And that's the cinema. Films play back the same way every time. We return to them over and over again, even when they reveal unpleasant truths - or pose insolent questions the answers to which it's up to us to formulate (not regurgitate), to construct with our own battered material. The movies are mentors: we keep coming back out of admiration for their moxie. They're a conversation, a sitting for a self-examination. The 'characters' don't have a destiny because they don't need one. We do. For better or for worse, we are the cinema.
Well said, Craig.
