The tree is the answer to the movie (Spoilers. Beware)

I've cut down trees before. You can watch them being cut down online. They don't go down quickly with an ax. A dead tree visibility leans a little the more it is weakened, squeaks, then cracks and splits and then falls down. In fact you can run away from them...but never mind that. Maybe Jill knew the tree would fall there. She knew the way it was leaning, and knew that Paul knew it too. Maybe she actually killed herself in depression, realizing that she would lose Ellen again. That makes sense right? I mean their trust was shattered (the tree was symbolic of their relationship, and I'm sure there is a more to be read into that). In this reading it is a slightly better climax, and goes with the downbeat ending more fittingly. Perhaps someone who read the book has a better grasp of the what plot really hinted at.

I was so stuck in Buzzfeed-politically-correct mode that I didn't even realize that a film this old might actually appreciate sexual fluidity or bisexuality. If you only look at it from the angle of a gay woman "won" over or "cured" by a hunky, stereotypical man, then, yeah, it is a homophobic movie.

But if you assume the film was trying to be subtle and look at it from the angle of a bisexual woman attracted to another attractive person, perhaps wanting a family, and/or conforming to what society tells her she should be, then this movie is more like a tragedy...as opposed to a melodrama. The Paul character is sort of a creep, so there is definitely some dramatic irony going on. Going back to the tree again...He is not a very good guy; he destroys things: foxes, chickens, romances, trees, etc.

As opposed to the popular sentiment that gays are killed in movies by prudish directors to punish them for their lifestyle (not an unreasonable suggestion), I would suggest that this film is cliched in another more basic way. A lot of movies kill off characters to make a tidy ending. Death is a default ending; it extinguishes an arc and provides the necessary payoff, even if Jill's death was a suicide. In this film we know the struggle is definitively over. I think the time-worn gay cinematic reading may be a littler overblown.