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Not a hopeful sound.
But the first shot isnt of the dying woman, Donna (Deirdre OConnell).
And its Donna emaciated, attached to machines looking on with concern.
The image of the worried terminal patient, which is disconcerting, is a sign of whats to come.
She dutifully runs herself down, day after day, as if expiating her sins.
Someone I know called it the most depressing film shed ever seen.
(Youwouldhave to be a saint or demented to be happy about it.)
Driving is the movies central motif.
We dont see Diane at the wheel its her point of view, or Joness.
Sometimes the driving shots separate years.
I know that windshield.
I know those roads.
I know the aloneness between someplace and someplace else.
But no, not to worry; its another character whos born again.
For Diane, that sort of release would be too easy, too selfish.
She has sentenced herself to the here and now.
A shot of Diane moving in slow motion when she thinks Brian has ODd is too self-conscious.
Every other detail is right, sometimes startlingly right.
There must be a hundred lines like that in Diane, casual but resonant (Hows Marios shoulder?)
and so authentic that you know Jones has breathed the same air as his characters.
I dont know how to do justice to Mary Kay Place.
What she did comes back to her in dreams that are spooky, from another world.
Her regrets and her longings merge.
But as the people around her die, she feels her aloneness more vividly.
We are very much alone, the film suggests its why we need so much reassurance.
But trying to forestall our loneliness is what connects us.
Thats not a depressing conclusion its the beginning of a design for living.
In its mundane way,Dianegives you a glimpse of the sublime.
