Part of the argument for Ryder is he has more clearly stated opinions and beliefs, so therefore as an audience we know him more fully. He tells us again and again who he is.
Tom isn’t a collection of beliefs. He’s a mess who Mary accidentally activated on high when they smashed into each other trying to leave that living room. He’s a storm of passion and chaos that has never been put into words because if he really tried he’d start crying in front of everyone.
I get this. Other people have seemed so *clear.* Like they emerged from the ocean on a shell shouting out their lifelong core feelings thoughts and beliefs. I want quiet messes who can’t express themselves because their feelings and thoughts deserve the right words they can’t ever fully find to be the ones who get to have love returned.
I connect with Tom’s need to express himself in other people’s words. It’s one of the more autism-coded aspects of Tom. And maybe that’s what rings something in Mary. I connect with Tom’s compartmentalizing of his life. I resonate with the experience of aching for an extraordinary, poetic love while simultaneously seeming perfectly fine with the ordinary coupling that he seems to have been assigned.
We know Tom through his actions and his behavior.
He makes one big proclamation about himself regarding the law as his profession and poetry as his passion. He has said this many times to himself to the point it is a personal creed and it holds him together, this uneven duality that sort of encompasses his life up until Mary.
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