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Why? Because the characters and the themes are so compelling and approachable, whether a writer or viewer. I think actors love these parts as well, for to tell their story, a range of emotions are needed to convey their realization of their darkness and their illuminating discovery of their inner value. The themes of responsibility, independence, social expectations, loving without conditions, sacrifice, and devotion-- all mixed in with the inner journey all of us travel through life.
Let me get you up to speed. The story is based on the Olive Higgins Prouty (why don't we name girls Olive anymore? Did Olive Oyl destroy that one?) novel of the same title. The title, Now, Voyager itself is taken from a quote of Walt Whitman:
"The untold want by life and land ne'er granted,
Now, voyager, sail thou forth, to seek and find."
The story is about Charlotte Vale (40-ish), a woman who's been brow-beaten and humiliated since birth to be the caretaker of her mother, being as she was a late child -her mother meaning Charlotte is "marked" (an oddity of society), and she will be the one to care for her mother in old age. The movie opens with Charlotte having a nervous breakdown. Opening with the character hitting bottom is an effective beginning. We can see that her fate will not to become her mother's slave, and there must be a change. The movie is about her transformation.
Charlotte's transformation and her navigation through turbulent waters. It ends with Charlotte seeking and finding that safe harbor created in very limited, yet self-fulfilling circumstances.
This movie can be too easily dismissed as a chick movie, and that is a shame. It is about the universal themes of mentioned above, whether a man or woman.
It takes the usual code words of society's expectations and turns them on their head.
Responsibility.
Devotion.
Sacrifice.
And seamlessly blends them in a story of manipulation transformed into honesty, infidelity transformed into non-interference, and duplicity transformed into unconditional love.