I don't understand why other people are comparing this to Twilight, because, aside from the fact that the characters are emotionally dead inside, they have nothing in common. In the Twilight movies, they never explained the reason why they are like this, however, in The Tearsmith, it's due to growing up with abuse in an orphanage. This is often what happens to people when they were devoid of care and parental love growing up, and this is what happens to people who have gone through way too much abuse every single day as a child. I experienced this firsthand, so I'm here to say that this is accurate, I wasn't able to feel again until much later in life, and this made me cry my eyes out because of how close to home it was. If anyone can't understand it, it's because they've never gone through it. As someone who hated Twilight for its lack of substance, I actually loved this.
For the people who say the characters who are supposed to be in love have no substance to their relationship and no basis for their love, they clearly weren't paying attention, but I can't explain why without spoiling, so be aware that there are going to be spoilers ahead.
SPOILERS: I hadn't even read the book, but I still grasped all this, just from the movie. Before the main girl started living at this orphanage, the orphanage directress was abusing every child except for one, a boy whom she only cared about for his piano playing and music composition abilities, which stemmed from his pain and sadness, but she had this boy do her bidding, which was an abuse within itself. She made him feel like he didn't deserve love because she turned him into a person who does bad things to others. Every child called this orphanage "The Graves" and this boy "The Tearsmith". When the main girl started living there, the directress started her abuse toward her by directing the boy to take her mother's necklace away from her neck, her mother who had just died, so it was her one and only left connection to her mother. The boy ran away with it as fast as he could in order to hide it away and protect it, because he's not actually evil. He probably told the directress that he threw it away or lost it. Even though he was the one kid who was never abused, he started abusing himself every time the directress abused her, just to try to stop the directress from abusing her, because he figured that if she cared about him, she'd not want harm to come to him, so she'll stop hurting the girl so he'll stop hurting himself, and he did all this because he loved her, but instead of doing what he intended for it to do, it caused the directress to blame the new girl for the demise of her favorite boy, and so the directress started to abuse this girl the most. He blamed himself and this further fixed his idea that he shouldn't love, because he can only ever hurt the person he loves. It doesn't help that she herself decided he's the villain of the story, rather than the directress. She realizes the reality of the situation at the end though.
I relate to this firsthand because my mother abused me, but not my siblings, so they self-harmed as well... They also later blamed me than the true cause. This is accurate to what really happens in these types of situations, and this was put together very creatively.
I think a lot of people just didn't get it.
As for the people calling this incest, it's not. It's an orphanage. None of them are related. She didn't start living there until later while he was living there since he was a baby, so to him, she was never his sister, just a girl who came to the orphanage whom he loved at first sight, If people think this is incest, they missed the point. Yes, they got adopted together once they were almost adults on a trial basis, so they were about to become brother and sister IF the family adopted them both, however, he only went with her to be with her, and he rejected the adoption in the end so that they could be together. He also rejected prior adoptions to be with her. Everyone always wanted to adopt him and not her, so he chose to stay abused, just to stay with her.
That is why he gave her the black rose, for tormented love.
People who are mad because they thought this was going to be a werewolf fantasy story, well, I guess it sucks for them that they didn't realize early on that everything in this story was just going to be a form of symbolism.
It really was a great movie.
For the people who say the characters who are supposed to be in love have no substance to their relationship and no basis for their love, they clearly weren't paying attention, but I can't explain why without spoiling, so be aware that there are going to be spoilers ahead.
SPOILERS: I hadn't even read the book, but I still grasped all this, just from the movie. Before the main girl started living at this orphanage, the orphanage directress was abusing every child except for one, a boy whom she only cared about for his piano playing and music composition abilities, which stemmed from his pain and sadness, but she had this boy do her bidding, which was an abuse within itself. She made him feel like he didn't deserve love because she turned him into a person who does bad things to others. Every child called this orphanage "The Graves" and this boy "The Tearsmith". When the main girl started living there, the directress started her abuse toward her by directing the boy to take her mother's necklace away from her neck, her mother who had just died, so it was her one and only left connection to her mother. The boy ran away with it as fast as he could in order to hide it away and protect it, because he's not actually evil. He probably told the directress that he threw it away or lost it. Even though he was the one kid who was never abused, he started abusing himself every time the directress abused her, just to try to stop the directress from abusing her, because he figured that if she cared about him, she'd not want harm to come to him, so she'll stop hurting the girl so he'll stop hurting himself, and he did all this because he loved her, but instead of doing what he intended for it to do, it caused the directress to blame the new girl for the demise of her favorite boy, and so the directress started to abuse this girl the most. He blamed himself and this further fixed his idea that he shouldn't love, because he can only ever hurt the person he loves. It doesn't help that she herself decided he's the villain of the story, rather than the directress. She realizes the reality of the situation at the end though.
I relate to this firsthand because my mother abused me, but not my siblings, so they self-harmed as well... They also later blamed me than the true cause. This is accurate to what really happens in these types of situations, and this was put together very creatively.
I think a lot of people just didn't get it.
As for the people calling this incest, it's not. It's an orphanage. None of them are related. She didn't start living there until later while he was living there since he was a baby, so to him, she was never his sister, just a girl who came to the orphanage whom he loved at first sight, If people think this is incest, they missed the point. Yes, they got adopted together once they were almost adults on a trial basis, so they were about to become brother and sister IF the family adopted them both, however, he only went with her to be with her, and he rejected the adoption in the end so that they could be together. He also rejected prior adoptions to be with her. Everyone always wanted to adopt him and not her, so he chose to stay abused, just to stay with her.
That is why he gave her the black rose, for tormented love.
People who are mad because they thought this was going to be a werewolf fantasy story, well, I guess it sucks for them that they didn't realize early on that everything in this story was just going to be a form of symbolism.
It really was a great movie.