#aughhhhhdhhshsjsjsshsh im going insaneeee

[moonlit-orchid]

These two lines in the movie make me the most mentally unwell.

"I should have been the one to go. You needed your mother more than you needed me."

The amount of layers to this, oh my god. He's blaming himself for being alive. He probably wants to die. He genuinely thinks Adrian needs Emilie more.

And it's been YEARS since Emilie's passed away. Look how tiny Adrian is over there, he only just about comes about the bedpost. Gabriel still looks like he did in the pictures of when Adrian was little. It's been literal years. It could have literally been a full decade ago.

And Gabriel breaks the narrative here. He's supposed to be telling a story, he's supposed to be saying what happened in the past. But at this point, he doesn't say "your mother was taken from us" or anything like that referencing Emilie's passing. The story breaks, he's using a statement. I should have been the one to go. It's completely out of the story, because he isn't saying what he felt then, there's no "I felt like I should have been the one to go". It's just "I should have been."

Because he still thinks this. It's been about a decade, and his opinion, his feelings about this, is still "I should have died". It interrupts his storytelling because of how strongly he feels this way, almost like it's a fact to him.

And then he follows it with "You needed your mother more than you needed me." Again, he says this like it's a fact, like Adrian actually did need his mother more. Because he believes it himself. And this could be because of so many things. It could be because of the way people consider the mother to be the one supposed to care for the children much more than the father, or it could be that Gabriel himself didn't see how much Adrian needed him, or even that Gabriel didn't see himself as useful to Adrian. Especially because he said he should have been the one to die. He's essentially saying he was useless. That he was expendable but Emilie wasn't. He literally is implying he doesn't see any worth in himself regarding being a father.

And then it's not just his grief, it's Adrian's grief that has him desperate to bring Emilie back. He literally doesn't care about himself, he wants his son to be happy and doesn't see himself as able to do that. He loves him to the point of being suicidal and self-sacrificing if it would give Adrian what he need, all while simultaneously not seeing himself as what Adrian needs because he doesn't think he has that much worth regarding him.