Total eclipse: never underestimate the strength of a mother

Under a gray and gloomy sky, Stephen King unleashes another labyrinthine tragedy in Dolores Claiborne either Total eclipse in Spain. This is a horror story, but not a supernatural one. All elements arise from everyday horrors, such as alcoholism, gender violence, humiliation, dehumanization, labor exploitation and child abuse.

Dolores Claiborne (Kathy Bates) has been the caretaker of Vera Donovan (Judy Parfitt), a frail old woman who dies after falling down the stairs. Detective Mackey (Christopher Plummer) is determined to prove that Dolores is guilty.

There are precedents. The detective also investigated the accidental death of Dolores’ husband and is certain that she murdered him (David Strathairn) almost twenty years earlier.

Upon discovering his mother’s arrest, Selena (Jennifer Jason Leigh) returns to her childhood home and the scene of many traumatic memories, both for her and for Dolores.

Total Eclipse argument

Dolores Claiborne worked for Vera Donovan for more than 20 years. His work was not easy. For example, Vera demanded that she hang each sheet with six pegs and not five, always in the upper part of the garden. This ritual had to be repeated both in winter and summer.

After Selena’s return, mother and daughter return to the dilapidated family house. Selena consumes alcohol, pills and cigarettes to control stress.

The new environment produces great anxiety, feeding in turn the resentment he held towards his mother. He suspects that he had something to do with the death of his father when he fell into an abandoned well the afternoon the total eclipse occurred.

The total eclipse

While Selena helps her mother “in her own way,” Dolores helps her unlock memories of the sexual abuse she suffered as a child at the hands of her father. Her father was, as a result of this abuse and the theft of all of Selena’s education savings, murdered by Dolores.

Taking advantage of the total eclipse that occurred that day, she hatched a perfect plan so that they would not discover that it had been her. However, the detective who almost caught her then has returned to investigate Vera’s death and is determined to put her away. He is close to retirement and does not want to leave cases unclosed.

Dolores: a mother who wants to protect her daughter

Dolores is a mother dedicated to what she considers her daughter’s happiness. and at the same time he has to face the challenge of not having any natural ability to let them know. In fact, the story gains intensity when this blockage becomes evident. It seems that all emotions have wanted to mutilate themselves to hurt less.

The father is someone we do not know how to recognize. It appears as a real eraser of emotions. It only invites repudiation, it only shows us that there are people who have not finished their humanization process. In fact, in the film the character only serves so that the viewer can understand the behavior of mother and daughter.

Women in a man’s world

The women in the film exist in a world of men who seek to divide them and keep them quiet.. It frames the way patriarchal society ignores older women until they do something seemingly atrocious.

These women are underestimated at every turn and the strength they find often comes from their relationships with the other women around them.

The film focuses on this dynamic, the same one that has been repeated hundreds of times in reality. Dolores finally has the chance to tell her daughter the truth.

Selena realizes her mother’s strength as she listens to her confession. Dolores almost lost everything to keep her daughter safe from the man who was hurting her.. Now, an exercise in honesty allows Vera to recognize herself in her mother without dissonance. They are at the same point in facing abuse and pain.

Kathy Bates is the perfect actress to play a woman like Dolores. Bates gives a performance that is as fierce as it is tragic. Jennifer Jason Leigh handles Selena’s slow decline with finesse. Leigh and Bates’ frenetic relationship drives the film, reflected in the tempestuous friendship between Vera and Dolores.

Vera’s role is also excellent, a reminder that women find themselves trapped in all kinds of situations. The three women present a front of resistance against the world that makes them victims. But, as Vera observes, “sometimes being a bitch is all a woman has to hold on to.”

An ending of overflowing emotions

The film calls for a different ending, one that encourages Selena to embrace her emotions. What the public needs is a great sentimental wave of emotion.

Instead, what we get is a continued atmosphere of coldness, slightly tempered by the suggestion that the distance between mother and daughter has shortened. That is a realistic path, not an emotionally satisfying one. But this film is about family terror, which leaves footprints in rock. That is why the ending is more sincere than the desire for reality to be different.

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