Seven Pounds

Mack, I think this spoiler answers most of your questions about the film. If it didn't happen that way, then the title (and whole reason for the film, if I'm right) wouldn't make sense. Let's face it, the film is that shallow.

As for suicide, I agree that it's completely selfish. Actually, I think it's the most selfish act someone can do, but I don't think it's wrong and I completely understand it's appeal.

Suicide is selfish and certainly not painless as in the song but as I mentioned, taking other people's lives first is more selfish, IMO.

I can see the appeal too. I spent two years wishing for death myself.

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Bleacheddecay

honey, i took the theory "a pound of flesh" as a given for the theme from get go - at least the philosophy behind it, anyway. (I do, however, think that the 7lbs is the organ weight.) the movie plot is fairly simple: man repays his debt, a life for a life and all of that. i was attempting to get beyond that and say that literally taking your life to "repay" taking another life is....well, as you say so well: shallow. Nor is it truly honest or noble - it is nothing more than checking out on one's own misery.

A better movie about guilt, innocence, blame and taking lives was A Murder of Crows (1999), with Cuba Gooding, Jr. and Mark Pellegrino. In it, you have a vigilante who is killing bad men (if I remember correctly), and Cuba's character is a bad man. One scene I remember with stark clarity is when the killer comes in to kill Cuba, and pronounces judgment on him based on his acts, and Cuba points a gun a the killer and says "I may be guilty, but you are NOT innocent," and by some stroke of sheer fortune manages to plead his case (or escape, cant remember which). I loved it, because it drove home so nicely the point: who isnt guilty? who is innocent? (I mean that on a grander level than the actions of one man ) And I hate the idea of lauding people who are so weak that they actually place their guilt, shame and self-hatred on an altar of self-pity, and require everyone to bow down to it. I can guarantee you that guy in 7 Pounds isnt the only man alive coping with the guilt of vehicular manslaughter.

I guess what I am saying in response to you is this: youre right. The idea of "a pound of flesh" is that a debt is owed and must be paid - and payment is gonna hurt. But to leap from owing a debt to himself and to society to save 7 lives - to the idea that the answer was killing himself? Quite a leap.

A man as smart and as wealthy as that could've found better, more efficient ways to save lives, and frankly, couldve saved more by sucking it up and living and dedicating his life to saving lives.

And in not acknowledging this, this movie became shallow, simplistic, and lost meaning to me. That's all Im saying.

Dont kill yourself, btw.



final edit: here's what I found on Wiki as an explanation for the name: Honeykid is clearly right.

Prior to the film's release, the title Seven Pounds was considered a "mystery" which the studio refused to explain. Early trailers for Seven Pounds also kept the film's details a mystery. Director Gabriele Muccino explained the intent: "The [audience] will not know exactly what this man is up to." Will Smith is reported to have confirmed that the title refers to

View Spoilers

WARNING: "name explained" spoilers below

Shakespeare's The Merchant Of Venice, in which a debtor must pay a pound of flesh.[9] In this case it amounts to parts of his body donated to seven persons deemed worthy by Smith's character. They are the recipients of his heart, a lung, part of his liver, and his eyes, among other things.

Shakespeare's The Merchant Of Venice, in which a debtor must pay a pound of flesh.[9] In this case it amounts to parts of his body donated to seven persons deemed worthy by Smith's character. They are the recipients of his heart, a lung, part of his liver, and his eyes, among other things.

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something witty goes here......

I think it takes GUTS to kill yourself...

... or, a severe chemical imbalance. I dunno how to explain how that causes you to kill yourself, but apparently it can. I suppose I don't have that specific chemical imbalance since I haven't got the guts to kill myself.
I admit that there have been times where I wanted to.

I feel bad for those people who attempt suicide and it doesn't work and they end up with some kind of medical problem or deformity. Like, I heard about this guy who tried to shoot his head off - it didn't kill him, but he's missing part of his head!

THAT would just make me want to finish the job even more!!!

But to kill yourself and actually die... that's an enormous and unbelieveable accomplishment. DEATH is DEATH! YOU are DEAD!!!

You no longer have a body, you're no longer conscious... YOU WILL NEVER AGAIN BE YOU. YOU LIFE IS HISTORY! Everyone you ever knew is GONE! Family members - WIPED OUT! Not your family anymore! To those still alive, yeah, you were somebody to them, but You. Are. Dead. If there isn't an afterlife, it's like your life never happened and never mattered. Actually, if there's no afterlife, it's like that for everyone, regardless of how you die. But suicide... that's taking time away from the life you just randomly got.

You are saying NO to everything!

It's over! IT'S ALL GONE!!!!!!

The truth is... life changes all the time. You lose things all the time. You might be date a terrific lady for 2 years, DUMP HER, and never see her again!!!!! It's like she died!!!!

You might be vacationing somewhere and see a REALLY HOT GUY... he's like a God... and oh! He gets naked. You stare at his naked body for a full ten minutes. Then, whoops, you're late for meeting your girlfriend, Sasha, at the zoo! Gotta run!

You might never see that really hot, naked man again! It'll be like he died!!!!! YOU BLEW IT!!!!! You had your chance to express your true homosexual self and try to date this hot, naked guy so you can get rid of Sasha ONCE AND FOR ALL but you didn't, you're back with Sasha, the naked hot guy is long gone and you'll NEVER SEE HIM AGAIN. It's like he died!!!!

My point is we all make choices in life - suicide or no suicide - and we still create BIG losses.

Suicide is a big choice, but if you're sure you want out of the world, it's just a choice.

HOWEVER, with that said, I think that people should definitely try to convince people to stay alive. I think life could always turn around...

We need to let people know that we love them.

And that's all I'm gonna say.

Honeykid, you were mostly right with your thoughts of what the seven pounds title refers to.

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"I was walking down the street with my friend and he said, "I hear music", as if there is any other way you can take it in. You're not special, that's how I receive it too. I tried to taste it but it did not work." - Mitch Hedberg

SC,

I have to both agree and disagree with you about suicide. As someone who fantasized about killing myself every single day for two years, yes, I sometimes feel it does take guts. I clearly didn't have those guts. Or maybe I wasn't gutless enough to kill myself heedless of how that might affect others.

Oblivion was something I craved. The pain in my life was just too much. However, one thing that stopped me was thinking about my mother. I didn't think she'd survive my suicide long. I couldn't do that to her no matter how miserable I was.

You see just because you are dead doesn't mean your family isn't your family. They suffer so. They wonder if they should have known. They wonder what they did wrong. They wonder what they didn't do. It tears them apart and often leads to more suicides or self destructive behavior.

At that time I was despondent and angry. I thought it might make my now ex husband sorry if I offed myself. Little did I know then that he would have LOVED it. He would have used it as a pitiable thing in his life to get time, money and attention from others for years and years. I only found that out when my ex, found out his bosses wife had done herself in. I saw it clearly then. He WANTED me to kill myself.

Sadly for him, by then I had come out of my despondency, mostly due to work. He would never again have the kind of power over me to drive me to hate myself and my life. When he finally realized that, it ruined everything for him and he left me. LOL.

Anyway, when my father died, my mother became suicidal. She clearly had a chemical imbalance. Sadly drugs (her weapon of choice to kill herself with) didn't help. Her doctors helped her stockpile, so many damn pills KNOWING that was her favorite method of trying to kill herself.

I didn't matter to her the way she had to me. Her grand kids didn't count either. I am being harsh but it hurt that none of us mattered. I mean clearly her pain and problems were greater than mine - right? Perhaps my survival instinct is greater. Still, I've lost count of the number of times she'd tried to kill herself.

If one succeeds sweet nothingness may be theirs but the pain they leave behind isn't wiped out. Loved ones and friends still suffer the torments of the "what if questions" endlessly. If you are religious nothingness may not be available. Instead eternal torment might be yours. At least the pain here on earth can reasonably be expected to end in a hundred years or so if you live your life as well as you can. Eternal torment, uh, not so much, goes on, like forever dude.

Yes, life is full of losses. The deaths of others leave huge gaping holes in our lives. How can people go on smiling, screwing, living when your loved one is gone? How can that flower grow right there by the sidewalk without your loved one?

Our society doesn't teach us how to deal with loss. This is something very few people know or share. I made a study of it. I was determined not to get stuck in the grieving process like I've seen too many others do. Losing my father was by far, the worse thing I've ever had to deal with.

Losing a pet, is very difficult. Even looking back on the time you didn't go sky diving or didn't flirt with that gymnastic team, sure those are losses, but of course much lesser ones. Life is full of choices. Not doing something is a choice. Doing something is a choice. I stand fully behind my choices, for good or for bad. I take responsibility for them.

I'm not perfect. I don't want to be perfect. Life is a wonderful, horrible, often difficult kaleidoscope of choices, losses and gains.

Here I am so many years later from when I was anemically suicidal. I am nearly done with raising two wonderful flawed human beings. I have a wonderful flawed husband. I'm sometimes wonderful and often flawed myself. Our lives together and separately are wonderful and flawed. I'm so glad I didn't have the "guts" to kill myself back then for my ex husband's glory or my mother's downfall. My early to mid twenties were rough but I made my way through, sometimes fighting, sometimes just being swept along, as I, ultimately, chose.

So at this time in my life I will have to say I think suicide is actually quite gutless, selfish, and stupid. Living is much harder. Living requires much more out of us. I'm happy to be here. Whenever I see signs of suicidal behavior or thoughts I reach out to those people and hope I can help them make a better choice. Someday down the road, they will be able to see life differently, if they live. This I know.

you know your wiki quote was some serious deja vu, right?

*its ok if you didnt read down the end of my (extremely long and no doubt boring) post to realize that i already quoted that exact paragraph.

not to double post, but i gotta say this -

bleached, Im sorry to hear about how hard your life was, , and I think its pretty amazing youve overcome all that you did. It just reminds me how very real this entire discussion (and movie theme) is - it is not at all trite, or merely estoric and academic. So yeah. Kudos on coming through that - its a great testament to what the human spirit can bear.

Oops.

Thanks but tons of people have had and are having it worse.

I've actually had a pretty great life in so many respects.

I don't know what to say, bleacheddecay, except thanks for that honest, long, touching post.

Thanks Sexy Celebrity. It's no big thing. This is just an issue I feel pretty passionate about.

I agree that life is harder than dying, and I do think that if you can manage to keep living, something might change and things could get better. I think that's the case for a lot of people.

But I think that some people are exceptions... now, I don't think people should start believing that they are the exception unless it's really, truly correct... perhaps in cases where somebody has physical problems or is near death, then maybe (in the future) there can be doctors who will determine that. Of course, even with doctors, I bet there will be problems with determining it, but it might be better....

Ultimately, I think, people have rights to their life... and if someone really wants to die that much, they're gonna try... that's why I think it's important to show love and affection to those you care about... I have met a lot of hardened people in my life already who don't like to express feelings.... I think that not expressing positive feelings can be damaging to someone and you may not even know it.

If a lonely person committed suicide, they shouldn't have been so lonely in the first place. If their spouse or something died on them, it's important to make that person feel that living in the world still matters, even if their most cherished love one is gone. I know what it's like to lose someone you loved very much. Sometimes I still don't wanna go on... especially considering some other things. I'm lucky that I still have a little something left. Not everyone does.

I understand where you are coming from. Thanks for your great, heartfelt post.

*HUG*

I think Seven Pounds was one of Will Smiths better movies, it was a great story and such a sad ending. It made me feel sad in the first scene when he was talking to the Phone Salesmen, it was a very emotional film, but very good at the same time.

Call me crazy but I saw this again and this would easily make my top 50 list of all time for right now.

Crazy!

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It's what you learn after you know it all that counts. - John Wooden
My IMDb page

Very much it was pleasant to me to cinema... I was touched and even cried... Though on the other hand there were no fascinating moments.

I think that the film was ok, a little bit sad, but ok.

I had heard a lot of positive stuff about Seven Pounds before I watched it, but I found it as slow and confusing as you did. I actually felt guilty for not thinking it was some kind of underground masterpiece.