Los Alamos - Would You Live There ?

[S_Oceanus]

Hey Everyone

I've been trying to figure out why I find LMI having a bit of a depressing quality to it .... unlike LTROI which I find much more brighter and optimistic

So i finally figured that from Owen's point of view, it's not just the bullying and isolation he goes through but a main factor also comes down to the way Los Alamos alone is portrayed in the film – a colourless, lifeless and desolate town in the middle of nowhere. That alone makes you deeply sympathise with Owen wanting to leave.

Perhaps the bullies weren’t the worst of his worries after all. I think If Owen continued to stay in Los Alamos into adulthood, it would probably kill him anyway .... on the inside.

It reminds me of that saying “Death is not the greatest loss in life, the greatest loss is what dies inside of us while we live”.

I wouldn’t have a clue what Los Alamos is really like in reality, never been there. Whether some members here reside there or maybe other members who may have visited the town can give a different perspective than how the movie portrays it.
But the feeling I do get from LMI is that they wanted to portray Los Alamos as not a very pleasant place to live out of sympathy for Owen as a good reason for him to leave.

But then again on a different note, perhaps the film makers were trying to portray a town that is looked at through the lens of a lonely and troubled kid.

Say if Owen did have all the love and acceptance in his life from home and school that he needed, would the dark and dreary colours of the town suddenly turn brighter? Would there be more life around to be seen?

[DavidZahir]

I think so. We were seeing Los Alamos through the eyes of Owen, Abby and Thomas, mostly. Their psychological "lens" filtered it all. Objectively, many parts of that town were rather scenic! All those trees, the high desert, etc. Methinks a happy child might have found the apartment building courtyard a fun place (and gotta go with Owen--that basement apartment really was very cool).

At the same time I do think Reeves was using Los Alamos as an avatar of every small, seemingly-dead end town in America--places where nothing seems to happen, places the lucky leave as soon as they can and the unlucky remain stuck there to vegetate.

[the_value_of_x]

I've heard Ohio is far scarier. Ohio and Upstate NY.

[PeteMork]

I'd live there, no problem. From Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Los_Alamos,_New_Mexico

I've been there many times, and had a good friend in college who was born and raised there. Besides being in a beautiful area, and not far from Santa Fe, Taos, and other really interesting cities, there's this:

Los Alamos is New Mexico's best educated community, proportionately, with 68.6% of adult residents (25 and older) holding an associate degree or higher, and 62.1% of adults possessing a bachelor's degree or higher (2000 Census).

There were 5,110 households out of which 31.4% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 56.4% were married couples living together, 6.5% had a female householder with no husband present, and 34.0% were non-families. 29.8% of all households were made up of individuals and 7.6% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.31 and the average family size was 2.89.

In the CDP the population was spread out with 24.8% under the age of 18, 4.8% from 18 to 24, 29.2% from 25 to 44, 28.2% from 45 to 64, and 12.9% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 40 years. For every 100 females there were 101.3 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 100.1 males.

The median income for a household in the CDP was $71,536, and the median income for a family was $86,876. Males had a median income of $65,638 versus $39,352 for females. The per capita income for the CDP was $34,240. About 2.4% of families and 3.6% of the population were below the poverty line, including 2.6% of those under age 18 and 5.3% of those age 65 or over.

The home ownership rate (owner-occupied housing units to total units) is 71.5%. After the Manhattan Project, the first sale of a private home in Los Alamos was made in 1965 by the US Government to William Overton, who bought a house on Manhattan Loop.[3]

Hardly a depraved, stagnant city by any means.

[DavidZahir]

Well, yeah the real Los Alamos might be very nice. But how does Owen see it in 1982? That is what we see in the film.

[PeteMork]

Well, yeah the real Los Alamos might be very nice. But how does Owen see it in 1982? That is what we see in the film.

I suspect the average IQ in 1982 was higher even than today, as was the proportion of college degrees. The government was still deeply involved in top secret stuff there at that time. But, as in just about any city, there were almost certainly people at the low end of the economic ladder. And, frankly, I have no idea how such people were treated by the general populace. Owen could easily have been on the outside looking in. Lack of money usually causes such things. There's little reason to think Los Alamos would be an exception, IMO, at least among his peers. But I suspect he would have been getting a top-notch education (not counting the bullying of course. )

[S_Oceanus]

I think so. We were seeing Los Alamos through the eyes of Owen, Abby and Thomas, mostly. Their psychological "lens" filtered it all.

That’s right, because the film centres mainly on three lonely people, not just one. The film doesn’t include sub-plots of other characters (Hacke, Virginia and Gosta), we never really see Owen's parents. So all this adds an even more isolated, almost claustrophobic feel.

So we are seeing this town through the lens of not just a lonely and troubled kid, but another lonely kid and an old man who have both lived a depressingly obscure existence longer than they can remember. No matter which town they have been to, they wouldn't be able to tell the difference, it would be all the same to them.

Which makes one think whether it would make any difference for Owen escaping with Abbey in the long run.

[DavidZahir]

Works in the other direction too--Owen started to enjoy Los Alamos with Abby there.

[DarkGuyver]

It all about how a person perspective on their living enviroment. From Owen's perspective Los Alamos is a hellwhole filled with ignorant people, but that just might be in his neighbourhood and the fact that he is constantly targeted by bullies, which makes him hate the place.

[Nicro]

I live in New Mexico. See look that way>>>>


Anyway Los Alamos is a big snowboard town. And a lot of government jobs up there and stuff too. Not bad.