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Waiting For Forever, Research, Review, Character Analysis... + FanFic Talk

In the past 6+ months I have probably seen the 2010/2011 indie "romance" drama film Waiting for Forever at least 20+ times. To say I am obsessed with Tom Sturridge is an understatement, but this film, mainly the character of Will Donner/Willie Pajamas, has completely won my heart.

Disclaimer: I have ADHD and I suck at planning out what I write, so, this may be all over the place, so I will try to stick to the points as much as possible. No promises though, lolz.

This film is a lot of things, but good is not exactly one of them. There are many reviews of this film from over the years that yes, cover how clunky this film is. And I might bring up some of the same points but I think it's deeper that everyone first thought it was.

Firstly, this film was written by a man named Steve Adams. Yes, a man wrote the story, which explains why Will's character is the only fleshed out character in the film, even though they tried to go back and forth between Will's POV and then Emma's POV. But if the past reviewers had done their research on the writer, maybe it would make more sense why that is the case.

As you can see, Steve's early life surprisingly mirrors Willie's own early life. Waiting for Forever is almost auto-biographical. That both explains why Willie's character is the most fleshed out and why the script stayed fairly the same without many rewrites, as both Sturridge and Bilson have stated in interviews for this film. Willie is Steve and Steve is Willie.

Rachel Bilson and Tom Sturridge Interview WAITING FOR FOREVER. WAITING FOR FOREVER movie stars Rachel Bilson, Tom Sturridge and Blythe Danne

One of the biggest complaints of this film is the casual acceptance of stalking... though the film both calls it out and then rewards it, seemingly. Though I have many thoughts on the ending, how both Sturridge and Bilson talk about the ending doesn't make me think it is rewarded completely, just open-ended. I don't think Emma chose Willie in the end purely based on what Sturridge and Bilson have to say about it:

My personal opinion of this is that I am glad that Emma likely did not return Willie's affections as that would make me dislike Emma even more than I already do. If she chose Willie, the message would be clear; stalking unrequited love is rewarded by getting the girl you want even though Emma was right; he does not know her, but also Emma would be choosing Willie as a last resort after her father died and her fiancé finally got arrested for murder. If I was Willie (which I will actually talk about later), I would feel pretty insulted by that, but that's just me.

But the thing is that I think what the author intended and how the actors portrayed their characters and story don't exactly match up.

I believe that Adams very much intended for Emma to choose Willie in the end, and the proof of his life mirroring Willie's in the story he wrote is proof of that.

There is not much out there about Adams, trust me, I tried to look for even more than just his Wikipedia page, but other than a Twitter account and his penname and couple novels out there, there isn't much about Adams that is known.

Adams did move to Massachusetts after both his parents died 2 days apart from one another; father died in a train wreck and then his mother died of cancer. And him and his siblings moved to MA after.

Now, I couldn't find where Adams grew up before that, but it is likely Pennsylvania.

It's funny, when doing research for Fan Fiction plans, I found that this film was mostly filmed in Utah. Main proof of that is the name of the appliance store that Willie's friends Joey and Dolores work at/own; Smith-Crown Co. which is a real place... in Utah... and there is only one, so...

And it struck me a strange; why be insistent that the film takes place in Pennsylvania? Why not just have it take place in Utah if that is where it was filmed? Answer is likely I am correct and Waiting For Forever is auto-biographical of the writer of the story; Steve Adams.

I am going to make many assumptions going forward though I have already with assuming based on the limited evidence that this film is auto-biographical.

I do think Adams meant for Emma to choose Willie in the end. If the story is auto-biographical, and Adams was born in 1947, which means he's in his 80's now, was in his 60's around the time the film came out. But I suspect the criticism of stalking was added only for 2008/2011 sensibilities to the topic. I say that because of a recent trend of TikTok, yes, Tiktok, I know, of many folks coming forward with stories about their grandmother's "love stories" and the amount of stalking that was acceptable in the 1960's-1980's when Adams would have been in his 20's to 40's. So, I think this was Adams' way of normalizing the cuteness of his own love story with his own wife.

I am purely talking about Adams and not Willie as I do think how Sturridge portrayed Willie is different than how Adams intended the character to be.

During the 1990's and early 2000's stories about The Manic Pixie Dream Girl was rampant in indie rom com dramas. I have made a playlist with videos that I think really go over the trope in it's entirety and I will list it below, but the main take away is that characters that are autistic coded, often portrayed as quirky, weird and a bit wild get paired with characters that are bland and have lost a love for life but only through the pairing with the MPDG will that bland character find their love for life again, usually at the expense of the MPDG. This is of course an oversimplification and I will list my playlist below:

Willie firmly falls into being a Manic Pixie Dream Boy and Emma is the Stale White Wonder Bread Girl.

A few clues into this is that Willie is very much neurodivergent, likely was before his parents' accident, but the accident traumatized Willie more than I think even Willie knows. His whole thing with Emma isn't even love, it's a trauma bond. Even Sturridge confirms this to an extent:

Willie enjoys the feelings that Emma has given him and he is chasing that high again because he doesn't want to feel the pain of his reality.

And Emma even says in the film that Willie doesn't know her, and that is true, he doesn't. Even his "good love letter" he still shows that he doesn't know her at all. He is content with the version of her that he has in his head.

Now I have said that Willie is the Manic Pixie Dream Boy and Emma is the Stale White Wonder Bread Girl, but something that is key with the original trope (Manic Pixie Dream Girl, etc) is that the guy never fully sees the MPDG as human, hence the pixie-ification. But the problem with Waiting for Forever is that neither Willie or Emma see each other as human. Willie has put Emma on such a pedestal that even when she admits to being a cheater that he makes excuses for her actions and then Emma infantilizes Willie, calling him a little boy at least once if not a couple times in the film.

Mental health is such a big deal in this film it isn't even funny. And it sucks that it came out in 2010/2011 and was filmed in 2008 be cause the stigma towards mental health issues is riddled throughout this film. When it came out the biggest trend was the "Don't Label It" trend cuz people thought that was somehow limiting and put people in boxes and as such giving folks excuses for being mentally ill. This trend was and is ultimately very harmful because it gave people, and Jimbo in the film, the right and excuse to call folks crazy without feeling the need to understand and research what was actually going on.

As someone that has ADHD and autism, labels are so helpful. It explains so much of our experiences, both similar and not as it is all a spectrum. I have learned so much about my own experience and the experiences of others because of the labels we have. And I wish that Waiting for Forever was not so afraid at the time to really give Willie's mental health issues a name. Many of us, me included, do relate to him so intensely it's not funny. Representation is such a big deal, especially when it is very close to real experiences that folks have gone through.

Before I get back to some of my more critical critiques of the film, I do want to share a bit of why I deeply relate to Willie.

As I have stated, I have ADHD and autism as well, and I will be honest, I have done very similar things that Willie has done. I have had unrequited love, gone to the places that that person would likely be just for the off chance of seeing them and or trying to catch up with them to talk to them. And I did not exactly know what I was doing was likely stalking. The reason why I think Sturridge's portrayal and Adams' original vison differ is because Sturridge's Willie genuinely does not understand what he is doing is harmful. I didn't either. I had no emotional regulation to be able to handle the rejection that inevitably happened later on too. That does not excuse my or Willie's behavior, but it does give it some understanding and clarity.

Now, I have never traveled across the country to follow someone, but I do get where Willie is coming from. He meant no harm, he truly did not understand what he was doing would hurt Emma.

But I do think Adams knew better, hence the adding into the story that stalking is seen as a bad thing. And if he intended that the story be read as Emma choosing Willie in the end, and the story is auto-biographical, then that puts of a bit of a more sinister twist on the story.

Willie is a Manic Pixie Dream Boy that is autistic/has ADHD and likely PSTD induced talking to people that aren't there to cope with his trauma. Willie was written by a man that was seemingly trying to self insert, and so all other characters and story beats suffered from that. Not only is Emma the Stale White Wonder Bread Girl, but she just is unlikeable and is basically a piece of carboard for Willie to put all his hopes and dreams onto. And if after everything, if Adams vison is what is more true than Sturridge's and Bilson's portrayals, Emma chooses Willie, that is basically rewarding Willie for his efforts that were toxic through the lens of not understanding his mental health issues (though even with understanding them they should not be rewarded). That rewards Willie's fantasies about Emma, it rewards him not really knowing her. And that my friends, is the pipeline to Incel culture.

Incels have a need for the fantasies to be fulfilled by their idea of the ideal woman. They don't care who she is, the less personality the better, as long as she is hot to them and they want her, it does not matter. What the Incel fantasizes about a woman in his head is all that matters.

Do I think Willie is an incel? No, I don't. But I think Adams may be and or intended for Willie to be...

So, with the perpetuation of The Manic Pixie Dream Boy trope while also having Willie put Emma on a pedestal as if she was actually interesting when she isn't (men should stop trying to write women, I swear), I don't think this is as cute of a story as Adams intended it to seem. It almost feels like he was looking for validation for his own real life choices if this film was indeed auto-biographical.

There are many interviews, video and written, as well as reviews that go over actual story points and all that, but that was not my main focus for this review of mine. I will list all the resources below so ya'll can check them out.

What would you do if you found out that a dear friend from your childhood that you haven’t seen in years has been silently following y

I told you I’m pretty outdated. Actually, I wasn’t meaning to write anything about this movie at all. But I met a friend one day, and as we

Belated film reviews: Waiting For Forever

So, I have covered my speculations on the writer of the story, what I think the writer was trying to convey, Willie's possible mental health diagnosis, the perpetuation of the Manic Pixie Dream Boy trope while still having the male character treat the fem character as if she is more than human while not really knowing who she is at all.... That makes it sound like I don't like Willie. That can't be further from the truth. I love Willie. I firmly believe Sturridge's portrayal is different than what Adams wanted to put out there.

Yes, Willie has autism and ADHD as well as PTSD with the possibility of trauma coping induced talking to people that aren't there. Willie genuinely does not understand why what he is doing is wrong, and it isn't incompetence, like he really doesn't know.

Strangely, Emma's mother Miranda and Willie have a lot in common when it comes to their characterizations; neither one can, or wants to, admit the harshness of reality. Now, Willie may or may not be doing that on purpose, because both in the beginning of the film with the couple that pick him up and then in the car with his brother at the end of the film, Willie does show that he knows what happened to his and Jimbo's parents. But I don't think Willie is playing stupid, I really don't think he can cope with the reality of it, hence the talking to his parents off to the side and his trauma bond with Emma.

Willie also struggles with anxiety/panic attacks, which I really wish had been correctly identified in the film, but oh well.

He is also very nostalgic and sentimental; the tree house scene and then the scene at the soda shop turned bar where he gets excited to see that they kept the same stools.

As for his pajamas, Tom puts it best:

That leads me to sexuality. Willie is a hopeful romantic. I do think that Willie is a sexual person, but I really think he is more focused on romance that it takes up more of his thoughts and energy than sex does. Also, with how long Willie has carried this infatuation with Emma for, I speculate that he is a virgin. Which I think both fits him well and is very sweet, as far as Sturridge portrayed.

I have written about Willie and Waiting For Forever in the past on past posts, so I will post those snippets and links below.

CW/TW: 'R' word, 'S' word, self-un-aliving, drug5, a1c0h01, s3x, gr00m1ng, murd3r, neurodivergent diagnosis speculation, swearing, character

Disclaimer: I have ADHD, so, please forgive me if I jump around and go on tangents... I have lots of thoughts about this man and his project

Personally, I do plan on writing a bit of a fix-it/add a character to the story fanfic as well as lead into a sequel story.

I don't think Emma chose Will at the end, not with how Bilson and Sturridge talk about it in interviews. It took me a while to come to that conclusion, but it is the only one that makes sense with the film we got.

Willie's first love was also unrequited. It is my hope that I, or even others cuz hell I am only gonna write what I wish I could read instead, can write Willie both an epic love that is his true love.

He needs someone that matches his energy. The only time The Manic Pixie Dream Person trope works is if the couple has both folks fit the Manic Pixie Dream Person trope, aka they are both neurodivergent as fuck.

The one film that comes to mind that fits this idea to a T is Watching The Detectives with Cillian Murphy and Lucy Liu as the couple. If you haven't seen the film, please watch it, it is worth it. But both Murphy's character in the film and Liu's character match each other's energy throughout the film and that is why their characters work.

So, if Willie is going to find his true love it is someone that is going to understand him and get him completely and vice versa. And they both should challenge one another positively to encourage growth. Willie would have never gotten that with Emma. Not only does Willie not know Emma, but she would have never been able to live up to his fantasy of her.

So, Willie needs a partner that is his match in every way.

I will say that if folks are trying to place the timeline of when the film takes place, likely between end of September 2008 and then a screen shot I took has the date set October 8th 2008, the day Willie finally talked to Emma.

But that is purely for folks that would like to write fanfics that are accurate for when it takes/took place.

Films that I take inspiration with the idea of Willie finding his match is the 2007 film Stardust, specifically Yvaine's confession and then Tristan later confessing he heard everything and that his "true love was right in front of him the whole time".

And then the other film that I would say kind of fit the idea of both characters being MPDP would be Drew Barrymore's Ever After. Yes, Danielle as a character is more of a MPDG than Prince Henry being a MPDB, but I do think that Prince Henry is not exactly a Stale White Wonder Bread Boy either as he does match Danielle's energy more than not. Though if I am wrong about this, let me know.

In the meantime, here is a link to the first fanfic that has ever been written for this film, and it is smutty, so if you are under 18, don't read it.

In fact, I am not sure if I was able to get more points fully across cuz of ADHD and yeah, I never plan out what I am gonna write, so if there are flaws or things I missed, please let me know. I would love to discuss this with ya'll.

just a non-binary demi-girl witch trying to survive in this capitalist hellscape... with Tom Sturridge filth

And I have made a playlist of music that remind me of Willie, Waiting For Forever and just some music that are likely going to fit story beats in the fanfic I want to write. Also, the film itself needed better music. Some of the 1980's and 1990's music in my playlist should have been in the film instead, in my opinion.

Well, I think I said I want to say for now. If I need to go back and clarify some talking points, let me know in the comments and we can discuss.

Personally, I would marry Willie in a heartbeat, I mean look at him and just the way Tom Sturridge portrayed this character? Regardless of Adams intentions, though important to keep in mind, Tom made Willie his own deserving of love cinnamon roll that must be protected at all costs.

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