#i normally headcanon that he's tone deaf #but ykw the idea that grace CAN sing and chose not to in the karaoke scene.... it really fits......... #he doesn't wanna embarrass himself. he doesn't wanna be vulnerable. very typical grace moment. #he keeps making these brief little grabs for human connection then walking it back. he'll go a certain distance but no further. #it would fit really well with the scene before that where he and stratt are talking #which is framed in the directors' commentary as another bid for connection from him but like. it kind of isn't? #or if it is then it's not a very good one. #he says she's mysterious. she shares a personal fact about herself. #which he does not react to or respond to in any way #then proceeds to bulldoze over the conversation just talking about whatever he was planning on talking about anyway. #like. i guess he is reaching out to stratt in his own way? #but it pretty clearly demonstrates that he doesn't really see her or know her as a person and isn't that interested in doing so. #like. he's in there sitting at the bar doing paperwork. #staring wistfully at other people Making Connections then avoiding their gaze when they catch him at it. #he won't go over to join any of these people he's known and worked with for possibly YEARS at this point #and he won't get up there and sing. because that necessitates tryingā which carries the implied possibility of failing. #being part of something means maybe getting hurt when you don't have it any more. (via @grimark)
hope you don't mind me pulling this out of the tags (edit after writing this rest of this: and sorry for hitting you with a wall of text, this was meant to be two paragraphs max š) because that is an internal contradiction in the scene that really grabs me. I think it is an honest bid for connection, grace is trying to do a "haha it looks like we're both a little uncomfortable with the party dya wanna talk about that maybe..." and he wouldn't have approached her in the first place if he weren't interested in trying to make something happen there, but he fumbles it because a) he's still scared of connection even when it's what he's looking for so keeps hedging instead of being direct, and b) he fundamentally misunderstands that her reason for being a wallflower is different than his.
first, you're completely right, he's making a series of grabs here and keeps walking them back. what he wants is to bond with the only other person who looks like she's also uncomfortable over how interacting with people is difficult and makes them both uncomfortable, and he demonstrates his difficulties with interaction very elegantly by failing to start small-talk like four times in a row and apologizing for even trying to initiate a conversation before getting to the one thing he's there to say. he wants to stand close to her, but he chooses the side of her the puts a big metal pole between them. he asks her a few personal questions and gets sincere answers, but then he feels awkward and looks away and pulls his hat over his eyes. he wants to connect with her but no he doesn't. he wants what he wants but no that's scary.
secondly, and this it where I think the Internal Contradiction secret sauce is hidden, his small-talk keeps failing because stratt negates nearly everything he says in this scene. "permission to board?" "you're already aboard" / "did you get a free hat?" "I bought them" / "you don't sing?" "yes I do" / "you're mysterious" "no I'm not" / "sorry for bothering you" "you aren't bothering me" / "this is a weird party" "is it?" / "this must be hard for you" "no it isn't." he's making a lot of casual assumptions about the kind of humor she responds to, her recent activities, her hobbies, whether she even likes him, etc., every single one of them is wrong, and they all underpin his main wrong assumption about her in this scene: why it is that she's hanging back from the party. he thinks it's the same as his reason, i.e., that she finds social interaction and vulnerability difficult. she doesn't. he gets tongue-tied trying to make conversation with her and feels awkward about it because he thinks it makes her feel awkward, but she doesn't mind it at all. he's being a wallflower because connection is difficult for him, but she is being a wallflower out of a choice not to connect. it won't help her do her job, so she's abstaining. this is a bona fide bid at bonding from him, he's saying "want to bond about how neither of us can bond?", but because he hasn't bonded with her he's blind to the fact that she isn't bound to not being able to bond.
he gets the closest to really talking to her and learning more about her as a person in the last moments of the scene by asking some big questions that he doesn't try and pre-answer, but then he averts his eyes, falls back on trying to make a joke with his salute, and leaves. he's actually doing it there for a second! he directly says what's on his mind and stops autofilling who he thinks she is, and she responds positively by hitting him with that big smile, and then he just. shrinks away again. he works out how to stop fumbling this conversation and gets exactly the connection he'd come to her for and then balks at it. the existential questions about god and humanity's future are suddenly too much. when he's on his A-game he can successfully bait her into breaking her "no camaraderie for me" rule, but he won't respond to her in kind. she'll take a turn at karaoke to show everyone that she can; he won't.
movie!grace's central character flaw is that he thinks he just can't, he believes that he lacks the secret sauce that makes other people full, competent individuals who are capable of doing hard things and being meaningful to each other. this is untrue, he absolutely can, he just hasn't figured out how. to bring this back to the singing, his bid to her here is basically sidling up to say "hey, you also Can't, right?", having difficultly accepting it when it seems like she actually Can, aborting the mission when he also Can for a few seconds in a row, and then watching in silence as she demonstrates that, yes, she absolutely Can. he goes into the interaction thinking they're alike in both being unable, she finishes the interaction by suggesting they're alike in both being able. he might not know how to steel his nerves and get on the mic just now, but fundamentally he could make the exact same choice as her and do the exact same thing if he so chose to motivate himself.
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