An In Depth Look at the Forrest Scene Part 2
In the last review, I described all the cumulating factors that made the scene between Monica and David, which is supposed to be sad, more confusing than anything else. I encourage you to read part four of this series to better understand these factors, but for now, I will summarize what’s happened.
Monica has decided to leave David in the woods rather than send him back to the factory to be destroyed. There’s a lot of crying, and the actors do a wonderful job depicting the scene. But in the background of all this, there are multiple issues taking place at once.
First is the thesis: “Nobody knows what ‘real’ really means.” The audience is supposed to accept that David is already real as a result of an imprinting procedure. He’s connected to his mother with something like an emotional Bluetooth and now really feels love.
So, from the movie’s perspective, David is real because he acts real. His longing has made him real—this assumes he already longs, but anyway. Secondly, there is the bait-and-switch being used on the audience because Spielberg seems to be aware of the fact that the idea of there being no objective “real” is hard to swallow.
So, he shifts the story question of the film to “Will humans love the robots back?” Again, this idea presupposes that David can really love. Then there are the conflicting roles Monica is playing. She is both a paragon for David, a surrogate for the audience, and a surrogate for the cruel world that won’t accept David.
These ideas conflict, but I addressed this in the previous review. Lastly, there is the fact that Spielberg has used David as both a real boy and a robot, depending on what the script requires, and this is where we left off. Let’s look at how all of the conflicting issues ruin what was supposed to be a compelling emotional climax.
David’s own robotic nature collapses the thesis, the bait-and-switch, and Monica’s role as a surrogate for the cruel world. It also collapses any investment the audience is going to have in David’s quest because both Monica and the audience have already decided that David isn’t real since Monica has been treated as a sympathetic character.
David is a sympathetic character as well, but the audience has seen her husband’s argument validated when Martin was nearly killed, and the audience also remembers that Monica has nearly lost her real son once already. She can’t risk Martin’s well-being on the off chance that David might be sentient.
Any mother would be inclined to make the same decision. But if her position is justified, how can she also be a thematic representation for a world that is destined to reject robots? She can’t. So, while the audience might feel sad seeing David cry, they are compelled to believe that Monica is doing something approximating the right thing, so David’s status as an innocent victim is diminished because he truly does represent danger.
By making Monica a relatable character, Spielberg has justified her own decision to conclude that David is fake and the audience’s decision that David is fake as well. Therefore, despite the tears, the scene means very little because everyone knows David isn’t real.
Even the actress seems to let this slip out during her performance. When she screams at David, it doesn’t sound like she’s being cruel to some cat so it’ll stay in the woods; it sounds like she’s trying to remind herself that there is no real David. So, since there is no real David, there’s no reason for the audience to be emotionally invested.
I’ve spent so much time on this one scene because it’s one of the rare cases where the premise of a film is so illogical—that is, that the concept of “real” or endowed value doesn’t exist—that it’s impossible to play out a story while accepting that premise.
Spielberg must write David as ignorant about the value of life so he can both keep in line with his premise and present David as innocent, but in so doing, he confirms what the audience already knows: David is just a toaster that can cry.
There’s really no way to conjure a scenario where the robot is real and yet wholly ignorant of the ramifications of his choices. In order for David to be real, he’d have to show signs of a moral compass. He’d have to be sorry for what happened to Martin. He’d have to be seen, either realizing he’s hurting Martin or hovering over Martin’s body and apologizing.
He’d have to be seen trying to connect with his “father” earlier in the story, not all but ignoring his father once the imprinting had taken place. I’ll address the philosophical justifications for “real” later in this series, but the fact that David is so obsessed with his mother already shows that he’s operating based on programming, not love.
However, Spielberg needs to depict David in this obsessive way because, otherwise, he might find himself having to justify why the father doesn’t try to save David or why Martin doesn’t grow attached to him over time.
Brothers may bicker, but they still love each other. However, if he does that, then he negates his bait-and-switch, the idea that humans will inevitably reject a robot’s love because of prejudice. But if they try to save him because they feel attached and can’t, which would need to happen in order for the rest of the story to take place, then it only confirms that David is a robot after all.
There’s no way for him to balance his bait-and-switch, his thesis, and the believability of the characters. His thesis and his bait-and-switch simply can’t work narratively because both the bait-and-switch and the thesis are illogical.
Frankly, despite the fact that Monica is moved by David’s drawings, I found the image of David making these pictures instead of feeling remorse for what happened to Martin kind of disturbing. This becomes more disturbing later in the film when David sees another version of himself and says, “She’s mine,” then destroys his copy.
This suggests he’s possessive, not loving. Children are not so possessive of their parents that they opt to kill their competition, but a robot might do that very thing. So, when Monica left David with Teddy in the woods, I felt like she was doing the right thing, and no amount of tears was going to change that.
And the audience, while it might not be able to spell all of this out, is going to understand these details intuitively. In the words of Mr. Plinkett, “You may not have noticed, but your brain did.” Audiences are a lot smarter than some writers would like to believe. I’ll discuss the introduction of Jude Law in the next review.