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Comments
Yup. It was one of the few little tells that show you “this is the nineties”. Much more subtle than having a a date and place written on the screen. Same with her Walkman.
It's a fair point, but I think with aging there is diminishing returns (a huge difference between 10 and 20, a smaller difference between 30 and 40, etc). Also we don't get a good look at Safin at all in the prologue. I have no problem believing Safin is "several years older" than Madeleine in all three acts.
I don't know, it never bothered me but I can see why it would provoke some thought. People just look all kinds of different I suppose. Maybe they should have cast Paul Rudd as Safin.
I don't think they have a huge age gap. In the PTS Madeline's meant to be, what, 12 or so? Safin's a young man by that point (let's say 18 or possibly a bit older - that's the sense I always got). In the main story Madeline's about 34/35 and Safin's presumably around 40 or so.
That's actually not far off the age of the actual actors at the time (I think there's a smaller gap between Malek and Seydoux, but it's not far off). I don't think there's any issue with aging. I think that impression is being created because we don't see Safin's face in the PTS and some people immediately fill it in with a 40 year old Rami Malek as opposed to an 18 year old Safin (which there's not really much you can do about one way or the other).
As for Saffin and the age question. Why have his picture in the home in Norway? I think that was got me noticing the age gap. I agree that a 35 year old and a 40 year old don't look as obvious as a 5 year old and a 10 year old.
The age gap was problematic in the film for me. I was left to wonder why did they look to be similar age? IRL there are 4 years age difference between the Lea and Rami. There is a 17 year age gap between Daniel and Lea!
Yeah, Bond and Madeline have a much more significant age gap than Safin and her (pretty much the same as the actors themselves have. In SP she's about 30 I'd assume, and let's go with Bond in his mid 40s. Bond's meant to be in his early 50s by the main story of NTTD as he's meant to be slightly older than we've typically seen him being, and again Madeline's about 35).
I don't think the file picture means much. It looks like it could be a snap and newspaper clipping from the 80s, and the PTS takes place in the late 90s. Again, there's probably 6-ish year age gap between Madeline and Safin (at the very most it'll be under 10 years), or at least you could easily argue there is.
Unless there's anything I'm missing such as dates from the story not adding up, I'm pretty sure that's the idea. And to be fair NTTD has other age related discrepancies with its characters, but only if you're looking hard enough (I think Vesper's date of birth on her tombstone puts her at 23 when she died, which is a bit odd as Eva Green was 26 or something when she played the part, and it seems too young for someone with her job... I think Blofeld gets a very odd date of birth on a file as well which puts him in his 70s, but I could be wrong about that. Neither really matter or make any difference to the film incidentally).
Why not have it be Saffin's father that killed the mom. Or cast an older actor as Saffin.
Agreed. It kind of adds to Safin's creepiness that he's been lusting (?) after her all this time, or feels like their destinies are linked or that she owes him for sparing her. I think they could have leaned into Safin's obsession with her a bit more, TBH.
Dear Alec had discovered the fountain of youth but didn't want anyone else to benefit from it. To the victor go the spoils.