“The myth of the American cowboy, a lone moral voice with a gun, it’s a pretty toxic version of things,” said Hathaway. So what other footnotes don’t we know about? And so to feel regret for the many histories that have been erased from the main narrative.” Elena becomes, like she says, she becomes history’s footnote. “And to think about what other stories have been buried. “I just want audiences to feel regret at the end and a sense of loss,” Rees said of the film’s ending. And that’s not something Elena is immune to by the way. “And, make no mistake, part of the reason why Elena McMahon ends up the way she does is because of the world and the way that it treats its people,” said Hathaway, “and the way it decides who’s worthy of respect and who’s not. It’s important for them to not be forgotten. “Bringing it back to Elena McMahon, I just think about all of these stories that we’re starting to tell as women,” said Hathaway, “and it’s so important to tell the success stories, but it’s also great to tell the stories of women who don’t make it, because there’s a lot more of them. (She finally found a foothold on a reef and steadied herself.) For a few terrifying moments, she was unsure of what to do or how to get out of the perilous situation she was in. She became a tool in a way.”ĭuring a joint interview with Rees at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival, Hathaway further described how the character steadily comes undone by recalling a time she herself was caught in a riptide, aware that there were some 20 paparazzi shooting her swimming and not wanting to wave for help or cause a scene. And so when you step back and have the full view at the end, you understand how all these pieces were working in concert and how Elena was not in fact the byline, she became the subject.

So we don’t even know who’s telling the story. “Because the book is told from the point of view of an unknown narrator. “And I think in the ’80s was a time when maybe we didn’t quite understand what was happening and now we have the full view and that’s what I like about the book,” Rees said.

The last thing he told me plot