Summary
Evelyn continues her narrative: after John's death, Harry was grief-stricken, and began drinking heavily. To give him something to motivate and distract him, Evelyn and Harry collaborated on a new film, All for Us, directed by Max Girard. For that film, Evelyn won her first Oscar for Best Actress, while Max won for Best Director, and Harry (as producer) received the Best Picture award. In her acceptance speech, Evelyn subtly alluded to Celia. After the awards, Max impulsively confided that he was in love with Evelyn. The next morning, he asked her to marry him. Evelyn pauses her narrative there.
After she leaves Evelyn's apartment, Monique gets a message that her husband, David, is back in New York, and waiting for her at their apartment. She rushes there to meet him. David expresses a desire to work things out, but Monique realizes that she never truly loved him, and does not want to work things out. She tells him that she does not think they are right for one another, and David leaves, resigned.
Evelyn resumes her narrative: after Max proposed, she told Harry. Harry pointed out that, with John and Celia now out of the picture, there was no reason for he and Evelyn to remain married. He was supportive of her pursuing genuine love, either with Max or with someone else. Evelyn met with Max, and he explained that he had gradually fallen in love with her because they inspired one another, and worked so well together. They had sex, and Evelyn realized that she was deeply attracted to Max. After Max agreed that he was happy to be a stepfather to Connor, and that he wanted Harry to remain a close part of their lives, Evelyn agreed to marry him. Evelyn and Harry divorced in 1982, after 15 years of marriage, and she and Max married shortly afterwards.
At first, Evelyn and Max were happy, but very quickly, Evelyn noticed that Max was fixated on her fame and celebrity. He liked the fantasy of them being together, and he sometimes seemed disappointed when Evelyn showed a human or authentic side. However, Evelyn was resigned to the unhappy marriage; she was growing older, and her career was declining. In 1988, Celia won an Oscar for her portrayal of Lady Macbeth, and Evelyn impulsively sent her a note of congratulations. The two women began corresponding, and admitting that they both missed one another. They agreed to meet in Los Angeles for dinner to discuss if there could be a possible future between them.
Just before Evelyn left, Max found the letters between her and Celia, and became very jealous and angry. The two of them fought, and Evelyn told him that she was getting a divorce, whether or not she and Celia began a relationship. Evelyn did not waver, even when Max threatened to expose the information about her and Celia, and ruin her career. The two women talked, and Evelyn explained that she was definitely leaving Max, and no longer really cared about her reputation. As she explained, she had achieved everything she wanted to achieve. Celia confided to Evelyn that she had been diagnosed with lung disease, and would likely live for less than a decade. Celia proposed that she and Evelyn retire and move to Spain together; she wanted to spend her remaining time together, quietly and in privacy. Evelyn and Celia made love, and agreed to spend the rest of Celia's life together.
The next morning Celia proposed a plan: they would stage a fake affair between Evelyn and a much younger congressman. This affair would explain why Evelyn and Max were divorcing, and that way, if Max claimed Evelyn was attracted to women, everyone would think that he was simply bitter and jealous. Celia also proposed that Evelyn would marry her brother, Robert, so that she could inherit Celia's fortune after her death. Connor and Harry would come with them to Spain. One part of the plan went smoothly: Evelyn and Max divorced in 1988, and anything he said was assumed to be bitterness and jealousy. However, Harry did not want to retire and give up his career. He did not think he would enjoy a quiet life in Spain, and he worried about uprooting their daughter.
Harry proposed an alternative plan: he had begun seeing someone, and suggested that Celia marry this man. However, Evelyn was growing increasingly exhausted and eager to retire; she did not see the point of living in Los Angeles if she was not going to work. They did not come to an agreement, but agreed to talk more; Evelyn was unsure what to do, but happy that Harry had met someone he loved. That night, Evelyn and Harry were supposed to fly back to New York; she went to go and pick him up in a hired car driven by a man named Nick.
When Evelyn and Nick approached Harry's house, they saw that a car had driven into a tree on the private road leading to the house. They both rushed to the scene of the accident; Harry was in the driver's seat, and severely injured. It was clear that he had been driving while drunk. In the passenger seat, a man, whom Evelyn inferred was Harry's lover, had been killed in the accident. Evelyn was terrified that Harry would be charged with drunk driving and found responsible for the death; with Nick's help, she got Harry in her car to go to the hospital and moved the other man into the driver seat so that he would appear to have been driving. However, Harry died in the hospital a few hours later. Evelyn bought Nick's silence about the actual events by helping him launch his acting career. Harry's death was officially presented as an aneurysm.
Connor was devastated after her father's death, and began to act out. Evelyn became increasingly convinced that she and Connor needed to get away, and decided to enact Celia's plan of moving to Spain and marrying Robert. Connor was too sad to argue, especially after Evelyn was honest with her about her love for Celia, and why she would be marrying Robert. Listening to the narrative, Monique praises Evelyn's honesty and candor.
Analysis
After two marriages that were pragmatic and not romantic (Rex and Harry), Evelyn's marriage to Max is notable because she is genuinely in love with him. Unfortunately, he disappoints and hurts her, not unlike Don Adler. Of all her marriages, the two that are damaging and make Evelyn unhappy are the ones that are arguably authentic; the ones that she transacts to serve her ambitions (with Ernie, Rex, Harry, and eventually Robert - to a lesser degree with Mick) tend to be amicable, and operate out of at least some affection and mutual respect. The marriages that begin with love end with dislike and distrust.
Evelyn does not appear to regret these marriages, and she does have experiences of joy and pleasure for a time, but her partnerships with men seem somewhat doomed to fail. Because Evelyn has such a public persona, she exists as an object of fantasy, and men find it almost impossible to extricate that fantasy from reality. Mick's revulsion from the reality that Evelyn could be banal, boring, ordinary, and human was somewhat understandable given his limited time with her, and her intentional manipulation of the situation. Max's reaction is less forgivable: he had known Evelyn for years, and yet he was still disappointed when the reality of being with her failed to meet his expectations.
Celia's acceptance of Evelyn contrasts with Max's failure; however, Celia's desire to reunite with Evelyn is driven in part by her knowledge that Celia is coming to the end of her life. She also has very specific parameters about what she wants their time together to look like; in a sense, she is behaving much like Evelyn in her scrupulous control of the situation and the narrative, and this might explain why Evelyn is so receptive to the plan. However, much like with Evelyn's plan to trick and seduce Mick, the women realize that not everything is under their control. Harry has his own life, and his own plans; he doesn't want to passively follow along with whatever Evelyn wants. The contrast in their plans might reflect gendered experiences of aging: Harry is older than Evelyn, yet his career and romantic life continue to thrive, and he doesn't want to give any of that up.
The car accident, and Evelyn's actions at the scene of the accident, represent her greatest act of moral ambiguity. She does act out of love for Harry, and a desire to protect both him and her daughter. However, she also acts with a desire to avoid legitimate consequences, and perhaps a belief that her and Harry's power and privilege entitle them to be above the law. Evelyn's persistent fear of scandal and losing her income also play into this action, highlighting a persistent pattern in her behavior. At almost all of the moments when Evelyn acts in a sneaky and nefarious way (when she has sex with Mick, when she shoots the nude scene, and when she switches the bodies in the car), she does so from a fear of scarcity and a need to protect herself. This impulse might be a sympathetic one, but it leads to Evelyn treating other people as disposable. Although this detail is not revealed until later, Harry's passenger is a Black man, and Evelyn allows him to take the fall for a crime (driving drunk) committed by a wealthy white man. By achieving power and privilege, Evelyn comes to replicate those systems, and act ruthlessly in her own self-interest by exploiting others who may be more vulnerable.
Despite Evelyn's cold and ruthless action, Monique is initially sympathetic. She believes that Evelyn was in shock, and was doing the best she could in the moment. In a sense, the entirety of the narrative has primed Monique to have this reaction, raising questions about Evelyn's reliability as a narrator. Evelyn has portrayed herself as a resilient survivor, and has also used feminist rhetoric to justify her choices. Since Evelyn has gotten so comfortable with hiding her true identity and her relationship with Celia, it could be argued that concealment has become a natural and default state for her. Evelyn has also groomed Monique to become more like her: she has encouraged Monique to become more self-serving, and more willing to act in ethically ambiguous ways. This grooming has benefited Monique by helping her to stand up for herself, advance her career, and let go of a unsuccessful relationship. It has also, however, turned Monique into someone who can readily sympathize with Evelyn's criminal action.
