Great movie
I loved this movie but i thought that Edie Falco and Timothy Hutton lacked any sort of chemistry
shareLuckily Angela Basset and James McDaniel had good chemistry. They made a nice couple. Jane Alexander-Ralph Waite and Mary Steenburgen-Gordon Clapp made realistic couples too.
I'd have like to see the Reggie and Desiree characters adopt Terrell and take him back to Boston. Terrell seemed to do a lot better with the discipline of having a father. Being a teenager, he's a little too much for Mary Alice's character, Mrs. Stokes, to handle. Given what he'd gone through, they are lucky if his only problem is being an arsonist.
Life is never fair, and perhaps it is a good thing for most of us that it is not.
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I'd have like to see the Reggie and Desiree characters adopt Terrell and take him back to Boston. Terrell seemed to do a lot better with the discipline of having a father. Being a teenager, he's a little too much for Mary Alice's character, Mrs. Stokes, to handle
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I, too, was expecting a clear indication to whether Desiree and Reggie were going to adopt Terrell. I think it is strongly implied. We find out near the end of the film that Desiree's early pregnancy has left her barren and Terrell even refers to Reggie as his father in the scene with Ralph Waite. I don't think this was an omission on Sayles part. There are many relationships up in the air at the end of the film. It looked like Timothy Hutton and Edie Falco's characters would hook up at the end? Maybe they will still. It looked like Gordon Clapp's character realized his wife (Mary Steenburgen's character) needs him and he'll give up his plan to kill himself and admit his gambling addiction to her and amend their relationship.
Sayles is wise, I think, to leave the results of these relationships up to our imagination. It makes the film that much more real.
Or maybe there's a SUNSHINE STATE Part 2 in the making.
I agree with all your potential endings except one, Timothy Hutton and Edie Falco's characters. The fact they showed the company man zooming off to his next job kind of showed their relationship was just a fling to him. It showed that he's already moved on. His main relationship was with the company.
Life is never fair, and perhaps it is a good thing for most of us that it is not.