Parked (*spoilers for the film below*)
So, last week I watched Parked for the first time. I recommend watching it if you haven’t seen it! (if that’s the case, please be aware that there are spoilers below!)
Colin Morgan’s Cathal really stole the show for me. Such a good actor in everything he turns his hand to!
But oh my god, this film was heartbreaking. I actually cried. It was such a beautiful film, so poignant, but so so sad at the end. I had hoped Cathal would be OK, that Fred would just find him in the hospital, but when they showed the coffin it was like a punch to the gut.
Amazing cinematography too, I can’t get that close up of Cathal’s eye squeezing out a tear out of my head… Such sadness and despair, made even more tragic by his youth and his character earlier in the film which had sustained some hope and positivity and fun despite his situation.
Naturally, feeling haunted by the film and unable to get it out of my head, I had to watch it the next day. I managed not to cry this time, but what hit me (other than the heart wrenching bonfire scene) was Cathal’s face when Fred caught him injecting - he had found a friend, a father figure when he was so desperate for one, having been rejected by his own father, and in that moment he believed he’d lost him too. You can see the rejection on his face. Then to go to his real father and face rejection all over again - the way his face just crumpled!
And what else is heartbreaking is that he never knew how Fred searched for him; the last words he heard from him were how he had broken his trust and Fred had had enough. How could he not feel so alone after that? How was Fred to reconcile the guilt he must surely feel for saying those words to him, leaving him, only to see him next laid out in the morgue?
And his father, heartbroken at the loss of his wife, must now also suffer the loss of his son…
I know it’s just a film and without this tragedy it would be much less of a film, but I just wish he could have helped his own son, given him one last chance, protected him and loved him! I think that’s all Cathal wanted, to be loved. The drugs were an escape from his feelings of abandonment and loneliness.
Days later and I’m still thinking about this film, and my heart is still hurting for someone who’s not even real - but I’m sure there’ll be people out there living this story…
This is a bit of a random post, but I just need to get it off my chest! It’s an amazing film, watch it if you haven’t, but keep some tissues by you!
Just as a small aside, something else I really liked about the film was that it was several minutes in before there was any speech. We saw Fred go about his days through his actions, no dialogue at all until a few minutes in and then it was short, polite conversation with a stranger. I just thought that that was a lovely, interesting and straightforward way to show Fred’s loneliness: there’s no dialogue because he has no one to talk to; he goes through day after day with no meaningful interaction with anyone until Cathal comes along. Which I guess helps to show by the ending of the film how Cathal has helped him and highlights the tragedy that by the end he has already lost him.
*sobs, clutching at my broken heart*
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