and importance doesn’t mean that our actions don’t mean anything. He communicates that in a world of many, the only way to live a life that isn’t constantly hinged on the opinions and actions of others is to find meaning in what is already around you. In “Spring and Fall,” it is exactly this assertion that causes Maragret to mourn in the first place. She cares so much about what is around her that accepting its mortality has sent her into mourning. Lisa, in her self-centered grief, must embrace her unimportance to even realize that she was grieving in the first place. Human connection is the key to this, and as we see through Lisa’s futile attempts to connect in a moralistic way with those involved in the crash, it must come from a conscious decision to be vulnerable and to feel. Lisa spends the film looking for her life to mean something more than just being human, yet Lonergan conveys the inherent beauty in simply existing the same way that the rest of the world does. The bottomless pit of self-loathing that can come with the impending doom of embracing your own insignificance is hard to come back
from. But in doing so, and in using what we gain as a means for connection, our lives become meaningful. As the film ends, Lisa and her mother go to the opera. Despite having won the case, Lisa hasn’t miraculously cured herself of her emptiness. In a room of hundreds she feels just as inconsequential as she did before. But as the opera singer begins to vocalize, Lisa begins to cry. Shedding tears for her own self-importance, Lisa turns to her mother and shows her true affection for the first time in the film. Not only is this a manifestation of the types of human connection Lonergan asserts give life its meaning, it is also an acknowledgement of mutual suffering. As in “Spring and Fall,” neither Lisa nor her mother is grieving a physical loss – rather, the loss of their own significance. Yet as they cry, they are choosing to feel. We as humans could use the truth of our own unimportance to revel in cruelty, but instead we emote, and in doing so add meaning to our lives. As I struggle in my life to overcome the woes of social comparison and selfdoubt, I try to remember why I’m sit-
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