A "TERRIBLE THING" IN SIX WORDS?

A "TERRIBLE THING"?


An entertaining relationship movie (R rating) rattled along until six words of dialogue spoken by the character played by Julianne Moore struck almost like a lightning bolt as she spoke with sincerity and reflection, "the car is a terrible thing."

Brought up in New Hampshire where the Manchester Union Leader, the State's dominant statewide newspaper, for several years showing the latest gruesome fatal car crash scene emblazoned in large front page photos came to mind--and the still 30,000 plus Americans dying from car crashes each year (plus uncounted injuries as well as fatalities from road rage).   Gun deaths and car deaths now appear to be in a yearly contest from state to state as to which gets the lead.

But to hear "the car is a terrible thing" in a Hollywood production which also featured as a key element a lead actor who prided himself  in his Mustang SS and agressive driving including a scene of his own road rage breaking the window of the car whose owner yelled back at him--made this "terrible thing" all the more surprising.  The movie, Don Jon, does have Julianne Moore playing a character who near the end of the movie disloses the death of her son and husband 14-months prior as the result of that "terrible thing."