MovieChat Forums > The Missing (2003) Discussion > Brake and Lilly

Brake and Lilly

posted 15 years ago by xphoenixrising
7 replies | jump to latest

I rewound this a few times when Dot was crying and therefore hard to understand. Were Brake and Lilly going to run away together?

[–] stbarabas 15 years ago

No.

[–] raf-33 14 years ago

Lol, what a stupid hypothesis. Brake loved Maggie, and Lilly's only infatuation at that time was the cities in the east. There was nothing to show that she was even interested in boys yet.

With your feet in the air and your head on the ground, try this sig with spinach!

[–] Zando777 13 years ago

God, relax, it was a simple question. And it's wholly plausible that a young woman looking to go to the city would try to seduce an older man to help facilitate that. I don't think that was the case either here, but it's not real clear what happened in that scene, or why.

[–] 13 years ago

[deleted]

[–] toallitas 11 years ago

What did Samuel mean about Brake being killed in some places for what he did with Maggie? Is it just about cohabiting (living in sin) with her, or something else.

[–] roger-395 11 years ago

This was the frontier in 1885. There was no great sin in co-habitation because people living on the edge need to be practical in order to stay alive. If they lived in town people would have gossiped. What was odd and strange about Brake's and Maggie's relationship was the fact that they were living a lie. They had an intimate relationship but refused to openly acknowledge it. The two girls knew it but Maggie tried to keep it secret, which was silly. It's worth watching the many scenes that were cut from the final film since they fill in gaps the Howard wanted the audience to fill in with their imagination.

[–] shipperly-groom 10 years ago

The line was a kind of ironic way of making the point that Brake and Maggie are concerned with the 'proprieties', even when they are breaking the moral rules.

Maggie despises her father for his moral 'weakness' in openly pursuing the free, wild life of the Indians, as she sees it, instead of his obligation to look after his family. From his pov, it wasn't fair or loving to do that, but it did have integrity. His daughter is so scared of that loss of civilised identity, she clings to an outward 'respectability' that is part of what the whites see as the embodiment of their superiority.

Her dad is pointing out that in terms of her professed moral code, he should be acting the outraged father, and punishing the man who is dishonouring her by sharing her bed without being her husband. But in fact the morality is sham, and the only decencies in the situation that matter - the ones that Maggie believes set them apart from 'the savages' - are the polite surface ones, which Brake knows are hollow. Jones is basically gently reminding him to bear that in mind before feeling at all self righteous about her father's failings.