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I rewatched Titanic for the first time since 2014. So what feels different?
Character assassination, by yours truly
I cannot stand critics who hate films solely because the thematic plot don’t align to what they feel a character deserved, or should have been representative of. Those are the most boring films: saintly virgin gets the guy, noble hero is rewarded, dastardly villains get their comeuppance. Yawn. So I’m not here to clutch my pearls on whether the plot of Titanic holds up to my modern sensibilities on movie making. I only care about whether a character is interesting and believable. Instead, I thought it might be fun to rate the main characters and see how my opinion of them has changed since I was 18 (ten years ago).
Rose
Character Rating at 18: 9/10, Character Rating Today: 4/10
Long one first. I’ll be honest with you, I was very surprised by how much I disliked Rose at a rewatch. I thought it was only unhinged incels who felt this way. Not for anything to do with the door, though: how is she so entitled? And so self centred? I get she’s ‘written’ as a young woman, but even for teenage me, this would have been some remarkably selfish behaviour.
She knows she’s going to make her family totally destitute by not marrying Cal: and just doesn’t care…
