Movie Characters We Felt Really Bad For
Some people are just doomed from the start, born into a world designed to hate them. Try as they might to fight against fate, the tragic stories of these movie characters have already been created by sadistic scriptwriters. Each one must survive their own living hell, and if they're lucky, they find the sweet release of death. These are the movie characters we feel really bad for.
Selma Jezkova - Dancer In The Dark
Seeing Dancer in the Dark is a little like watching the video in The Ring, except instead of dying in seven days, you'll feel dead inside immediately and it will last forever. If you're up for having your emotional guts punched in the nards, check it out. Bjork plays Selma, a factory worker who is slowly losing her eyesight, forced to make some terrible choices to save her ailing son. Spoiler alert: with a setup like that, don't be surprised to find out that things don't go too well from there. Director Lars von Trier crafted a soul-seeking missile that will decimate you.
Johnny - The Room
Tommy Wiseau's classic, genre-defying disaster contains so many inconsistencies, plot holes, and incoherent speeches that one might be more compelled to feel sorry for the audience than anyone in the film itself. However, the director/actor's main character, Johnny, seems just as confused. He lives inside of The Room's nonsense world, trapped in a nightmare that conjures Kafka by way of meth, where words don't make sense, reactions don't sensibly follow actions, and the only answer is to kill yourself in the middle of your birthday party.
Wall-E - Wall-E
Wall-E is a sentient, feeling robot created by humans, abandoned on a planet destroyed by human waste, with nothing to do but clean their leftover garbage by himself. What kind of horrible human being designed a robot with emotions, only to leave it in the harshest possible environment by itself? They couldn't flip the "feel crushing loneliness" switch off before they shuttled their fat butts into space? Wall-E, your e-pain breaks our hearts.
Uncle Rico - Napoleon Dynamite
Arguably, everything in Napoleon Dynamite is some kind of American Gothic tragedy, but the film is characterized by its characters' resilience... except for Uncle Rico. Rico has spent decades trapped in the memory of the one great thing he ever did, and that memory isn't really that great to begin with. He spends the film reenacting his few glorious moments on VHS, pursuing time travel, living in a van, and ultimately realizing that his entire life has gone nowhere.
Hank Pym - Ant-Man
His technology stolen from him by S.H.I.E.L.D., ousted from his own company by his daughter, and in constant mourning for his missing wife, Hank Pym is one of the Marvel Cinematic Universe's sadder heroes. Like many of Marvel's scientists, his creations veered a bit too far into dangerous territory, destroying everything he loved. Scott Lang comes along and begins to patch up Pym's mistakes, but we'll have to wait until Ant-Man 2 to see if Hank has any reason to smile.
Darth Vader - Star Wars: Episode VI - Return Of The Jedi
As terrifying as Darth Vader can be, choking suckas out through the void of space using nothing but wizard magic, he's just a guy looking for his kidnapped son. Sure, Luke was taken from him for good reason, as Vader had just massacred a whole temple of junior Jedis, but poor Vader was misguided and manipulated by evil from a very early age. When Vader was finally able to reunite with his son, having finally achieved his life's purpose, he sacrifices himself to save Luke, and subsequently, the galaxy. He's a tragic hero found in the most unexpected place.
Smeagol/Gollum - The Lord Of The Rings Trilogy
Once a mere Hobbit who found a cool ring in a river, Sméagol was immediately corrupted by the object, which convinced him to kill his brother and live in a cave. While the One Ring prolonged his life to around 600 years, most of it was spent as an obsessive, miserable servant to the evil ring, which he pursued single-mindedly until his death after losing it in a bet. Without a white wizard to guide him or realize the influence of the Ring, Gollum never had any hope, and was only an accidental hero at his death.
Gilbert Grape - What's Eating Gilbert Grape?
Trapped in a do-nothing town in Iowa, Gilbert Grape has no choice but to care for his handicapped family in the wake of his father's suicide, with no end in sight. The only entertainment in town is watching cars drive through, eating fast food burgers, and dealing with Mary Steenburgen. Two of these things will give you salmonella. The aimless tragedy of Gilbert's suffocating obligation ends as he escapes from Endora, just in time, but with a huge burden still in tow.