Gas Huffing Before AND after suicide????

I would agree with Elitisteloquence.

That is all.

> there was far too much discovery on his part.

It happens as he comes out of the airport: a 360-degree camera spin: this is his world slipping from grief into active dysfunction, as he smells gas from the taxi and the idea takes root. That is the turning point.

> The match was just to burn the letter. The fact that he burned the house down was just used for irony.

HE didn't burn the house: LIZA did. Her suicide, which she asked him "to bear," was nearly unbearable, nearly destroyed him. The letter, when he finally read it, failed to lay blame on him, so it was relief from guilt. At that point, we realize how close Liza came to destroying Wilson. The idea appears on screen, quite literally, as the fire from the letter catches his clothes, and he barely escapes from the flame. He is left with nothing, but at least he is free of danger.

Yeah but that doesn't really make much sense. You saw those gas huffing teens, they were nearly retarded. All his exploration around the gas sniffing, such as when he is pumping the gas or when he is kneels down by the cab, points at no prior use. I think that scene where he hears about gas huffing would have been unnecessary-- huffing gas is not something that is difficult to learn, or rare.

I think its pretty clear he had never huffed before based on all the scenes you see of him going about attaining it, the excuses he used to cover it up, and the way he used (not to mention he had a successful career prior) it.

The reason I think he turned to that I believe shows up in one important and short scene.

This is when he is in the garage and he sees what I believe is a hair-band with some of his wife's hair still on it and later when walking toward the back of the car I believe there is a rag stuck in the tailpipe. Now I don't know if putting a rag in your tailpipe is a method one can use to kill themselves via the fumes of a car. I'm not sure why you wouldn't just close the garage and run the car regularly. Maybe closing off the exhaust causes some other form of gas leaking.

And no (for the reasons I just mentioned), I do not believe it is true that she shot herself in the head. There is the scene at the boat race where the girls are asking Will about his dead wife if its true she shot herself, and he says "No not exactly like that...but she did kill herself" or something in that vein.

Denny by the way, is the only one who ever mentions her suicide being with a gun. I do not consider him (based on his personality) to be someone I would trust knowing the truth about a situation. Also he is only the brother/friend? of Will's female co-worker that likes him; he certainly wouldn't have the best insider information on how she died. I would think the family (of a relative who committed suicide) could keep details about how it was exactly executed private if they so chose. Additionally, (of course film-makers don't have to know this) women very rarely commit suicide by gun-shot, and there would be a whole other issue of how she got the gun. We would have to assume Will would be the type to keep one.

I believe she killed herself by inhaling fumes from the car, which in some way might explain how Will ever got the idea to start inhaling himself.

I do believe the few things falling over on Will means something, but I'm still deliberating on exactly what.

I have mixed feelings about whether Will was a poor husband and that he felt guilty and responsible about her death. Certainly avoiding reading it would signify some form of guilt (for fear she might blame him in the letter, and he would never be able to forgive himself), but I would also say he could have just been afraid of whatever it said. Because nothing she could write would conceivably change the situation, and in many ways by reading it he has to confront the end of his grieving process. Maybe he just wanted to prolong his drug-using, out of present mind life as long as possible. Reading the letter may have presented a forced look at reality.

Also there is that somewhat telling scene where he screams "I loved well!" in a moment of seeming honesty. His mother-in-law seems to care very much for him too; which I would take as a sign her daughter always spoke well about Will. Why else would she care so deeply for him; never did I get the sense that she blamed Will for what happened, she seemed just as surprised and devastated as him.

What if the fear of reading the letter was just that although he believes he was a good husband, if she blames him for her depression (and eventual suicide) he would never be able to get passed that. Putting myself in that terrible situation, even if I was 100% certain I had been a good husband I would still be fearful my wife would ultimately blame me in her letter.

Yet, him feeling guilty about her death is a much easier explanation, and seeing that she didn't blame him appears to have relieved him (but whether or not he was a good husband or not would still lead him to be relieved after reading that loving letter). I believe there are signs that point to different interpretations, but maybe its a bit of both.

Amazing movie, another exceptional performance by Hoffman.

cdngo, I saw the mundane items repeatedly falling over on Will as illustrating how hard it is to cope with the details of life when one is suffering loss. There is also humor (and pathos) in Will's repeated failure to keep simple things right-end-up.

Because the director obviously was trying to draw our attention with the device, you might guess that he may have been foreshadowing what was to become of Will's life under the influence of grief.

Considered by me the best sensation ever.