I don't get it ... anyone? (spoilers)

[deleted]

Well.....let's see......

I thought I like the movie until I read your post. (LOL) Gives me a lot to think about.

I never did think Sam was a boy though. Not once. Somehow I knew it was a girl. Maybe it was some reference one of her parents made about her? Or maybe I just knew her from before or after this movie? I dunno. Geez, you have me all confused here.

My take on the accident was that although his sister seemed to think it was her fault that Paul crashed the car, it was really the little brothers fault because he shook up the soda and it exploded, no?

The guy who kidknapped Sam? He was a good friend of Paul's right? And Paul was seeing Sam's mom? Was their affair a secret to everyone? Weren't they sucking face at a club? In public? Did Paul's mother ever know about Paul and the older chick? Did Paul's friend know that Sam was Paul's girlfriends' daughter/son?

God, you have raised way too many questions...my head hurts.

But as you can tell, I didn't see this movie from the beginning. I was going to go rent it, but you've changed my mind!

If you could answer the above ?? I would appreciate it.


Janice

BRING OUR TROOPS HOME!!!

Sam is clearly supposed to be a girl right from the beginning, perhaps a tomboy, but clearly a girl. There are lots of references to her being a girl throughout including several obvious things (for the dinner out with her father and his fiance, she was wearing a dress, and there were lots of references to how pretty the two girls were, etc). I don't think there was anything implied about Sam having a relationship with Sally.

When Train listens in on the phone call, to most people it would be pretty clear that his wife wasn't hiding anything. That call was mostly a device to get out the line about people thinking his wife is divorced and for her to respond that he's always working so much what else would they think, etc. It was a little clumsy to script it that way, but I don't think we were supposed to buy that the wife was having an affair.

My guess on the scoring system was that it was indeed about sex. If you recall, Paul's mother at one point approaches him in the bar and sees Patty Clarkson's character flirting with him and asks her son if this is anything to take note of, not in a disapproving way, but more of a mom-as-buddy way (yes, a little odd...). So my sense of the scoring on the guitar was it was the daughter's way to show the mother that she can be as promiscuous as her mom's favorite child could be. In a way I think it was meant to say that mom shouldn't give her any grief over her sex life given that her brother didn't wear a chastity belt either.

As for your comments about this film being a waste of time, I disagree. It's not the greatest work, but I found it interesting and it drew me in as I tried to piece together how the characters got to the situation they were in, which was all resolved in the last fifteen minutes or so. It's not as good as Altman's "Shortcuts" which really defines this approach, but I certainly could follow the different arcs. I really disagree with your description of it as "meaningless, confusing, frustrating". But as the kid with the doll fixation would tell you, different strokes...

Loved it...

although I did have to read through some of these things first to get some bits and peices (scoring on the guitar etc).

Long story short I thought the whole move was like about being free from things in everybodies seperate and different day to day life.

Well, thats what I thought anyway.

(And I loved the song at the end, I still have it in my head [I just watched it, first time])

I kind of felt that Sam being a tom boy and making some people believe she was a boy and not a girl in the beginning of the movie illustrated a theme in the movie: people's different points of view. The store cop who was a driver in a fatal car accident. The accident itself and the different conclusions that people could make from it - was it Julie's car that caused the accident, or was it Paul's? All the while, all these families from the outside look happy and peaceful. The one thing that wasn't cleared up for me, which I guess is an artistic tool, so one decides the ending for themselves like the affair thing, is if Paul's parents knew about Julie's involvement in the car accident. It would make total sense they did if you go by the fact that Esther doted on Paul, and seemed to ignore Julie, but I took that Esther did that because she blamed herself for the accident. If that beer that exploded left a smell, maybe people thought Paul was drinking and driving since he did just come from a bar. Maybe Esther thought if she had made sure he had a DD or made him go home after the performance he would be alive. I don't know, but at the ending when Julie was remembering her involvement in the accident, it just didn't seem as if her parents, or if anyone knew. Did anyone notice if there were two cars in the scene where Glenn Close and the husband drive up to the scene and you see the ambulance? Again, I don't know why, but I just felt that Julie and her boyfriend might have left the scene.

Sorry, this might be long, but it's worth a read if you're questioning the importance or purpose of this film...

The film centers on the different ways people in this community have dealt with, or completely avoided dealing with, life transitions (getting older, losing someone, blaming yourself for a tragedy, divorce, sex, puberty, not getting an expected promotion, etc.) and of course, the results of the car accident. Each family is connected, in many different ways, and in order to catch them all you need to watch this movie SEVERAL times.

Another important theme is how people PUSH their issues onto other people in their lives. Samantha not going to camp (because her father isn't helping her mother financially) causes Sally to not want to go to camp. Mrs. Christiansen drills calorie counts and appearance information into her daughter's head because she's insecure about her own appearance. Mrs. Christiansen also nearly cheats on her husband, who truly loves her for who she is, because she struggles with aging. Susan is affected by Jim's dissatisfaction with his job, he doesn't contribute to the family except financially (note the morning breakfast scene, and Jim sneaking away for a drink in the restaurant). When he actually tries to contribute by landscaping there is a VERY metaphoric comment by Susan, "How do you mistake a flower for a weed?!" Jim views EVERYTHING in his life as not good (enough), he even tries to find flaws in his wife who genuinely seems to love him. Esther's depression about her son has alienated both her husband and her daughter. There IS SO MUCH going on in this film, if you only watch it once you just can't catch it all...

If anything, this movie is closest to Ordinary People or American Beauty, but not any of the other films you mentioned.

Samantha was always a girl(take note when they are introduced as clay figures in the opening credits, Samantha), she wears a dress to dinner, she is referred to as a lady, this is very clear in many scenes of the movie. There is no relationship with Sally. I think the smoking scene is used to show that they are getting into trouble together, trying to find ways to act older but still longing for childhood with things like camp and dolls. When Sally touches Jake, that's CLEARLY curiosity in older things, not younger. It is the transition between childhood and pre-adolescence.

Jim Train...I don't think Susan was cheating on him, I think he was digging to find unfairness in ANYTHING that he could. He found it at his firm, he found it in a stupid radio contest, he even found it while he was trying to play baseball and his card was declined. I think he was just like Lester Burnam in American Beauty...unhappy with a great life (well, until his wife started cheating on him because he was such a jerk)

The scoring system was a representation of how many times the mother focused on Paul instead of Julie. It was interesting that after the first scene between them, when her mother is reading to Paul, she went and scratched in a tally mark..."One more for you Paul" is the remark that is made. I don't think it had ANYTHING to do with sex, but more a representation of their mother's attention. Remember the tanning scene, where she is wishing to be paralyzed? ("I'm paralyzed...If only it were that easy") she is wishing for it so her mom will pay attention to her too, love her too.

This movie is INCREDIBLY deep and meaningful, you just have to sit and really watch it. Enjoy!