Even aside from the homosexual anxiety this question evinces, it points to the many social and political ways that men are evaluated and judged, and parallels Henry, Tony and Alex's concerns that their very different understandings of responsibility and self-identity might match up, or at least complement one another. Where the women play stereotypical roles, again and again showing their capacity for support and resilience, the men struggle with the possibility that being more generous might be evidence of moral strength and emotional muscularity rather than weakness. Remarkably, the film poses such questions without making its men into either heroic or melodramatic figures. They remain complicated and imperfect, even as they come to their inevitable reconciliation. The lack of comprehension that has so plagued his life is dissolving into a kind of ease with himself and acceptance of others.
Understanding is relative, in more ways than one.
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