the end...????


i found this movie quite interesting because although at the beginning i thought is was going to be one of those romantic stories of those where a man meets prostitude/strip dancer,a man fell in love with her and she fell in love with him and a happpy ending..I was really impressed by that scene after they made love where she told him that she's not in love with him in a rather aggresive way and she tears him apart.what i didn't get is:is he went back at the place she worked again or was it flash back?what is the last scene all about??

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I think it's a flashback because I kind of remember they used the same scene somewhere at the beginning of the movie. He went to see where she works after she told him she's a stripper in the cafe.

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I too wondered about the ending. But on the DVD there are two alternate endings.

First one has him getting his check back and then him apologizing to her.

The second has him apologizing to her and then getting the check back.

In the second alternative ending he goes back to the club and we have the final scene.

What does it all mean?????

To me the alternate endings tells me something that wasn't clear in the ending used:

She keeps the check and he never apologized. The final scene is in my mind they are going to try again cause they are both stuck. Sort of like a real life Groundhog Day. If the director hadn’t had the scene where he meets her and she tells him she’s a stripper. The first and last scene with them both in it is the same and the film would have truly taken on a Kafka like feel

This is all conjecture on my part.

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Whether the end was a flashback or not doesn't matter so much. It's telling us that at the end of this movie, Peter Sarsgaard blew his chance to have a real relationship. He had a choice from the beginning -- he could have asked Molly Parker where she played drums, but instead he asked her where she stripped. This got him into the pay for playacting relationship that they could never get out of.

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I don't think the timing of that scene is important either, but for a slightly different reason. In my opinion, they intentionally left it confusing as to when it happened to further enforce the fact that these two people never truly connected with each other. Like you said, they could only comfortably relate in their familar roles of "stripper" and "watcher". So the scene could have happened in the beginning just as much as it could have happened in the end, because their relationship never really changed in between.

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I just watched this movie and was rather confused by it all. It reminded me a lot of last Tango in Paris. I found Roger Ebert's review rather interesting.

As to the end, I don't think it was a flashback. I think they just went back to their strictly professional relationship. Of course if you are a romantic, and usually I am, then the ending is the begining of a new relationship with an ultimate happy ending. The alternate endings in the DVD suggest that that would be the case since she sends him the money back, thereby permitting her to 'feel'.

Anyway, cool flick; makes me think.

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Yes, I agree. I believe he really totally blew any chance he had at a relationship with he when he, uh, treated her roughly...but she basically didn't let it affect her and she kept doing her job. In the strip club at the end, it was business as usual, he was glad to see her again and she was glad to sit on his lap for money.

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Even after having seen it for the 3rd time, I see the beginning lapdance scene as a flashforward. So that means that the scene in the end is really the end.
She recognizes him, he's shy, she offers him two lapdances for sixty dollars.
With this ending, their places are secured: she's not his lover, he's not hers. Their relation - whatever has happened - is businesslike.





"When there is no more room in the oven,
the Bread will walk the earth."

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I agree that he lost any chance at a real relationship, and that they are strictly business. But, is how it ended related to her speech she gives when they meet somebody and pose as business partners, the speach where the title of the movie comes from. "The center of the world", referring to a womeans most intimate area(this was more minor friendly than the choice words of the movie)? I think that is a key part of the movie that is overlooked when tryign ot figure out the whole movie.

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Interesting, she uses the description "Center of the World" to describe a woman's vagina, and if you remember near the beginning, he uses the same phrase to describe how he feels when he's on his computer after she asks if he ever gets lonely just being on computer all day.

Also interesting is that while they each claim to feel at the center of the world in their relative ways, these means don't really provide them with much satisfaction. They're both still lonely and unconnected, even though they claim the vagina and the computer are keeping them in touch with the world at large.

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Well put Divinehammer!

I see the last scenes presence as exactly the opposite of what eleniapoughia thought of the film as "one of those films where a rich man falls for a prostitute/stripper"!

Through the film one would expect them to grow more attached to each other, but as we see in the end these to individuals who are trying to find someway to feel something puts different things into the situation they are in, actually a great subject, all the feelings and thoughts that for humans are connected with something as fundamental as sex. I guess they both had chances to reach out to the other one, but a scene as the one where they disuss what they have studied shows that they miss the chances that actually comes naturally. Instead the sex becomes much more central for them in this "relationship" and therefor for her it is more of a buisness deal, where he puts more thought into the whole act of sex! He expects a return of feelings, and I just hate the last scene where they had sex, where he "gets into" as a man often does, but she just lies there dead! The scenes is incredible realistic and very well made, what I hate is the idea of being in his position showing all of his feelings and getting nothing in return. It pains my heart to see it, and it really sets up the end good! After so long time together talking and having sex. We flash back to the only scene where they are perfectly happy with each other, the situation where he is the customer with loads of money and where she is just a product for him to buy, right there are are no feelings to cloud their visions of the other person. Because when there are talk then suddenly there are a basis for feelings.
The masturbation scene therefor are legalized by what she says, something about doing what ever he wants! He wants her to feel and she therefor does as a professional would do and makes herself feel. Thereby pushing everything between them away!

Those are my principles, and if you don't like them... well, I have others.

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I think directors leave these things open on purpose for discussions such as this one.

It does seem all too realistic, and I was hopeing for something happy and all tightly rolled up to a conclusivly definative end, instead I got something that made me think. Dang thats no fun, thinking, what? Screw ambiguity.

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first off, i think that this movie had A LOT of shifting within fantasy vs. reality. a lot of what the character richard fantasied about did not fully live up to his expectations in reality (i.e the fire and ice scene and when him and the stripper had penetration/sex.)

the end of the movie is EXTREMELY ambiguous, which is an interesting technique the director WANG used. i think that the ending was a fantasy that character of richard was having. since the relationship was obviously doomed it was the only way to end to movie on a kind of upbeat note.

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I think that the end scene showed that they have come full circle and dispite the fact that they have done all of the things that they have done they are right back where they started and will always be there

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All this talk about any chance of a real relationship and a flashback is ridiculous. She doesn't want him, she just wants to get paid. He's the one that fell in love, and since he can't have her, he'll take what he can get. There was never a possibility of a relationship.

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A harsh and succinct appraisal, I think you are correct. I really felt for the characters, and a Pretty Woman ending would have been satisfying, but this ending feels right. It can be a tough world, and there's a reason they say "It only happens in the movies." I appreciated the director's frankness.


Some days even my lucky rocketship underpants don't help.

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The end is the "end". Even though they both had different "centers" before the trip they ended up having a new "center" when they were together in Vegas basically holed up in the suite. When that new "center" was gone they went back to their old lives and old "centers" ...vagina and computers.

There can be no relationship. I thought it was cool how the first time he sees her in the club and the end is almost exactly the same. They have both accepted how the relationship must be and everything inbetween really didn't matter. Even if they had no trip their "centers" could not be broken.

It's sad really and at the end during the sex scene I got a bit emotional. Is it saying that women want money and men want sex? It's been said forever that women marry to make a nest and have children and money while men marry for sex and to have someone to take care of them. Don't flame me, it's basic psychology. In any case, this film totally attempts to prove that point.

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The last scene made me think that maybe the whole thing was a setup. I am surprised no one has mentioned this. She asks if he wants the regular thing, and he says yes, something like that. Maybe the whole play out of the never to be relationship is what he wanted in the first place and so that is what she provided him with. They go through the cycle, he recovers, and then they play it out again.

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