At the same time, it seems to me that Don is heartbroken that he had to leave his wife behind, but knows it was the right decision. The way I see it, Alice should be spending her last moments rooting for her husband to get away and survive, in order to take care of their children. Sure, I realize that "realistically" if someone was about to be shredded by zombies, anyone would be reduced to a wimp, but as far as movies go, this just makes me see her as 1) not very smart, and 2) pretty selfish and cowardly. It would have made their relationship and entire family dynamic seem more wholesome, and would have me want to root for their family more, and feel worse about the eventual deaths of both Don and Alice.But instead, Alice screams for him to save her and keeps banging on the window as he runs away, essentially asking him to come back for her, and to what would be imminent death. I would have preferred at this point for Alice and Don to have made eye contact, Alice to have recognized her fate, and given Don an understanding nod or the like, to acknowledge she gives Don permission to leave her and try to survive for their kids. Like if spouse and child are in danger and you can save one, save the child, every time. I personally don't have children, but I feel like there is some sort of unspoken agreement between parents that your children should always come first. He had a responsibility to try and survive for his kids. I honestly think going down with his wife and not having to live with the sadness and guilt of losing her would have been the easy way out and more cowardly thing to do. He still had kids alive - his and Alice's actual children. Sure, Don could've went in swinging and died with them, but would that have made him a better person? I don't think so. But at the point where Alice and the random kid are on the other side of the room, with several zombies already between them and more pouring in the door every second, Alice and the kid were essentially already dead (okay, so Alice survives, but they both had a 99%+ chance of being infected). It might have been a noble intention, but ultimately it was a shortsighted and stupid decision (yes, I know it's somewhat unfair to analyze people's "decisions" when they have to go on split-second reactions). It seems pretty clear that this is the perspective that the director wants us to have too, because they essentially end up making Don the primary antagonist of the entire film.But my issue is - was Don really that terrible of a person for "leaving" his wife to die? The way I see it, Alice doomed herself when she insisted on trying to save the random kid, who was the one who put them all in danger in the first place. And from what I've read in other online discussions, this seems to be the prevailing sentiment people have towards these two characters.
And the biggest reason is that the opening scene - which was amazing in certain aspects - seems to set a precedent that Don is some coward that we're supposed to root against, while Alice was some noble martyr-like figure who died a heroic death. After watching 28 Days Later for the first time and loving it (never been that into zombie movies, but recently starting to discover some good ones), I watched 28 Weeks Later last night and was kind of disappointed and conflicted about the entire movie.
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