Foil

Character Role Analysis

David/Connie

David and his ex-wife Connie are probably the film's two biggest opposites. Prior to their separation, David was pretty focused on their home life and didn't really seem to care about his career, whereas Connie's work-life scales were more balanced in the other direction. She wanted to make sure that she was doing something meaningful in life via her career, and that sometimes trumped her life with David.

To make marital matters worse, Connie seemed to think David was wasting his potential to do great things with his brains/high-powered M.I.T. education.

Through the events in Independence Day, Connie and David come to a kind of middle ground. David puts his brains to good use and ends up helping to save humanity, and so gets the kind of ambition Connie had always wanted to see.

Meanwhile, even before David saves the planet, Connie seems to be softening toward David and moving toward a reconciliation with him, which indicates that perhaps the love-career balance is becoming more even in her mind.