I mean seriously, he clearly seems far less like a loving, protecting brother throughout the film than a jealous, scorned suitor. The sexual tension between Jessie and Tom throughout the film is presented pretty bluntly and I haven't read the novel but I have read reviews that state that the brother is sexually interested in his sister and they actually goes as far as to have sex with each other.
shareMaybe he was jealous. I don't know if the sexual tension was as high as you state, but the fact that she doesn't even cover up when she's either naked or just wearing panties when Tom is in her room does make me wonder. Maybe they were having sex before, and now he's found out that Jessie is having sex with the father is stirring up feelings of jealousy.
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"She flattened a Dear John with a John Deere." - Douglas Wambaugh
i dont think they had sex because the scene where is is half naed with the older women the sister set up so he could lose his virginity. but the fact is there are many brother and sisters out there who have secually tence relationships in fact a good 19 percent of children experiement with eachother at roughly the age of 11 or 12 years old plus being the fact that they seem like they were kind of sheltered and had little amounts of friends they probily were already close
shareNot to mention that their family had extremely messed up sexual dynamics, to put it lightly, even if it wasn't completely visible on the surface. I just kept thinking THERAPY.
shareI don't think that Tom and Jessie were sexually involved (until perhaps the last scene). There was definitely some tension between them but it doesn't necessarily have to be direct sexual tension.
I think that the source of their tension was more anger and disgust. By seeing his father and sister together, Tom's entire view of his family was subverted. They probably never had a particularly normal or happy family life, but up until then they could at least pretend that it was an innocent one. After seeing Jess and the father together, Jess probably became an embodiment to Tom of perversion and lost innocence. Even if he recognizes her as a victim, he isn't able to separate her from the crimes that she takes part in. This causes him to blame Jess, which fuels the tensions between them. He is probably also torn between wanting to become her protector and stand up to their father (as he eventually does) and wanting to stay out of it and pretend that he never saw what he did.
With that said, there definitely is a creepiness factor to Tom’s character.
1- Even if his relationship with Jessie isn’t sexual, he does see her in a sexual way. Whether he wants to or not, he can't help it after the things he's seen.
2- He is extremely voyeuristic. By filming Jessie and the father together when they were in the bunker, he becomes both a part of their act and a consenter to it. He had the opportunity then and there to stop them, but he doesn’t. Instead, he uses the information he has to shame Jessie further and make her even more vulnerable and exposed. The fact that he later destroys the tape doesn’t excuse the fact that he felt compelled to make it.
15 is a tough age for a boy. then he finds out that the worst thing imaginable is happening in his family. the father was verbally and physically abusive to him. So you have his long standing victim status in the family and being immature. So everyone expects him to stand up and do the right thing but it is hard.
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