MovieChat Forums > Baby Boom (1987) Discussion > The ending is stupid

The ending is stupid

posted 14 years ago by Lindahrosen
33 replies | jump to latest

Although I really like this movie, here is what I find completely unrealistic. At the end of the movie, the Food Chain offers to buy Country Baby for some ungodly sum of money like 1-3 million. I can't remember the exact amount. Instead of turning down the whole offer (which included a job for JC of nearly 1 million per year in salary), why didn't she just take a lump sum for the company, reject the job, and leave it at that. She could have invested that money, lived off the interest and had all the time in the world to spend with her baby and new guy. She could have even started another career. It just doesn't make sense to me. Am I missing something?

[–] intelligentsupermodel 14 years ago

To begin, she didn't really need the money, plus, Country Baby was never officially "for sale". Also, I was under the impression that she liked running her own company, and that she wasn't crazy about some of the proposed changes the Food Chain wanted to make after buying it from her (Country Baby homemade in Ohio, for example). Her whole speech when she rejected the job was based on how she could do the same things that the Food Chain could do, but this time it was going to be on her terms. Finally, I think she was proud of what she did (starting a successful company and finding a niche in the market) and that it meant something to her...after all it had her baby's picture on every jar. Also, remember how bored she was when she first moved to Vermont? She needed something to do, and running her own company was right up her alley.

I don't think selling the company is a horrible idea, I just don't think it's what J.C. wanted.

[–] freefall79 14 years ago

Also JC had to remember that due to her business, the local harvest that she got her ingredients from were larger in numbers and she now had a working factory that employed people. she now had a business where peoples livelihoods depend on her. also the remembered the oppressive workplace she once was in and she decided that being with Elizabeth for so long, she couldn't miss out on any part of her growing up

Thunderbirds Aren't Slow

[–] spike71 14 years ago

I was SO glad she turned down the deal. Kind of like she stuck it to them after the way they treated her when Elizabeth came along.

[–] swizzlestix 14 years ago

I have to agree with OP in this case. All that money for the company, whether 'needed' or not, would have been financial security for the baby, not to mention JC herself. No way I could ever pass up that kind of money lol!

[–] speechless1961-564-488484 9 years ago

Really, you could take a lot of money for YOURSELF while putting other people out of work? Geez.

[–] volvorottie 14 years ago

Hi all I think the ending was predictable given the workplace and economy in 1987 when Reagan was President and there was a recession. Women like me, had to work twice as hard as the guys, esp. if we had kids and we wanted to play on a level playing field [it was never level - they tilted it in their favor in ways big & small - and never missed a chance to humiliate us women who had the gall to want to play ball too]. I was 28 when this came out and no matter how educated or experienced, and effective, women were still 2nd class citizens in the company. Having a child was seen as a detriment. I interviewed in 1990 and was still asked outright if I had kids and how old were they, and who took care of them[him- one kid] after school. That was the sort of old time sexist BS we put up with then [young women today owe us a thank you for being the moms who worked hard and beat down the doors of discrimination and eventually dames my age also broke the glass ceiling]. This movie was a huge hit because it hit a raw nerve in American culture - Keaton ironically has never been a mom or married for that matter.

I watched this tonight on free local TV and loved it, esp. the scene on the road and her jeep has a flat and along comes the handsome laconic Vet - Dr. Cooper, who offers to help her as she frantically attempts to jack up her car and then change the tire. He snatches her up and plants a huge kiss on her after telling her she reminds him of a spunky Terrier dog. I think that was a pitch perfect scene played terrifically by the dazzling Diane Keaton. It's an LOL scene.

The movie ends well since clearly JC has chosen life and not a corporation over it at the end. Maybe saying I love you isn't really what we know this character would say.

What happened with her turning down all the money $3M for her company and nearly a million a yr in perks and pay is highly unlikely in reality. Read her what happened to 2 brothers in Vermont who really did begin an organic baby food company and read how it turned out:

Bringing Up Baby With Its Parents On the Sideline
By CAROL MARIE CROPPER
Published: May 5, 1996

look it up on the Nytimes.com website.

[–] texastreasure517 14 years ago

I was 31 in 1987 and this take on the times is dead-on. Also, the "I love you" is pretty much implied. Actions speak louder than words, here.

[–] sjlatorre707 10 years ago

Although she has never been married, DK DOES have children.

[–] kathy197778-139-304748 9 years ago

I watched this movie for the first time in about 15 years or so earlier today. I thought was JC - the Harvard educated.experienced business person that she was - simply playing hard ball?

If Food Giant wanted this fairly new company SO BADLY that they would offer up as a starting point $3 million in 1987 money (roughly worth between 6-6 1/2 million today) that they probably wouldn't just disappear.

Being the romantic I am I hope she walked away because she wanted to parent her child in that staggeringly beautiful VT town with (Hello!) Sam Shepard as a love interest and the autonomy of a successful business she built from scratch. But who knows...if they came back with more cash maybe she'd take the money and run!

[–] Theystillcallmebee 14 years ago

Several reasons. Remember when she said "If the Food Chain can put Country Baby on the market so can I." Would you deal with the people that betrayed you? I sure wouldn't!

Theystillcallmebee (My fave actress is Doris even to this Day)

[–] mixedmed 14 years ago

Several reasons. Remember when she said "If the Food Chain can put Country Baby on the market so can I." Would you deal with the people that betrayed you? I sure wouldn't!

^ This. She busted her ass for these folks and they tossed her down the ladder without a second thought the moment she ran into a bump in her personal life. Why should she trust them to do right by the company she built herself? Besides, it was more than about money, it was about constructing a life she wanted for herself and her daughter.

[–] 14 years ago

[deleted]

[–] spike71 14 years ago

I know it's only a movie but when she left the conference room to think the deal over, I was seriously thinking "don't take it, DON'T take it." They did stick it to her and she was absolutely right when she said "If the Food Chain can put Country baby on the market, so can I."

[–] laranadtony 13 years ago

Speaking for some of the older generation,it is not always about the money...it is about a sense of accomplishment and a sense of having a purpose....

DISCLAIMER:Not speaking for all of the older generation!

Life is not about going to your grave regretting your life!!

[–] Geechee 12 years ago

The ending was the way the writer wrote it...stupid or not.

"If I don't suit chu, you kin cut mah thoat!"

[–] tanyalakhdar0 12 years ago

This movie is just your average Hollywood movie with absolutely no twists or turns and no reason for anything.
She gets a baby, hates the baby, then grows to love the baby.
She sees a man, hates the man, then falls in love with him and marries him.
Oh, and she has a miracle business which would never possibly be so successful. It's just baby food! There's a hundred different brands of baby food out there!

The answer to your question is it wouldn't be Hollywood enough. "It's not about the money" is the cheesy moral/message of the movie they tried to get across, but it was really only a stupid decision. If you expected anything interesting out of this movie, you've watched the wrong one, sweetheart...

[–] mixedmed 12 years ago

Oh, and she has a miracle business which would never possibly be so successful. It's just baby food! There's a hundred different brands of baby food out there!

By that logic, Ben and Jerry's (ironically also made in Vermont) never should have been successful since there was already Haagen Daas, Baskin-Robbins, Breyers, etc, etc.

And yeah, NOW there's tons of baby food makers out there with salt-free, gluten-free, sugar-free, organic varieties, and baby food with nutritional particles that supposedly makes your baby develop better or some other such stuff. Back then not quite as much...there was Gerbers, Beechnut, and some other brands and they were all pretty much doing the same thing. The point of JC's business taking off was that she had a different spin on something that was already out there, she had a good product, and the research and business savvy to back it up. In the 80's they were spending on top dollar on every thing...why not baby food if the other companies weren't already doing it?

[–] Ithilfaen 11 years ago

For the first time in a very long time, she actually enjoys what she does for a living and the life she has. She's not after the money or the job. The only reason she even took the meeting was to prove to herself that she still had it. She needed the chance to exit on her own terms instead of getting rejected. She only realizes it after they made the offers.

For every lie I unlearn I learn something new - Ani Difranco