and he is being denied. So it is both Corporate America encroaching upon the Little Guy, it is a loss of some royal sort of privilege that would entitle a person to make their own rules about what time lunch is served and the grills are scrubbed and cleaned.

As in the Korean Deli, Bill feels he has the right to terrorize people because a situation in life would require his patience or understanding…or just a choice to shop for goods elsewhere. 

He’s the anti-hero, but he is written to vindicate the target audience’s frustrations. Prendergast is not the Real Man, after all. Not until
he….

Now back outside, making his way across the city, Bill finds a crystal ball that he can give his daughter for her birthday. It clearly catches his eye and he immediately attaches significance to it. We are reminded of the soothing London Bridges globe.        

We see later that Bill’s home movie memories include a horse that he tried to seat his daughter upon, oblivious to her fear and screaming that she didn’t want to get on it. Maybe this is the one she would have wanted, say Bill’s eyes.

Prendergast’s partner Sandra communicates in a few ways that she is really going to miss Prendergast as a partner. They worked well together, you can see this from their interaction. Prendergast keeps needing her attention in various ways, whether it is their planned lunch, or phone calls where he is trying to track down Bill Foster, as he makes his way across the map. She seems happy to give it, but is always pressed to obey her new Male
partner.        

Sandra is rendered a passive, helpless character, even though a cop! In this shot, her new partner, a co-worker she already knows well, is obnoxiously waving his watch in her face to let her know it’s time to go. This dynamic was especially annoying for me to watch. It made no sense that she took this clown’s constant gibing. What a role model for a girl to watch. This man was constantly her Master, telling her how long to talk, when to go, when to move, how to be a cop. The day wasn’t over, her last day as Prendergast’s partner. Yet she was throwin in with this fool. Another way in which the film showed its hate for women was to make Sandra oddly subservient to this jackass.

It was meant to play as humor, but there was nothing really funny about it.

Bill walks by a mural of a dark skinned man being romantic/sexual with a lighter-skinned woman. The pole bisects both them and our vision as it moves to frame Bill.

He stops on the corner to dab sweat from his head. He walks on.

Bill finds the one joint where the screenwriter can be sure to let us know that our main character is a good guy. Just a guy. Not a racist, no. He didn’t open fire on those wounded Latinos because they were Latino, after all. He did it because they started a war when they wouldn’t let him sit on the concrete. He didn’t ridicule the Korean Grocer because he was Korean, per se. He did it because the soda was 35 cents too much. Bill is not a vigilante, as his new friend thinks, doing a Travis Bickle-like cleaning of the streets, or anything. Just tryin’ to get home.

You can see the SS outfit, and the gas mask in the center of this shot. There is light coming down from above, as the room is underground or appears that way, as if a bunker. Much clouds of dust fill the air too, as the Notzi speaks glowingly of his empty Cyklon gas cannister (“See? It’s been used!” he gushes).

This scene really pours it on thick so we understand that despite the fact that Bill is now officially a murderer, he’s still a good guy. He’s not one of THOSE characters. Those Ign’ant Racists. That is not what is behind his fear of Brown people and cultural change.

Bill screams when the glass breaks. “Noooooooo!”

Just before Bill shoots this ugly character, there is a nice, tight shot of Public Enemy #1, from a poster. (Not the band.) This is not a POV shot, just an insert of him glaring at the viewer; just an emotional reminder.

Hey, here’s a murder we can all get behind. Killing der Fuhrer by proxy.

It is from this point forward that Bill’s right eyeglass is cracked. A break in one lens or in a mirror image will often signify mental disturbance or madness.

In this film, this electric shade of BLUE is the color of pending VIOLENCE and a state of madness.

We finally see the entire phrase next to the girl in the green bathing suit, as Prendergast tracks Bill Foster’s steps with his partner. Does it feel dismissive or derogatory? WHITE IS FOR LAUNDRY it says. I bet Bill wouldn’t appreciate that.      

Again, we frame women as objects. And this comes, notably, just
as Prendergast begins to close in on the killer. With his partner,
who is a woman.

Just look at her posture in these shots. It says “I am ineffective, weak, scared, useless.” And she must be, because Prendergast leaves her behind while he scrambles off to get a look over the peak of the hill.

Think about it.

As I said, all women in this movie are props that enable the men to live out the action and establish their beliefs and desired outcomes.

The world in which Bill Foster lives is a dying one. It is being eaten apart by violence and crime and lack of good services, by People of Color, by corporate greed (he was no longer “economically viable” to his employer, the Department of Defense), by women.

Bill confronts a working man who is sitting on the ground guarding people away from a hole in the street. After forcing the man to admit (by showing him his gun) that there really was no purpose to the street work or detour; that the state is just blocking traffic and doing construction to “justify their budget”, he pulls out a rocket launcher and decides to blow up the site.

Of course, in perfect character, Bill does not know how to operate such a piece of weaponry. How could he? He only works for the Department of Defense, and is not acquainted with these notions of weaponized violence.

Good thing there’s a little Black kid on the scene!

This idea that the child knows how to operate this weapon serves two purposes here. It ties Black people to crime, and it reinforces the Conscious Narrative, that the Nation is so increasingly violent that a child knows how to use military equipment.

This part really amazed me. What a whopper. Looking at his kid as if he is to blame for the rocket launcher that Foster stole from the man he has just shot—and then fired into a manhole. He is visibly put off by the kid’s excitement. He steals, rants, murders and explodes indiscriminately (though to his logic it is all justified, you’ll remember) and somehow we are to feel his hands are clean.

Also working in this scene to gain our sympathy is that he thinks the blood is from the little girl, and he gets terribly scared thinking he had hurt her.

This is another scene for the Middle Class Working Man who marvels over the sort of home that being a doctor of vanity can bring.

If you know Robert Duvall, you know just what kind of nice guy he can play. And we like him. We feel for him, because he is a wuss at the office. And everyone picks on him. Movie-watchers love nothing quite so much as watching the pushover get his cojones all in a line.        

But how does he do it? By finally putting his wife “in her place.” Sure, she’s going off the deep end because their daughter died (too old) of S.I.D.S.; sure, he lets everyone in the office insult him, push him around, play practical jokes on him. But his wife nags. And who encourages him to stop “taking it” from her? His female partner. In this way, women are used to oppress women. It all looks okay to see Sandra egging Prendergast on and laughing into her hand when he finally “gives it to her,” until you remember that the story is written by a man (Ebbe Roe Smith), edited by another man (Paul Hirsch), and directed by yet another man (Joel Schumacher).

For the most part, we have liked Prendergast. He’s kind at first, seems affable, shrugs off hurtful barbs. Are we now supposed to love him? Yes. When he gets macho with his wife and finally stands up (telling her “And have dinner ready when I get home,”) she almost trills with acceptance, and gives him a “yes sir”
type of response. You feel that with just a little stern and patriarchal command, her mental entropy has been stalled.

We are very proud of him.

Now Bill is at his old home. It is where his wife and child live. They have fled, as he has called and let them know how close he is. The color BLUE reappears as he delves into his memories….

And as a symptom of madness, well…they choose one that resembles a common human failing. For we are all capable of falling into a selfish and heedless habit of insisting that our way is The Way from time to time, even if it is not best for all, right? So Bill Foster is not even a “wack job” per se. Just someone who got too caught up in his own idea of happiness at the expense of
those around him.

Note the BLUE sheen, again, in Bill’s glasses.

Here is only the redeeming part of Bill Foster’s character. Here he finally gets to see his little girl, who is having her birthday  party today. Bill has been made sympathetic by his searching for her gift and finding it—only to watch it be broken—by asking to speak to her on the phone, by gazing at other girls who are with thier mothers. Despite his failings, we know he misses his daughter. Adelle cries for her father with joy when she sees him. “Daddy! Daddy! Mom, it’s Daddy!”

Prendergast even begs Foster not to make it end badly, to just hold on, and come meet the cops, his backup, because they’re some ”good guys.”

Bill Foster incredulously says “I’m the bad guy?” It’s always been my favorite part, to see him realize this. It is also the tale of the Average White Male who gives all to the system and finds he has been used. How did that happen? he asks, and he speaks for all the disillusioned Average White Male Americans who feel that after all they have done, after all they have bought into, they are yet losing their places, their moral authority, and are not even allowed to complain, for the baleful eye of society’s judgment rests on them as if they are somehow to blame for all of it.