X-Files: I Want to Believe
Jul. 25th, 2008 05:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shipperxToday was my bi-weekly day off, which means that I still went into the office and worked a half day. However, it also means that I took the afternoon off and went to see the X-File movie.
Thus far I haven't read anyone else's reaction to it, and I also didn't bother to read any reviews of the movie. In this particular case, any review would be pointless. I was a hard core X-phile back in the day and even if told the movie sucked, come hell or high water, I'd still go to see it. So now, even though I've said that reviews are pointless, here are my thoughts and...er... I guess it's a review.
Points for unspoiled consumption:
* It's a mixed review. The script could have stood two or three more drafts. If it had been tightened and the points more well defined, it would have (generally speaking)been a better movie.
* As far as I can tell this movie is made not for the general public consumption but for hard core X-philes. Actually, I don't think its primary audience is even all X-Philes as I don't know how Noromo's would take it. This movie was written for hardcore X-File shippers. (Not that I consider that to be a criticism because hard core X-File shipper right here.) If you boil this movie down to its essentials, it's all about the ship (and I'm saying that as part of the writing not as a shipper).
* Does it deliver for shippers? Well, it's complicated. As far as I can tell, the Mulder/Scully relationship, exploring it in an almost meditative way is the only purpose of the movie and the plot is created entirely to play off of that (which is why I said that its target audience are people who shipped them in a relatively serious manner because even as shipping goes, it's not targetted for OMG! Squee! (though it does deliver some squee-worthy moments). It's more... I don't know, adult(?) than that. It's not puppies and kittens, glitter or rip his shirt off passion. It's two people in a long term (over a decade now) relationship. It's that established, that real, and that flawed. It is real love, though. But we always knew that.
And I'll discuss it with spoilers behind the cut, because if anyone who has seen it wants to discuss it, I'd really like to because I'd like to know the conclusions someone else drew from it.
More in dept pondering
First off, the plot: not enough to stretch into a movie. I won't go into details about the X-File itself because I was serious that the whole point of the movie was a meditation on the Mulder/Scully relationship. By and large the plot is superfluous, as is rather obvious by the off-handed way that the plot itself is concluded. It reminded me of fanfic WIPs in a lot of ways. It wandered. There were points and payoffs in character along the way, but the plot wandered around, hitting some points but with the connections sometimes being sketchy and far too coincidental. Resolutions to things are dropped off in exposition because, again, the plot is so not the point. It has some small elements of Clyde Bruckman's Final Repose and Post-Modern Prometheus, but those episodes had what the movie didn't -- a far more tightly constructed script. And, this movie is darker (which is weird to say given Clyde Bruckman's story was a serial killer and a psychic like this movie, but Clyde Bruckman's story was still played as humorous tragedy. This movie is, quite frankly, grim.) And on a pure script level, the villain could (should) have been more developed. It would have helped, I think. At least with the active villain who is the person running people off the road. On a purely pragmatic level, it struck me that the villain was dim on two points. A) To accomplish their purposes they should have had far more sanitary conditions. B) I had thought that surely when Mulder arrived that they were going to use Mulder's body... unless scarred guy wanted to become a girl in which case, we should have had some hint of that somewhere along the way.
Okay, that pesky plot thing is out of the way.
Second, the squee moments.
I'll leave the shipping squee moments to the shipping part of the discussion and restrain myself to other squees. I suspect that the movie has a ton of easter eggs for hard core X-Files. I caught a few on first viewing. I'm talking names of places being the names of X-File producers/writers (Nutter, Manners, Gilligan). And there are certainly nods to the less hard core but still quite fannish X-philes as they hit all the character touchstones: Mulder still has his "I Want to Believe" poster, still eats sunflower seeds, still throws pencils into the ceiling and has a picture of his sister. Scully straight-up repeats her line from the episode Emily asking why a child was created for no reason but to suffer and there are overt mentions of Scully and Mulder's son "William". Scully's religion is still very important to her. And when Scully insisted on speaking to someone at the FBI who "has some balls", come on, is it any shock at all that it turns out to be Skinner? Squee! And Skinner gets a good funny moment when he tries to reassure Scully that Mulder wouldn't do anything crazy (the audience laughs and Scully gives Skinner a "are you kidding me?!" look) and he amends to something like "Okay, Mulder wouldn't do anything excessively crazy" (I paraphrase due to not having an exact memory.) Skinner cradling an injured Mulder also seemed something to be something for the slashers. Oh, and one thing that struck me as 1013 being very aware of its core fanbase. Amanda Peet's character is almost Mimi Rogers-esque, to the point that I strongly suspect that they knew that killing her off wouldn't play as a tragedy to most viewers but as something to almost cheer about (or maybe that's just me. Just, dude, Amanda Peet does not get to play Scully stand-in without dying. I'm just saying. I was quite satisfied by her demise... much as I was satisfied by the demise of Mimi Rogers's character during the series.)
And now onto the only thing this is really about -- Mulder and Scully.
Is the movie shippy? Oh, hell yeah. But, like the script, it's somewhat muddled. I'm left with questions about the ending. Where I thought the points were leading and how it was played leaves me with conflicted thoughts. I'd like others impressions of 'what did it mean', because I'm honestly not 100% sure. I know what I think (or is it fanwank?) but I fear that my conclusions are blinkered by the fact that I can accept or imagine any other conclusion.
Okay, okay, I'm getting ahead of myself and clearly Carter did not want to roll out the answers to ship questions quickly... which, come on, that's at least a continuation of the show.
Anyway, it starts by revealing that Scully is now a doctor working at a religiously funded hospital. She has a patient, a young boy William's age, who everyone says is terminal. She, however, is unwilling to give up on the kid (despite opposition from the administration, a priest who thinks the child should be sent to a Hospice). An FBI agent comes to her with the request to get in contact with Fox Mulder. Scully tells him that she doesn't 'work with Mulder' any longer.
Then she... uh... Did they ever make clear where Scully lives in the movie? Because she just drives up to a house that looks probably lower scale than she could afford, given that she is a practicing surgeon(?)/doctor. But she does just walk right on in and straight into Mulder's office where he's puttering around speaking Mulder-speak and looking like the unibomber (hee! Jesus, the beard!) The banter between Mulder/Scully is familiar and these two know each other right down the soles of their feet. They still fit. They still sparkle... they do not come off as estranged. They come off as an old married couple (But, then, they've done that since about Season 2. :)
Mulder seems a tad embittered and alienated. Apparently he has been kicked out of the FBI (No shit, sherlock! Given how the series ended, it was always really, really clear that Mulder and Scully were completely out of the FBI!) And, apparently the FBI pressed charges against Mulder such that he's... underground(?). Is that why Scully said that she didn't 'work' with Mulder any longer? Although, if Mulder is 'underground'... well, isn't Scully the very first place anyone would look? And, as evidence, the very fact that when look for Mulder they immediately go directly to Scully shows that I'm not the only one to think so. I think they fudged it a little by having Scully say that the FBI hadn't really been after Mulder but had probably just been happy to have them out of their hair.
Scully is concerned about Mulder (No kidding. He looks like the unibomber! Is he hanging around the house cutting out press clippings?) and she thinks that Mulder should accept the FBI's offer to go on a case.
Now, see, this is where I begin to be confused. Scully actively tries to get Mulder to work on the case, and yet she resents doing so herself. Maybe it's some selfless thing where she thinks he needs it. Or are they having relationship problems because (as further evidence proves), I think they are in a relationship. And Mulder going back and working with the FBI on a X-File does seem to be like Mulder re-discovering himself. As the story progresses he loses the beard and slowly begins to look (and act) more like his old self.
On the other hand, I'm not sure what Scully is really doing. She first comes to Mulder with the idea that he should take this offer because it's good for him. Then when he dives in, she apparently has changed her mind saying that he's just re-enacting what he's always done. He's trying, in vain, to save his sister (much as she's repeatedly 'saving' William.) And, it begins to be a confrontation between Mulder/Scully with her saying that she's been doing this for too long now. He's never going to save Samantha (they don't reference Samantha by name, but always say "your sister") but Scully cannot keep doing that. It's not her life now. She and Mulder left the FBI. She's a doctor now. She comes home at night (and the implication is to him) and she does not want that darkness back in her (their?) lives. This is also coupled with her stonewalled disbelief in the psychic who is leading them to clues about what looks to be a serial killer. As he's a defrocked, pedophilic priest, Scully's religious devotion fuses with her skepticism to have her deeply resenting the priest from the get go.
Anyway, at first glance, that scene really played as an ultimatum from Scully. If Mulder returned to the FBI, she isn't going with him. It's...almost as if she wants out.
To which psychic priest tells her "don't give up." And while Scully seems to have interpreted it one way, my impression was that the priest was telling her to not give up on her and Mulder.
And, I may have this scene out of order. It may have occurred earlier. But Scully is (at home?) in bed, slightly dozing... and begins discussing her case with the dying boy, and up pops Mulder's head from the other side of the bed (cue shippers squeeing everywhere). It's not a sex scene (nope, don't get one of those) but, again, it's like these two are long married. They're just laying around in bed about to go to sleep, like, oh, it's an every day thing (which it may well be). She's telling him that she hasn't told him before about the patient because...
Mulder asks how old is the kid. He asks, significantly, "Is he William's age?"
And Scully admits that she may be trying so hard to save this kid because of the child she and Mulder lost.
Mulder holds her for a moment (very reminiscent of Requiem, I thought) saying that both he and Scully lost a part of themselves when they lost their son.
Come on, these two are practically married. But it's somewhere around here where Mulder shaves, and heads back out on the case and Scully makes her opposition to returning to the FBI so clear as to border on her already having decided to... split from him? Make an ultimatum? Again, it's a little muddled. All that's clear is that she's really on the verge of ending something.
And this is where Amanda Peet's character gets very annoying and, I swear it's almost as if she hits on him and even does the Scully role of going on a chase for the killer with him. Not being Scully, however, she thankfully dies.
And, honestly, as Peet's character has no character development I'm less concerned about her as a person than I am at what she represents. She's the one who explicitly calls for Mulder to return to the X-Files. She's he's re-entree into the FBI. And Scully just made what I couldn't help but interpret as an ultimatum.
In another somewhat abrupt turn of events, a breathless Scully arrives on the defrocked priest's doorstep demanding to know what he meant by "don't give up", to which the priest denies all knowledge. The thought didn't come to him. It came through him. Scully seems torn between believing that the priest means don't give up on her paitent, or don't give up on Mulder. Or (I think it was the priest) 'her husband'. Scully denies that Mulder is her husband (but, it would take the re-watch to be sure it was really the priest who said it, but it would be a pretty strange error for a psychic to make.) At any rate, does it even matter? Mulder/Scully may as well be married, regardless of whether they ever actually signed a contract and had a wedding. Those two are, for all intents and purposes, married.
Anyway, Mulder ends up in the damsel in distress role in this movie (only fair since Scully had to play it in the last movie). Scully ends up clearly upset and searching for him, and eventually acting on a clue given to her by the psychic that she had previously not believed. She saves Mulder and ends up with some medical "I have to get back to work".
And, as I've stated multiple times, the plot is dispensed with in such an off-handed manner that it's quite clear that the plot is all but superfluous. From the death of the first person they had been sent to search for, to the death of the FBI agent who had called them in, to ultimately, even the death of the psychic priest. There really is no return to the FBI for Mulder (at least I didn't get that impression) but, on the other hand, I wasn't left feeling that the issues between Mulder/Scully head been entirely resolved either (then again, sometimes issues in relationships are never resolved. They just are). Mulder is right when he says that this is what he is. And Scully never really retracts from her stance that she doesn't want to go back to the darkness.
They leave (their?) house and are standing out front. At work the kid is still dying and she (against the hospital administration and perhaps even the kid's parents) has been determined to see an experimental and painful procedure through, even though the administration has made quite clear that the child should be sent to hospice.
And we have the final scene with Mulder/Scully and I would really like to know others take on this. She's going to go to work but she doesn't know what to do, if what she's doing is right, and if maybe the psychic meant the boy in the "don't give up". Mulder asks her what she believes. Or... they could just run away together. Escape the darkness? she asks. Mulder says he thinks the darkness always finds them. They kiss. (There is a point blank "I love you" somewhere in the movie. Don't remember where). Scully goes to work. She is glared at by the administration, but she goes through with the operation. She believes.
So... um... my confusion is what did that mean for Mulder/Scully. They clearly aren't running away. But I had previously had the impression that Scully was unwilling to continue down the path they'd been going. Only Mulder really isn't heading back to the FBI, but there's also no way in hell he's ever giving up his quest for truth and answers. And, yet, I didn't have the impression at the end that they were necessarily breaking up. They love each other (that I do not doubt.) And, as they said, "the darkness finds them". She apparently has not 'given up' and has chosen to continue to believe (in a patient with a fatal disease) and can I assume that this extends to her relationship with Mulder (or can it be interpreted as the exact opposite?)
It seems somewhat muddled. Or maybe it's just me. And I'm not entirely sure whether that blurring on the ending is deliberate or not. Is it just supposed to be a set time period in Mulder/Scully's relationship and their circumstances didn't actually change (despite a crisis of faith) because they are Mulder and Scully after all. They cannot part. They're them. Or are they choosing slightly different paths? Are we not supposed to have a solid answer, or is the answer supposed to have been more blatant and I'm not getting it?
Ultimately, I think that they're united as always because they are who they are. They fit. They complete each other. But I cannot say that I'm not being blinkered to other possibilities simply because I cannot envision them.
Dunno.
There will probably be fanfic for it though. And it's why I'm curious about other's impressions. If I remembered where any of the old boards were, I'd be searching them out to see what others take on it was.
I think, any problems aside, they are committed. Because they're Mulder/Scully. But, I'm not sure what I'm supposed to believe.
I want to believe, though.
Thus far I haven't read anyone else's reaction to it, and I also didn't bother to read any reviews of the movie. In this particular case, any review would be pointless. I was a hard core X-phile back in the day and even if told the movie sucked, come hell or high water, I'd still go to see it. So now, even though I've said that reviews are pointless, here are my thoughts and...er... I guess it's a review.
Points for unspoiled consumption:
* It's a mixed review. The script could have stood two or three more drafts. If it had been tightened and the points more well defined, it would have (generally speaking)been a better movie.
* As far as I can tell this movie is made not for the general public consumption but for hard core X-philes. Actually, I don't think its primary audience is even all X-Philes as I don't know how Noromo's would take it. This movie was written for hardcore X-File shippers. (Not that I consider that to be a criticism because hard core X-File shipper right here.) If you boil this movie down to its essentials, it's all about the ship (and I'm saying that as part of the writing not as a shipper).
* Does it deliver for shippers? Well, it's complicated. As far as I can tell, the Mulder/Scully relationship, exploring it in an almost meditative way is the only purpose of the movie and the plot is created entirely to play off of that (which is why I said that its target audience are people who shipped them in a relatively serious manner because even as shipping goes, it's not targetted for OMG! Squee! (though it does deliver some squee-worthy moments). It's more... I don't know, adult(?) than that. It's not puppies and kittens, glitter or rip his shirt off passion. It's two people in a long term (over a decade now) relationship. It's that established, that real, and that flawed. It is real love, though. But we always knew that.
And I'll discuss it with spoilers behind the cut, because if anyone who has seen it wants to discuss it, I'd really like to because I'd like to know the conclusions someone else drew from it.
More in dept pondering
First off, the plot: not enough to stretch into a movie. I won't go into details about the X-File itself because I was serious that the whole point of the movie was a meditation on the Mulder/Scully relationship. By and large the plot is superfluous, as is rather obvious by the off-handed way that the plot itself is concluded. It reminded me of fanfic WIPs in a lot of ways. It wandered. There were points and payoffs in character along the way, but the plot wandered around, hitting some points but with the connections sometimes being sketchy and far too coincidental. Resolutions to things are dropped off in exposition because, again, the plot is so not the point. It has some small elements of Clyde Bruckman's Final Repose and Post-Modern Prometheus, but those episodes had what the movie didn't -- a far more tightly constructed script. And, this movie is darker (which is weird to say given Clyde Bruckman's story was a serial killer and a psychic like this movie, but Clyde Bruckman's story was still played as humorous tragedy. This movie is, quite frankly, grim.) And on a pure script level, the villain could (should) have been more developed. It would have helped, I think. At least with the active villain who is the person running people off the road. On a purely pragmatic level, it struck me that the villain was dim on two points. A) To accomplish their purposes they should have had far more sanitary conditions. B) I had thought that surely when Mulder arrived that they were going to use Mulder's body... unless scarred guy wanted to become a girl in which case, we should have had some hint of that somewhere along the way.
Okay, that pesky plot thing is out of the way.
Second, the squee moments.
I'll leave the shipping squee moments to the shipping part of the discussion and restrain myself to other squees. I suspect that the movie has a ton of easter eggs for hard core X-Files. I caught a few on first viewing. I'm talking names of places being the names of X-File producers/writers (Nutter, Manners, Gilligan). And there are certainly nods to the less hard core but still quite fannish X-philes as they hit all the character touchstones: Mulder still has his "I Want to Believe" poster, still eats sunflower seeds, still throws pencils into the ceiling and has a picture of his sister. Scully straight-up repeats her line from the episode Emily asking why a child was created for no reason but to suffer and there are overt mentions of Scully and Mulder's son "William". Scully's religion is still very important to her. And when Scully insisted on speaking to someone at the FBI who "has some balls", come on, is it any shock at all that it turns out to be Skinner? Squee! And Skinner gets a good funny moment when he tries to reassure Scully that Mulder wouldn't do anything crazy (the audience laughs and Scully gives Skinner a "are you kidding me?!" look) and he amends to something like "Okay, Mulder wouldn't do anything excessively crazy" (I paraphrase due to not having an exact memory.) Skinner cradling an injured Mulder also seemed something to be something for the slashers. Oh, and one thing that struck me as 1013 being very aware of its core fanbase. Amanda Peet's character is almost Mimi Rogers-esque, to the point that I strongly suspect that they knew that killing her off wouldn't play as a tragedy to most viewers but as something to almost cheer about (or maybe that's just me. Just, dude, Amanda Peet does not get to play Scully stand-in without dying. I'm just saying. I was quite satisfied by her demise... much as I was satisfied by the demise of Mimi Rogers's character during the series.)
And now onto the only thing this is really about -- Mulder and Scully.
Is the movie shippy? Oh, hell yeah. But, like the script, it's somewhat muddled. I'm left with questions about the ending. Where I thought the points were leading and how it was played leaves me with conflicted thoughts. I'd like others impressions of 'what did it mean', because I'm honestly not 100% sure. I know what I think (or is it fanwank?) but I fear that my conclusions are blinkered by the fact that I can accept or imagine any other conclusion.
Okay, okay, I'm getting ahead of myself and clearly Carter did not want to roll out the answers to ship questions quickly... which, come on, that's at least a continuation of the show.
Anyway, it starts by revealing that Scully is now a doctor working at a religiously funded hospital. She has a patient, a young boy William's age, who everyone says is terminal. She, however, is unwilling to give up on the kid (despite opposition from the administration, a priest who thinks the child should be sent to a Hospice). An FBI agent comes to her with the request to get in contact with Fox Mulder. Scully tells him that she doesn't 'work with Mulder' any longer.
Then she... uh... Did they ever make clear where Scully lives in the movie? Because she just drives up to a house that looks probably lower scale than she could afford, given that she is a practicing surgeon(?)/doctor. But she does just walk right on in and straight into Mulder's office where he's puttering around speaking Mulder-speak and looking like the unibomber (hee! Jesus, the beard!) The banter between Mulder/Scully is familiar and these two know each other right down the soles of their feet. They still fit. They still sparkle... they do not come off as estranged. They come off as an old married couple (But, then, they've done that since about Season 2. :)
Mulder seems a tad embittered and alienated. Apparently he has been kicked out of the FBI (No shit, sherlock! Given how the series ended, it was always really, really clear that Mulder and Scully were completely out of the FBI!) And, apparently the FBI pressed charges against Mulder such that he's... underground(?). Is that why Scully said that she didn't 'work' with Mulder any longer? Although, if Mulder is 'underground'... well, isn't Scully the very first place anyone would look? And, as evidence, the very fact that when look for Mulder they immediately go directly to Scully shows that I'm not the only one to think so. I think they fudged it a little by having Scully say that the FBI hadn't really been after Mulder but had probably just been happy to have them out of their hair.
Scully is concerned about Mulder (No kidding. He looks like the unibomber! Is he hanging around the house cutting out press clippings?) and she thinks that Mulder should accept the FBI's offer to go on a case.
Now, see, this is where I begin to be confused. Scully actively tries to get Mulder to work on the case, and yet she resents doing so herself. Maybe it's some selfless thing where she thinks he needs it. Or are they having relationship problems because (as further evidence proves), I think they are in a relationship. And Mulder going back and working with the FBI on a X-File does seem to be like Mulder re-discovering himself. As the story progresses he loses the beard and slowly begins to look (and act) more like his old self.
On the other hand, I'm not sure what Scully is really doing. She first comes to Mulder with the idea that he should take this offer because it's good for him. Then when he dives in, she apparently has changed her mind saying that he's just re-enacting what he's always done. He's trying, in vain, to save his sister (much as she's repeatedly 'saving' William.) And, it begins to be a confrontation between Mulder/Scully with her saying that she's been doing this for too long now. He's never going to save Samantha (they don't reference Samantha by name, but always say "your sister") but Scully cannot keep doing that. It's not her life now. She and Mulder left the FBI. She's a doctor now. She comes home at night (and the implication is to him) and she does not want that darkness back in her (their?) lives. This is also coupled with her stonewalled disbelief in the psychic who is leading them to clues about what looks to be a serial killer. As he's a defrocked, pedophilic priest, Scully's religious devotion fuses with her skepticism to have her deeply resenting the priest from the get go.
Anyway, at first glance, that scene really played as an ultimatum from Scully. If Mulder returned to the FBI, she isn't going with him. It's...almost as if she wants out.
To which psychic priest tells her "don't give up." And while Scully seems to have interpreted it one way, my impression was that the priest was telling her to not give up on her and Mulder.
And, I may have this scene out of order. It may have occurred earlier. But Scully is (at home?) in bed, slightly dozing... and begins discussing her case with the dying boy, and up pops Mulder's head from the other side of the bed (cue shippers squeeing everywhere). It's not a sex scene (nope, don't get one of those) but, again, it's like these two are long married. They're just laying around in bed about to go to sleep, like, oh, it's an every day thing (which it may well be). She's telling him that she hasn't told him before about the patient because...
Mulder asks how old is the kid. He asks, significantly, "Is he William's age?"
And Scully admits that she may be trying so hard to save this kid because of the child she and Mulder lost.
Mulder holds her for a moment (very reminiscent of Requiem, I thought) saying that both he and Scully lost a part of themselves when they lost their son.
Come on, these two are practically married. But it's somewhere around here where Mulder shaves, and heads back out on the case and Scully makes her opposition to returning to the FBI so clear as to border on her already having decided to... split from him? Make an ultimatum? Again, it's a little muddled. All that's clear is that she's really on the verge of ending something.
And this is where Amanda Peet's character gets very annoying and, I swear it's almost as if she hits on him and even does the Scully role of going on a chase for the killer with him. Not being Scully, however, she thankfully dies.
And, honestly, as Peet's character has no character development I'm less concerned about her as a person than I am at what she represents. She's the one who explicitly calls for Mulder to return to the X-Files. She's he's re-entree into the FBI. And Scully just made what I couldn't help but interpret as an ultimatum.
In another somewhat abrupt turn of events, a breathless Scully arrives on the defrocked priest's doorstep demanding to know what he meant by "don't give up", to which the priest denies all knowledge. The thought didn't come to him. It came through him. Scully seems torn between believing that the priest means don't give up on her paitent, or don't give up on Mulder. Or (I think it was the priest) 'her husband'. Scully denies that Mulder is her husband (but, it would take the re-watch to be sure it was really the priest who said it, but it would be a pretty strange error for a psychic to make.) At any rate, does it even matter? Mulder/Scully may as well be married, regardless of whether they ever actually signed a contract and had a wedding. Those two are, for all intents and purposes, married.
Anyway, Mulder ends up in the damsel in distress role in this movie (only fair since Scully had to play it in the last movie). Scully ends up clearly upset and searching for him, and eventually acting on a clue given to her by the psychic that she had previously not believed. She saves Mulder and ends up with some medical "I have to get back to work".
And, as I've stated multiple times, the plot is dispensed with in such an off-handed manner that it's quite clear that the plot is all but superfluous. From the death of the first person they had been sent to search for, to the death of the FBI agent who had called them in, to ultimately, even the death of the psychic priest. There really is no return to the FBI for Mulder (at least I didn't get that impression) but, on the other hand, I wasn't left feeling that the issues between Mulder/Scully head been entirely resolved either (then again, sometimes issues in relationships are never resolved. They just are). Mulder is right when he says that this is what he is. And Scully never really retracts from her stance that she doesn't want to go back to the darkness.
They leave (their?) house and are standing out front. At work the kid is still dying and she (against the hospital administration and perhaps even the kid's parents) has been determined to see an experimental and painful procedure through, even though the administration has made quite clear that the child should be sent to hospice.
And we have the final scene with Mulder/Scully and I would really like to know others take on this. She's going to go to work but she doesn't know what to do, if what she's doing is right, and if maybe the psychic meant the boy in the "don't give up". Mulder asks her what she believes. Or... they could just run away together. Escape the darkness? she asks. Mulder says he thinks the darkness always finds them. They kiss. (There is a point blank "I love you" somewhere in the movie. Don't remember where). Scully goes to work. She is glared at by the administration, but she goes through with the operation. She believes.
So... um... my confusion is what did that mean for Mulder/Scully. They clearly aren't running away. But I had previously had the impression that Scully was unwilling to continue down the path they'd been going. Only Mulder really isn't heading back to the FBI, but there's also no way in hell he's ever giving up his quest for truth and answers. And, yet, I didn't have the impression at the end that they were necessarily breaking up. They love each other (that I do not doubt.) And, as they said, "the darkness finds them". She apparently has not 'given up' and has chosen to continue to believe (in a patient with a fatal disease) and can I assume that this extends to her relationship with Mulder (or can it be interpreted as the exact opposite?)
It seems somewhat muddled. Or maybe it's just me. And I'm not entirely sure whether that blurring on the ending is deliberate or not. Is it just supposed to be a set time period in Mulder/Scully's relationship and their circumstances didn't actually change (despite a crisis of faith) because they are Mulder and Scully after all. They cannot part. They're them. Or are they choosing slightly different paths? Are we not supposed to have a solid answer, or is the answer supposed to have been more blatant and I'm not getting it?
Ultimately, I think that they're united as always because they are who they are. They fit. They complete each other. But I cannot say that I'm not being blinkered to other possibilities simply because I cannot envision them.
Dunno.
There will probably be fanfic for it though. And it's why I'm curious about other's impressions. If I remembered where any of the old boards were, I'd be searching them out to see what others take on it was.
I think, any problems aside, they are committed. Because they're Mulder/Scully. But, I'm not sure what I'm supposed to believe.
I want to believe, though.
