Characters

The film and also the short story show that nobody is only good or bad. Everybody is full of contradictions and the world isn’t divided in good and bad people. The characters of the film are also good and bad and they experience good and bad events.

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Auggie Wren Auggie Wren, played by Harvey Keitel, is a 40-50 years old man. He’s the owner of a cigar shop in New York. Auggie has uncombed hair, a “three-days-beard” and looks messy dirty. He always wears blue jeans and t-shirts. Auggie has a wisecracking humour and has always something funny to say. At the beginning Auggie is a loner and makes illegal deals, but in the course of the film he becomes more open.

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Paul Benjamin Paul Benjamin has been a succesful author, but since his wife lost her life in a hold-up opposite to Auggie’s cigar shop, he couldn't put one reasonable sentence to paper. That’s why Paul Benjamin, played by William Hurt, has become a very lonely and broken man with a writing inhibition. In the course of the film he becomes more open and has overcome his writing inhibition. Paul Benjamin is no longer lonely and has got his zest of life back.

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Ruby and Felicity McNutt Ruby McNutt, played by Stockard Channing, is Auggie Wren’s past flame. She has blond hair and is pretty. Ruby is about 40-50 years old. She’s independent and responsible, because she asked Auggie for help although she found it a bit embarrassing. Ruby has a daughter called Felicity McNutt whose father is maybe Auggie Wren. Felicity, played by Ashley Judd, looks dowdy although she is actual pretty. She has blond hair like her mother and lives with her boyfriend in a tumbledown shanty filled with full of smoke in Brooklyn. Felicity had got over an abortion. Ruby is worrying about her daughter, because she is addicted to drugs. Ruby wants Felicity to leave her boyfriend and to get a better standard of living, but Felicity doesn’t give a damn on what her mothers saying. In the beginning of the film Ruby tries to help her daughter, but in the end she gives up helping her daughter and wants to start a better life with the money she got from Auggie Wren.

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Rashid and Cyrus Cole Rashid’s real name is Thomas Jefferson Cole. His mother is dead and his father had disappeared when Rashid, played by Harold Perrineau Jr., was a little child. He lives at his aunt’s house. He is a young, distrustful and insolent black man full of longing who often changes his identity. At the beginning Rashid is a loafer with a totally destroyed family, but at the end of the film he has found his father Cyrus Cole, played by Forest Whitaker, again. Cyrus Cole is a man signed of the fate who had lost his left arm in a car accident where his present wife, Rashid’s mother, died. He has a new wife and with her an about 2 or 3 years old son. Rashid and Cyrus ought to know each other, but when they met, they didn’t recognize each other. They have a difficult, but not totally destroyed relationship. Rashid wants to get an idea of his father and in the end you can see an approach between him and his father.

(Christina Busch)