Question 'Spoiler'

To answer all of your questions to the best of my ability but first off. WATCH THE MOVIE FROM BEGINNING TO END. IT IS GREAT AND DISTURBING AND TWISTED. I don't know why he put him in the shed. other than maybe he figured Jimmy west/danny knight would go to the cops and turn him in. Kate was shot by the mother and then the mother was shot by the cops. But watch the movie. No he was alive but barely.

*** Obviously spoilers are within *****

First, Kate (Nastassja) is 15 years older than Jimmy (Ryan), which is plenty old enough to be his mother especially considering this trailer-park family. However, it really isn't an issue because Kate *isn't* Jimmy's biological mother. Ray kidnapped Jimmy when he was a baby and Ray and Kate raised him as a son, and Jimmy didn't know that he wasn't the biological son of Ray and Kate. When Jimmy peeks in the bathroom window and sees Ray taking off his colostomy bag, and it is apparent from Jimmy's reaction that Ray is also missing his penis (which is why he has the colostomy bag in the first place), Jimmy then knows the truth, in part. Ray was *unable* to have kids, that means he was also unable to have Jimmy. When Jimmy sees that Ray is lacking the plumbing to procreate, he then realizes that Kate isn't his real mother, and I'm sure to some degree he feels some peace or a lessening of guilt that he has slept with, and borne children with his mother. Jimmy has always wanted to go off with his mother and the kids, and he and Kate both have a romantic love for each other. Although it is twisted that they would be romantically and sexually attracted to one another, the realization that they are not biologically mother and son clearly causes Jimmy to go into overdrive trying to convince Kate to leave with him and the kids. In other words, Jimmy *could* take the kids and leave Ray AND Kate if that is all he wanted, so the reason he doesn't is pretty clear that he is in love with Kate, and he shows that from time to time in the movie by how he touches, looks and communicates with Kate when they are alone.

The reason that Ray forces Jimmy and Kate to have sex has very little or nothing to do with giving Kate kids he cannot sire, and everything to do with him knowing that Kate needs physical love which he cannot give, and forcing Jimmy to do it is the closest he can come to doing it himself. Ray isn't so much turned on by Kate and Jimmy having sex as he is empowered by being able to control HOW Kate "cheats" on him, and (in his twisted mind) he can satisfy Kate (so she won't leave perhaps) and rob her of any attachment that sex might create. This is why he won't allow them to spend time together, talk privately, have sex privately, because he thinks he can keep Kate from becoming attached to a lover by denying her any intimacy beyond the act itself, and by forcing he to do it with Jimmy, a person that she literally can't become romantically attached to because Jimmy thinks she is his mother, and in fact she is in every way except genetically. Despite all Ray's best efforts, Kate and Jimmy have fallen in romantic love with each other, they do desire each other sexually, and they are willing and desirous of running away together and living as husband and wife with their two small children.

Is this sick and twisted? Yes, it is, but in a very strange and twisted way, it is the most functional alternative to their situation, and the best way to shove Ray's own twisted plot right into his face. It is totally understandable that Kate and Jimmy would fall in love, or more accurately that they would seek safety, solace and love in each other's arms, because THEY feel so twisted and broken they don't think that anyone else would have them, or that they should ruin another person's life as well. This is very clearly illustrated when he apologizes to his girlfriend for "wasting her last two years of high school" with him. Given the horror of their situation they may feel that they are forever bonded, that they accept one another when no one else probably would, that they "deserve" to be together because they — at some level — are to blame for their situation, that the boys need a mother and father and would readily accept Jimmy and Kate raising them, and finally, they DO romantically love one another, right or wrong.

At any rate, what happens is Jimmy’s REAL mother kills Ray and Kate, and Jimmy survives after being buried by Ray in a hole under the truck. The little boys survive, so we are led to believe that Jimmy will raise the boys, and all will be (relatively) well. The reason that Jimmy's real mom killed Kate is because Kate remained silent about the kidnapping and rape that occurred, instead of telling the cops or whatever. This is why — just before she kills Kate — she tells Kate to say, "Silence is not golden".

Why this movie is so very good is because there are so *very* many of these twisted kinds of situations going on in the world. I had a friend who was in one, not like this, but very weird and sad. It happens more than you might think, and I believe this movie was trying to illustrate how people can simply *accept* the horrid circumstances they are living in and continue on day after day. How many children in the world are sexually and physically abused every day? How many women are beaten everyday, and continue to stay with their husband? How many children are sold into slavery in places like Rwanda and other corners of Africa, and indeed all over the world? How many children are forced into hard labor instead of playing and going to school? Many more than we want to imagine. This film shows how people can live with horrific circumstances, and survive, no matter how sad that might be, people survive.

"...nothing is left of me, each time I see her..." - Catullus