Other Noteworthy Elements<\/p>\n
Ryan and Ella\u2019s marriage appears to be on the rocks. Ella wonders if Ryan only married her for the perks of her career (even when they were young, it was clear Ella had a big future in store). And Ryan\u2019s foul behavior suggests this is true.<\/p>\n
When Ella forgets to thank Ryan for his support during a speech (because she gets flustered by unexpected interruptions from Governor Bill), Ryan essentially throws a temper tantrum. He uses the incident to try to convince Ella to get him a political position (egged on by his mother, who belittles her own husband). He then resorts to unscrupulous means to manipulate and embarrass Ella, holding the threat of divorce over her head.<\/p>\n
We\u2019re told that other politicians despise Ella. Her very presence reminds them of their own inadequacies as policymakers and compromises they\u2019ve made as politicians. (At one point, Ella criticizes the majority of her fellow politicians for spending more time campaigning than they do reading proposed legislation.) Even Bill, when Ella asks him for advice, is hesitant to openly support Ella, since it could hurt his own career. As such, the film seems to serve as a commentary on the political state at large: Ella literally says, \u201cYou can\u2019t be popular and fix anything.\u201d<\/p>\n
Not long after Eddie\u2019s affairs come out, Helen hugs him and tells him she loves him but that she\u2019ll never forgive him for cheating on his wife. Years later, Eddie seemingly tries to make amends with his children, but it\u2019s fueled by a selfish desire, since his current girlfriend told him she wouldn\u2019t marry him unless he made up with his kids. And when Helen tells Eddie that he needs to stop messing up long enough for his kids to forgive him and do the work required to fix his relationships, he retorts that his kids will \u201cbe better\u201d once they forgive him.<\/p>\n
We learn that Ella\u2019s mom passed away young, though we\u2019re not given the details of what caused her death. Eddie admits that he sent Casey to military school after her death because he \u201cdidn\u2019t want the responsibility\u201d and that he avoided Ella because he was scared of how she\u2019d react to that decision. (At the film\u2019s start, he and Ella haven\u2019t spoken in 13 years.)<\/p>\n
A politician uses a cheat sheet of sorts while calling donors to make it seem like he cares about them. People lie, scheme and manipulate others. We hear about political blackmail and bribery. Casey\u2019s job involves advising people on sports betting. A trooper assigned to Ella\u2019s protection unit purposely goes into overtime in spite of a budget crisis because he\u2019s tight on cash and apparently going through an expensive divorce.<\/p>\n
Casey is described as agoraphobic because he hasn\u2019t left his house in 13 months. However, he insists that his reclusiveness is a choice\u2014that he can leave whenever he wants. But he does seem to have some severe anxiety about leaving, and we learn that his self-imposed solitary confinement followed an embarrassing romantic mishap. His house is littered with dirty dishes and bags of trash.<\/p>\n
A woman gets petty revenge against someone by calling the health department on his pizzeria and getting it shut down.<\/p>\n
[Spoiler warning] Ryan, in a strange grab for attention, starts a political scandal for Ella involving blackmail and bribery. He gives Ella an ultimatum, and Ella responds that if he loved her\u2014if he even liked her\u2014he wouldn\u2019t be doing this to her. Because Ryan doesn\u2019t get what he wants, he blames the blackmail and bribery on Ella, telling the press that he\u2019s divorcing her. And the scandal, though completely fabricated, is bad enough for her party to remove her from office.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Other Noteworthy Elements Ryan and Ella\u2019s marriage appears to be on the rocks. Ella wonders if Ryan only…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":342097,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[64,63,134,344],"class_list":{"0":"post-342096","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-movies"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/342096","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=342096"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/342096\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/342097"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=342096"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=342096"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=342096"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}