The language only distracted the reader and the viewer from the attempted story. .
All of the main characters of the novel were portrayed with emptiness. Ben gave his belongings away to good causes, like the goodwill, which showed that he didn't need anything anymore. In the novel, John O"Brien spoke of Ben saying this, "he does all this deliberately with purpose." Ben's life was empty and all he had to look forward to was death. This is extremely evident in the flashback of his younger years. He would joke with friends that, "it was time to cut your hair, get a job, and just give up." Ben was giving up. An eye opener for Ben was waking up on the floor; not remembering what happened the night before. He said that he used to be able to ask a friend to fill him in on the story; but he could no longer do that. Sera called her own life "a deliberate life". She specifically said that she "sleeps until she wakes; is awake until she sleeps". At one point of the story, the author spoke of Sera's crying being a privilege to being alone in her room, and many times Sera longed to tell her story to someone, but she had no one. When she met Sabrina, she said that she was her first true friend of her life. Even Sabrina showed a life of emptiness when she wanted to run, but had nothing to even run from. The film never mentioned Sabrina, which left the viewer to believe that she did not have even one true friend her whole life. In the novel, it was ironic that whenever Ben and Sera would be hungry, there was great emphasis on how empty their refrigerators were, or how old the food was. This was a symbol of their lives; empty and rotting away. The film started out with showing Ben in his place of work; and his coworkers noticing his illness. Later on in the film, Ben finds a picture of him and his wife and son. He reveals that he's been drinking so excessively for so long that he can't remember if he drank so much that he lost his family or he lost his family so he started drinking.