Thomas and Lucille Sharpe and the dynamic of their relationship:
Man, I really can’t stop thinking about this film. It was so amazing. Particularly, I can’t stop thinking about the relationship between Thomas and Lucille, and all the many layers and tragedy of it. It’s absolutely heartbreaking, and I swear, I’m just waiting for someone to start writing some good fanfiction about their lives growing up, lol.
But in seriousness, this relationship and dynamic is so deep and so intense, and again, just the profound tragedy of it all is almost overwhelming. I’ve heard a few people say they thought the film was silly or campy, but I’ve got to really disagree with that. It was just intensely emotional. And of course, how it ends, with Lucille killing Thomas, is really just the culmination of the tragedy of their dynamic.
They love each other, that’s obvious. But Lucille’s love is a possessive love, and Thomas’ love is a love of loyalty. Lucille wants to control and possess and really own Thomas, (and you could argue that that’s not true love at all), while Thomas feels immense loyalty and even responsibility towards Lucille. Even at the end, he isn’t willing or even wanting to abandon her. He wants the both of them to get away from Allerdale Hall, but it never crosses his mind to leave her. Lucille, on the other hand, is obviously terrified that he will, or that he wants to, which is why she’s so threatened by Edith and Edith’s importance to Thomas. She can’t believe or accept that Thomas could love them both, which of course is what drives her to murder him in such a horrible way.
I didn’t pick up on the dynamic of abuse either beyond Lucille’s obvious manipulation and exploitation of Thomas until I saw others point it out, but it’s actually true that Lucille, when you put it all together, has been sexually abusing Thomas since they were children. Her being the older sibling, being in a position of power and responsibility over Thomas, gave her the opportunity to set a dynamic of dominance and strength over him from a very young age, and we see how that’s manifested completely in their dynamic by the time we meet them in this film. She controls him utterly once they’re back at the house, and even before that, in America, she orders and commands him constantly, telling him what to do and when to do it. Of course it’s epically tragic, and this is why I don’t understand people who say Thomas Sharp was just a plot device, because his own story and his own victimization are really, intensely poignant and heartbreaking. He only ever had Lucille, and Lucille only ever had him, but while he gives everything to Lucille, does everything for her and gives up his own life and happiness for her, essentially, Lucille abuses him and abuses that loyalty and uses it for selfish ends. And we see that she’s twisted him to the point, from years and years of emotional manipulation and mental and sexual abuse, into not knowing or being able to function in a normal way with anyone else. And of course Lucille’s been beaten into this selfish need to possess him and control him from the abuse she suffered at the hands of their parents, from the neglect and isolation they were both subjected to and from only ever having one another to look to for love. But still, it’s awful, because Lucille abused her power over Thomas, and uses it against him.
You see throughout the film, and especially towards the end, that she badgers and bullies him horribly, when she tells him directly and bluntly what he’s going to do, that he’s going to kill Edith, that he’s going to get his hands dirty for once, forcing him into positions where he has to hurt other people, physically and emotionally, even though we see Thomas isn’t at all into it, doesn’t want to do it, isn’t okay with it. He’s in fact horrified by it. But Lucille has so much power and strength over him, and has conditioned him so thoroughly, that he simply doesn’t know or understand how to fight back against her. It isn’t until Edith comes into the picture and actually gives Thomas a sense of self-worth that he finds the strength to do that. And that’s an important thing to realize, that while I think Lucille does love Thomas on a real level, her love is ultimately selfish and cruel, and she’s literally conditioned any self-confidence and self-belief out of him, to the point that he feels like he can’t ever leave, can’t make it without her. When she says to him, “You couldn’t leave me. You wouldn’t.” and he says “I can’t. I can’t.” And you see the torment in his eyes, because he really BELIEVES that. He really believes he can’t just walk away, that he can’t escape, that there’s no way out. And you realize Lucille has done that to him. That she’s made him so uncertain and full of doubt and guilt, that he feels utterly trapped. We see the consequences of that abuse too when Thomas admits to Edith that he feels like a failure, and that he’ll never succeed in anything, and also when you see how hurt he is at the accusations of Edith’s father, accusing him of never working for anything and of not being a real success. Thomas is as much a victim as Edith. He’s an abused child, abused by his parents, and abused by his sister, and it’s freakin’ SAD. It’s tragic. Lucille is abused too, and you have to feel deeply for her. But Thomas is loyal towards her and cares for her in the only way he knows how, which is to give himself over to her completely, to her control and her demands, while Lucille takes advantage of him and uses him, and has likely conditioned him into believing no one else could or would ever love him or care about him. She believes that of herself, and she’s forced that belief into Thomas as well, as a means of keeping him there with her.
That’s why the acting was so amazing in that final scene between Thomas and Lucille, from both Tom and Jessica. Because we see the true nature of both their characters in that moment. Lucille looks horrified and disbelieving of what she’s done, because she realizes she’s killed the only person who’s ever loved her and ever will, and realizes in that moment that she’s utterly alone. But ultimately, again, her horror and disbelief stems from something selfish. She comes out of the room and sees Edith and roars in rage, like it’s Edith’s fault that she’s just lost the one person who loved her. She blames Edith, but ultimately, it was Lucille’s own selfishness and cruelty which robbed her of Thomas. And Thomas, when Lucille stabs him, just looks lost and betrayed and sad. He looks shocked, because he’s given everything to Lucille, and stayed with her always, and you can see he just doesn’t understand why she would do that to him, why she would hurt him, because he thought she loved him like he loved her. Thomas’ love is ultimately selfless, so much so that it’s to his own detriment, to the sacrifice of his own dreams and his own hopes and his own longings. He didn’t believe that Lucille would hurt him the way she did, because he believed in her and her love, he believed she cared as much and as selflessly about him as he did her, and that’s why he looks so shocked and lost when she stabs him, and it’s also a testament to how thoroughly conditioned and manipulated he’s been, that he couldn’t see her selfishness, couldn’t see that his even suggesting they run away with Edith would lead her to commit violence against him. He was so hopeful that she would see his logic, so hopeful that she would agree, and that then makes her attack all the more tragic in the level of it’s betrayal. He trusted Lucille completely with himself. And it’s also in the way he just gives in to her attack. He doesn’t fight at all. He doesn’t try to defend himself against her or hurt her back. He just LETS her kill him, and just dies so easily. The way he just looks back at her with so much sadness, and then just crumples and dies. That specific moment, how he just gives in to what she wants, even when what she wants is to kill him, sums up their whole relationship.
But he’s also afraid of Lucille, and here again we see how completely she dominates him. When he and Edith are in his workshop and they start kissing each other, you can see how much Thomas wants it, how much he really likes and even loves Edith in that moment, how much he cares about her, but then he hears Lucille coming and he immediately stops. He’s terrified of her disapproval and of her anger. He doesn’t believe she’ll hurt him, (the tragic irony here being that she’s been hurting him his entire life) but he believes she’ll hurt Edith. He’s afraid of disobeying her, and what that will lead to, and he feels completely powerless to stop it, whatever it is she decides to do. It’s heartbreaking. Because she practically owns him. We never see him disobey her or fight against her in the entire film, except at the end, when he finds the strength to fight back from Edith, and burns the deeds and titles and tells Lucille she’s not to touch Edith. But before that, we see Lucille telling Thomas to bring Edith the poisoned tea, and he does, her telling him to not have sex with her, and he makes sure he doesn’t, her telling him to kill McMichael, and he can’t just tell her no, can’t refuse her, even though he at this point is already drawing strength from Edith and only wounds McMichael. But we see Thomas doesn’t know how and doesn’t have the ability to tell Lucille no, and it’s just such classic behavior of someone who’s been abused and manipulated into obedience. Or when Thomas absently says he can’t wait to show Edith the mining machine, and Lucille badgers him here and tells him “we did this, not her.” (which is a lie. HE did it, he built it, Lucille just used him as bait to lure women with money), but we see how immediately Thomas agrees with her and tells her she’s right, of course. He’s just so beaten down, and I don’t know how you couldn’t feel for him, truly.
I just find this relationship and dynamic so heartbreaking, because ultimately you have two siblings who only ever had each other, one older, one younger, two people who needed each other. But in the end, one of them, the older one, the responsible one, the one who was meant to protect the other, uses that power to hurt him and to benefit herself, to condition him into a state where he can’t leave her, into a state where she can, almost literally, possess him, while Thomas allows her to use him, bends to her will completely and gives up everything he wants and hopes for for her benefit alone. Even in the end, he wasn’t going to abandon Lucille. He was going to take her with him and Edith. He wanted her there. And she kills him for it. She takes away all his own hopes and dreams and eventually his life, and leaves herself with absolutely nothing in turn. And I think that’s largely what Tom Hiddleston is referring to also when he says that the film is about selfish love and pure love. It doesn’t just apply to Edith’s love for Thomas. It also applies to Thomas’ love for Lucille. Lucille’s love for Thomas is selfish. And Thomas’ love for Lucille (and eventually Edith) is pure. Lucille’s corrupt love ultimately destroys Thomas, but his love for her remains true and genuine. It’s so damned sad. I think I’m gonna go off and cry a river now just thinking about it.
Anyway, I just wanted to get those thoughts out there. This film was so incredible, and these character’s were so deep and complex. Just wow.
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