Foil

Character Role Analysis

Edwardes/John Ballantyne

"Wait a minute," you may be saying to yourself. "Edwardes and Ballantyne are the same dude. Edwardes is Ballantyne; Ballantyne is Edwards. Where's the foil-ness there?"

Okay, so, yes, at first Ballantyne thinks he's Edwardes. But remember, there's another Edwardes over there, dead in the snow. Through a lot of the movie, Ballantyne is defined by not being Edwardes. He's not an analyst. He's not a brilliant therapist (just a run-of-the-mill doctor). He's not middle-aged. He's this young, hot guy who doesn't know anything about guilt complexes.

And this foil-ness is important for the characterization of Constance, too. Constance thinks she's in love at first with Dr. Edwardes, just the sort of brilliant analyst you'd think Constance would fall for.

But instead, it turns out she's in love with Ballantyne, the guy who doesn't know a guilt complex from a playing card and who's more interested in walking in the great outdoors than sitting in stuffy rooms reading books. The contrast between Edwardes and Ballantyne is also a contrast between Constance and Ballantyne—or between who Constance thinks she is and who she turns out to be.