Question about the mysterious 'staggering' man

He *could* be a symbol of where Carol will end up, but I think Nell's husband (who died in the igloo) is possibly another future for her.

The man is just "afraid of everything" - what he eats, the air, the outdoors etc. - I don't think he has any specific illness, but is just an extreme example of the others at the camp.

For me, Lester is a very unsettling character. His movements are frightening (I wonder if the actor put stones in his shoes to get that effect?)

Lester and Dunning both strike an absurd posture in the film! Lester appears on two occasions, and on each of them, Peter Dunning, founder (and chief beneficiary) of Wrenwood, is dispensing some... wisdom to Carol(on the first occasion to Carol personally, and on the second to Carol as part of a group in which he gives some highly dubious opinions on the causes of physical illness). Perhaps Lester is an in-your-face to Dunning's philosophy, or even a warning to Carol about how seriously she should take Dunning's opinions about routes to sound mental and physical health.

When the world presents us with evidence that our opinions might be incorrect, you would think that this would change our opinions, but it has been found that what actually happens is that we try to change the world to fit and even strengthen our opinion instead. Claire, the Wrenwood Director, is more aware of the importance of tailoring the approach to the individual than Dunning seems to be. Lester should be a signal to Dunning that perhaps Wrenwood does not fit everyone. Instead, Dunning turns him into another example to support his existing view that physical illness is the fault of the individual. Dunning himself is full of hypocritical contradictions about the nature of shame and blame. Lester provides a physical manifestation of this absurdity.

he is very frightening, I remember not being able to sleep after watching the movie with the image of that strangely walking man in my head...

whats strange about the DVD cover is that the person in the picture is certainly androgynous, possibly a woman, and i think it is an image of Carol having turned into Lester, never having gotten any better...I could be wrong though.

He ("Lester") was originally the only image on the posters and publicity for the film, (http://www.musicafilm.it/dvd-film/safe-sicura.html) but certainly didn't help to sell an already difficult film with such a confusing and off-putting figure, so the DVD release has a close-up of Julianne Moore; it's better than the VHS release, which actually had an image of Julianne Moore smiling and sort-of laughing, which I don't think was even taken from the film! It's perversely interesting to see how the film industry, even the "indie" side, desperately tries to sell something essentially un-sell-able . . .

I agree with all the different perspectives and interpretations of "Lester" (quotation marks because he's hardly a character, but more of an idea or intersection of ideas). I think the costume totally removes any sense of identity or individuality; the stripes seems to visually increase the idea of him as a graphic symbol rather than human character; and the black and white stripes makes him stand out starkly from the "natural" environs of Wrenwood. His stumbling is frightening, pathetic and totally ridiculous, even hilarious, which is how every character in the film is presented, and the tone of the film itself. (Watching it in the theater my friend and I were cracking up the whole way through, to the confusion of the small group of other patrons. Some, atlhough not all, of Carol's "attacks" are quite absurd and overblown--the parking garage, the hairdressers, etc.--and throwing up on her husband when he takes her in his arms to comfort her . . . speaks for itself.)

Dont' forget that when Carol asks Peter Dunning, the founder of Wrenwood, about Lester, Peter basically says, "Oh, that's just Lester, don't pay him any mind, he's just a lost cause," yet another of a hundred signals to get the hell out of Wrenwood, which Carol is simply too unformed as an entity to hear and consider (starting with "Go back! Go back!" being the first words we and Carol hear at her arrival there). As a cautionary tale, which I think the film is, I agree that Lester is where Carol will be if she continues down the same path. And the color white connects Carol (her name, race, and her one vice, "milk"), Lester, and the interior/exterior of her "pod" or whatever her cave/cell is called at the end of the film.

Lots more to say of course, being a Haynes film, and really his most perfect one, his masterpiece, at that.