Not enough people are talking about how Clark Backrooms can’t make any decision by himself, not even to save his life. All his major life decisions, including the final one that determined his fate, were influenced by the women in his life. He started his own business to support his then-wife, who then had enough of his abusive behavior and divorced him. He discovered the Backrooms himself, but only decided to stay there because of the advice given to him via his therapist’s methods, to “find the window within”. And at the dinner scene, when Mary finally breaks down what’s wrong with him, Clark’s decision to not change was given to him by Mary.
From what we can gather in the movie, this man has gone through life by going with the flow and letting others make decisions for him, and hating himself for it every time. He didn’t want to run a furniture store, he didn’t want to divorce, and he didn’t want to change his ways. What he wanted was to chase his architect career, to not give up on that dream, and when he found the Backrooms, this desire warped with it. He wanted to stay and live in a facsimile of his old life, to become an architect of the Backrooms and continue to map it out.
But he needed someone to confirm that this was something he could do. He needed validation that this was the right choice for him, that he had always been right, because at the core of him he is a heavily insecure narcissist. The world and his ex-wife, he believed, was wrong not to conform to his worldview, but he never had the courage to speak against it. He impotently, begrudgingly accepted his circumstances and lashed out at every opportunity, and coped with his lack of power over his life thru drinking. The Backrooms became a way to assert the dominance he lacked in the real world.
Being hit by reality thru Mary’s final breakdown shook him up, and he regressed back to being an insecure and indecisive person. He knows what he wants but doesn’t know how to verbalize it. Mary had to outright tell him he doesn’t have to change. And being told what to do is such a relief for him, the burden of decision off his shoulders once again. But this time for something he wants.
I don’t know, I’m a bit all over the place here but he constantly wants to command power over his life and feels like he has none, when in reality he had every opportunity to change himself to improve his circumstances. The metaphor of being a failed architect yet clinging to the title. He’s trying to get out of his own messes but refuses to accept any responsibility for how he got into them, and doesn’t see why he should change.
It’s a tragic tale that you can see all the time in the real world.
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