Character Analysis
Here's what we know about Laura:
- She's with Riggan.
- She's preggers.
- Her name is the same as the character she plays in Riggan's adaptation of What We Talk About When We Talk About Love.
Add those three things together and we get…a character who's more of an extension of Riggan than a whole character on her own. And that's fine: this movie's all about Riggan anyway.
What we can deduce from the three bullet points above is that Laura might have been a huge catalyst for Riggan mounting a production of What We Talk About When We Talk About Love in the first place. Not only do Laura and her onstage alter ego share the same name, but they both have babies on the brain.
This makes us think that Riggan's choice for adapting this particular story is more personal than he lets on—because he's navigating his own questions about l'amour (What Riggan Talks About When He Talks About Love?) with a woman named Laura and her ticking biological clock, he naturally turns to this Carver story.
Wheels within wheels, huh?