对于泰德(杰夫·布里吉斯 Jeff Bridges 饰)和玛丽恩(金·贝辛格 Kim Basinger 饰)来说,生活是残酷的,两个儿子的死亡让他们再也无法回到正常的生活轨道上去,而对小女儿罗丝(艾丽·范宁 Elle Fanning 饰)的爱又令他们无法果断的分道扬镳,在漫长的岁月中,泰德和玛丽恩都保持这一种尴尬又奇怪的关系——貌合神离,名存实亡。
I read your, um... your story. Oh. I thought you forgot. No. I just didn't have a chance to get to it before. It's not very good, is it? Oh, it's, uh... it's very heartfelt, very... very personal. It's, um... Well, it's just a collection of personal anecdotes that don't really add up to much. It's, uh... I was just tryin' to see if I could write something that seemed true. Oh, it seems true. It, uh, just isn't very interesting. Sort of a... an emotional outburst, but, uh, it isn't really a story. And that, uh... the guy, Hank... you know, the one who dies at the end? Yeah. You need to prepare a reader for something like that. Uh... It just... It didn't seem like the way things happened. Well, you need to let your audience guess what's gonna happen... you know, anticipate what's gonna happen... and then you surprise them. But, um, you have to guide them through it. You know what I mean? Yeah. There's a part of writing that, uh, involves a certain manipulation. That may seem cold to you, but it is, you know, sort of cold. l-I guess. Everything in fiction is a tool: pain, betrayal, even death. These are, you know... These are like, uh, different colors on a painter's palette. You need to use them. Also, the details... they could be more specific, you know? Specific details, they... they create whole scenes in a reader's mind. Not being specific, that's just sloppy. It's sloppy thinking. S-Specific details? Yeah... smells, taste... details. But I'll tell ya, for a, uh... for a first effort, it's not that bad.