However, there are also snippets of ironic humour interspersed throughout conversations about intergenerational trauma and the meaning of life in the face of death. The film’s story is driven by long stretches of emotionally charged dialogue and slow, contemplative scenes in relative silence. After Elf’s most recent suicide attempt, her family rallies around her in a last-ditch attempt to motivate her to continue living. The rest of the family is made up of a steadfast mother, Lottie a clever, no-nonsense aunt Tina and Yoli’s teenage daughter Nora, who is predictably sardonic yet surprisingly wise. Like her father, who died by suicide, Elf struggles with suicidal ideation. She wishes she chose ending #2.Content warning: The plot of All My Puny Sorrows contains discussions of suicide.Īll My Puny Sorrows - a daunting adaptation of Miriam Toews’ 2014 award-winning novel with the same name, directed by Toronto International Film Festival regular Michael McGowan - premiered at Toronto’s Princess of Wales Theatre on September 11.Īt first glance, the film is a cleaner, more surgical adaptation of the free-flowing verse and slow desperation of the original novel for the big screen.įor just over 100 minutes, audiences are immersed in the lives of the Von Riesen family, made up of sisters Yoli, a struggling writer going through a difficult divorce, and Elf, an acclaimed concert pianist who suffers from severe depression.
The author regrets her choice not to help her sister die and this is her processing it and her explanation as to why. I think the book is semi-biographical and the 2nd ending is the outcome that she wishes she had. 6 months later her sister took her own life. Her sister approached her to aid her in killing herself and she declined. My theory - the author, Miriam Toews, lived through a similar situation as the story. My questions is, what do you think happened? How do you interpret 2 endings? Or did I by chance miss something altogether!? The second starts with a letter that she wrote to her sister, likely a goodbye letter? And they are on their way to Switzerland together, presumably to allow her sister to say Goodbye. The first ending is that her sister takes her own life and the fall out of all that. It appears to have a double ending or a sort of alternate ending within itself. What a sad book! Once I got to the ending I felt a little confused. I just finished All My Puny Sorrows, by Miriam Toews.
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