Confused by the ending


So I don't get it. The neighbor says the tape is erased yet we see the husband at the end looking at his wife getting pounded. That means he still has that proof. On top of that he has witnesses like the kid at the end who can attest to her being a prostitute. Finally, she essentially kidnapped the kids. Even if she can evade the authorities for the next decade, once the kids reach a certain age, they may try to find their father. Once they do, the mother will get charged for kidnapping them and go to jail. So....I don't know, this kind of nullifies some of the ending.

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As unrealistic as the ending was, I think it was meant to show just how useless Steve really was when it came to his family. He earned good money and provided a good home, and he hugged his kids every day and told them he loved them and some days drove them to school, but he didn't really pay attention or put in effort every day toward his relationships with his wife and kids, to the point that he couldn't even fight for them in a crisis. In real life, he would have told the police what happened and called an attorney, and the police would have found plenty of evidence to support his side of the case, and his wife would have been found and charged with a number of crimes and his kids would have been returned to him. But it's a movie, so it ends with a reinforcement of why this unstable woman went completely over the edge.

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Can't be charged for kidnapping your own kids without a judges orders....Nothing the cops can do till then..

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different countries might have different laws about parental kidnapping.

i have no idea what austrailia's laws are.

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Lots of plot holes and problems with the screenplay. LIke, hey....how about unscrewing the deadbolt instead of beating it with a frying pan, then breaking through ceiling walls? Would've been a lot easier.

When he knew she was nearby, why didn't he go looking for her (or take the deadbolt off and get the cops)? He wasn't at gunpoint then. And my favorite...why get drunk with the enemy when it could be poisoned and you need to be clear headed for the cops? Sigh.

Like you, I don't get why the neighbor would have left the sex act on there. To be cruel or because he felt sorry for him? As long as his face doesn't show, it would be hard to prove it was the neighbor...unless a birthmark shows or his member is identifiable. :)

"Don't get chumpatized"! -The King of Kong (2007)

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You make some excellent points d-hdass, I thought the same thing. I suppose at the end you are supposed to believe the man is defeated and so self-loathing he doesn't have the drive to go after his wife and kids. I don't buy that however. He does have the tape and obviously the woman was screwing other men in the community besides the kid at the end. There would be family and friends who would attest to the fact she disappeared with the children.

His story would be so compelling he would easily be able to get media interest, splashing the woman's picture all over the news thus ruining her plan. She would be spotted somewhere and would feel like a trapped rat wherever she was. The kids would also begin to question the situation. What kind of story could she possibly tell them that would convince them not to love their father? In the end her plan would have failed had the guy just pursued the matter. The movie did keep me going however.

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this kind of nullifies some of the ending.
Huh? Where in the ending did it say anything like "she will never be caught"? The movie ends without any thought of the future. The story was about Alexandra's project, not what occurred afterward.

Conform or be cast out

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i saw the ending as him going through a very specific stage of grief moreso than an indictment of his person.

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