A/N: Okay, so I liked the 1998 film adaptation! Sure, there was so much taken out and for the life of me, I don't know why they decided to change half of the character's names, but I thoroughly enjoyed this movie both for its visual eye candy and the gorgeous musical score.
The Colour Green
Jade
Finn – Age 10 (after the fountain)
The fragment of boyhood, just as rough as a torn edge of a school paper and haphazard as the chaos inside his head, all comes tumbling down onto the ruins of Paradiso Perduto. Because at the delicate age of ten, when the global world of neighbours and home start to comprehend the opportunities beyond the garden gates, the boy discovers cruelty in the watery kiss of a girl – and longs to have her.
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The Colour of Streams
Finn – Age 10 (in Paradiso Perduto)
Dance. Smile. Dance.
The old lady is teaching him how to waltz. His mind focuses on Estella; the severe lack of joy in her face, the green eyes that will slowly turn blue. He thinks of Joe, who is always sure to make him look presentable whenever he comes over to play with the rich woman's girl.
He wonders if he will jump into the lake, ready to drown, if Estella will blink and realize he's no longer there.
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Pea-Green
Finn – Age 10 (sitting on the docks)
The boy closes his eyes and touches his lips with the fleshy digits of his right hand, thinking of her. The cries of the seagulls and the salty taste of the salt water cleanses him, makes him a temporary amnesiac. Here there is always open air, new memories to be cast with the throaty yells of the fisherman and the boats.
In two days time he will be with the sullen Estella, the beautiful Estella. Ms. Dinsmoor in her lime-coloured floral print dress and pants, puffing from her long, black cigarette - singing Besame Mucho and dancing to the mad memory of her traitorous lover.
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Lime
Finn – Age 17 (during the party, after the party)
She no longer wears ribbons but keeps her long, blonde hair. The hem of her skirt, which once comes down just above her knees, climbs higher and higher until Finn's hand is against her white alabaster thigh and his fingernail scrapes the fabric of her–
Sunshower.
She is wearing pearls and lip gloss and her hair is pulled back to reveal the straightness of her locks and the forwardness of her sexual proposals. She does it with open tongue. And Finn knows this is cruelty mixed with pleasure, because he willingly follows her and lovers her and wants her – and she will drive him to ruin.
Ingénue.
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Ivy, or Envy
Finn – Age 18 (before the seven year separation)
Finn paints and draws and paints and despairs until all the memories and his fascination and his obsession that is Estella drains out of him like someone has pulled the plug from the drain and everything that bottles up inside of his adolescent body and head spills through his fingers and splashes the canvas with dark strokes and watercolours and markers of her.
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Money
Finn – Age 25 (first year in New York)
It is not surprising he is reunited with her in Central Park, in New York. Covered in all the leaves and trees of perfect order, quite unlike the overgrown bowers belonging to Ms. Dinsmoor, the young woman who is now Estella is all perfumes and nail polish and fashion.
She treats him like the old friend he is, but not more. She smiles, and the universe shrinks away back into the small bubble of the lush greenhouse where they used to dance – and it is perfect.
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Absinthe
Finn – Age 26 (New York)
The boy's heart is breaking. Because once more, Estella betrays him when she was never his to begin with, and the girl he met in the shadows of the verdant garden cannot tell the truth without a mortal lie. But he cannot blame her, because he knows her – because he knows himself.
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Evergreen
Finn – Age 26 (dance with me)
The rushing of the taxis, the shouts of pedestrians as Finnegan rushes past them, his shoulder colliding with theirs as he picks up speed and falters and runs with all his heart towards the Chinese restaurant.
His life is a tracking shot, one continuous camera angle starting from the gala to the dark patterns of her dress. He keeps looking back as he leads her away from Walter, and she only has eyes for him. For once, he can sense as well as see the uncertainty and the vulnerability of this ice queen, and it makes him love her more.
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(Interlude)
"Do you feel this? This is my heart, and it's broken."
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Plants and Fairies
Finn – Age 37 (return to Paradiso Perduto)
Ten years is a long time for anyone, and yet it can go by so quickly. New York, Paris, Europe, Florida – they are all places where people are looking to belong.
So Finn goes back to the old house, back to the memory of the old lady and the mysterious daughter, and looks up at the broken glass ceiling thinking how beautiful it truly is. Even in the sunshine, the dark prevails and overtakes the floors, the doors, the nooks and crannies that once harboured a caustic playground.
And like the ghost of the past coming back to haunt him, Finn hears the laughter of a blonde child running through the corridors, her dress flowing about her smooth knees and her arms twirling about her sunflower hair. Estella's child, she tells him, that child you see laughing and playing is my own.
Life has been less pleasant for her, as if the balance of the scales has finally settled its score. She is older, wiser, and carries a little more sorrow.