Meaning of movie

yes it was just a kiss, but ask "normal people" on the street if fathers should kiss daughters like jack kissed rose. Most people would find that sick and disusting. Yet rebecca Miller makes no judgement.

Its an interesting idea, and probably a good reason why this movie wasnt more popular and sucessful. We tend to view people as good or bad. And most people who kiss their daughters in a romantic way arent going to be looked at by the majoroty of society, as being good human beings.

Thus my question is valid, if Jack isnt condemned for his actions in this film, which I think its pretty clear he is not condemned. Then what is the movie suggesting?

Rose many times, as I said, was trying to tell Jack that they should forget about the reaction of society to a potential love affair relationship between them. Is the movie suggesting that this is good or bad? It never really says. Which I think is both interesting and controversial. Most movies about murder make clear that murder is wrong and the bad guys are bad. This movie makes no moral judgement. jacks actions are perceived as wrong, by his own judgement, but his daughter, and the filmmaker at large refuse to take a stand that is definitively pro or con

I think many of you are missing some important points in the film. Yes, Rose kissed Jack. But you also see in the beginning of the film when he strokes her hair, he immediately leaves to go have sex with Kathleen, suggesting that he too, was aroused by his daughter. Maybe he didn't want to admit it to himself.

And when they kissed, he kissed her back, but immediately says, "God forgive me," meaning that he is also at fault, not just the daughter. As a final point, he invites Kathleen and her family to come live with them soon after, perhaps because he feels it's getting too dangerous for him and Rose. People will begin to question what a father and adolescent daughter are doing sequestered away in an isolated land, which is what she mentions too in a scene.

I don't think Miller is suggesting that incest is right/wrong, just that a person who prides himself in being so advanced in his thinking, can also do something "backwards" as well. And that's just like life.

It's like watching a bunch of retards trying to hump a doorknob out there!
Dodgeball

a good artist doesn't tell his or her audience what to think. this is where you have to make up your own mind. even if there was insest, which i don't think is what was intended, you get to make up your own mind about that and so do i and so does every individual who sees the film. a good artist makes people think for themselves.

"the actions of Jack and Rose and the way Rebecca Miller presented them, are anything but "typical hollywood" stuff."

this is true but their actions are much too complex to simply be labeled 'insest' or 'rape'. the characters and situations are so unusual that by trying to squeez them into typical terms like those you falseify them.

cecelia_03: Hon, I will make you a bet. I bet that
proportionally FAR more incest and depravity have
occurred in the cracker-box subdivisions of the
Republican middle-class and upwards than have
ever happened, or could've happened, in the
idealistic communes that people like Jack
gave their lives to. "Libidinous"? "Self-gratifying"?
You mean like Newt G. visiting his wife being
treated for cancer in the hospital and then going
off to satiate his base, vile desires with his Beltway
trophy girl-friend? :)

Or it's a lesson to everyone not to shelter their children.

-2+2=....Thomas Jefferson, Sucka!- The Rock.
I Support Google and Youtube!

I have to admit I didn't watch the whole movie. I left it around the time Thad was pushed out the window. But here's what I do know: I believe Jack liked being the king of a castle he created. Many people take great pleasure in being morally right and for him, to be the last man standing from the 60s commune era, was perfect for him. It goes to show the inherent flaw in communal living: someone is going to want to be the head of it so there really are no equals.

Jack especially loved the way Rose looked at, as if he could do no wrong. Hero worship is powerful. But he realized he didn't do right by his daughter in creating such an insolated environment because she misconstrued father-daughter love with intimate, romantic love and he knows she became that way because of him. He thought he knew how society worked and could do better by Rose by keeping her so close to him when in fact exposure to the real world was exactly what she would have needed.

He didn't raise Rose to be independent of him but the opposite: she was completely dependent on him. And at first it was cute and funny when it was turned on Kathleen but when it got to be more personal, it stopped being funny.

It's been a long time since I've seen it, but I walked away with some pretty clear, pretty strong reactions.

I felt that the message in the movie was about how it's impossible to protect yourself and your loved ones from the "progress" (globalization, destruction of the environment, etc.) and depravity of the world. Jack built this whole world with utopian ideals and Rose, in his eyes, was to be the perfect product of his perfect world. But destruction comes from within. Even if he had never let the other family move in, there was enough trouble in their hearts to destroy his vision.

The incestuous part was so shocking to him b/c he didn't know that was anywhere in his heart. And truly, it wasn't. But the isolation of two people together for such a long time will distort any relationship. It takes a village, people.

btw, I watched the whole movie and I really liked it. One of my faves, actually.

I agree with what most are saying. The message of the movie is your own interpretation. Thankfull this is one of the few movies that really don't try to strongly impose a lesson or moral but rather just tell a story and let the viewer decide.

I really believe that the main struggle in the movie was "progress". The housing development scenerio was just a parallel to the father-daughter love scenerio.

The tension between Jack and Rose was about love. They felt emotions toward each other which were actually quite natural and pure. But the only reason he felt guilty or uncomfortable (and most of the viewers) was because of society. Society tells us that that type of love is wrong.

These are two type of people that grew up unprejudiced by trends and society. They just lived happily in touch with nature as possible. They were in that sense normal and their love was normally brought about. We think it's weird because of society

Same with the housing development (perhaps a metaphor?). Their perfect world made them happy but Jack felt bad because of what society would think now with all the construction work and progress into the future. This could symbolize his relationship with Rose.

At the end though he offers to sell his house. I think it's in this moment that he realizes that the world inevitably changes and he can't stop it and soon he will have to conform with it (How else will his daughter survive when he dies?)

I guess to sum it all up, progress is inevitable