So....do you think Ned loves Maria in the movie?

They had sex. This may be a slight hint that they were intimate and he may have loved her. Also, he was able to play a man (opposite her) for the first time in his life, after kissing her and sleeping with her. This gives the viewer more slight hints.

At the end of the movie I was expecting to see Billy's character say something like "You make me feel like a man" or "I love you" or something but I think that would have been corny and the audience gets the idea anyway that there is something special that has transpired.

Possibly...

Maria had clearly loved Ned for a long time, but as far as Ned being in love (romantically) with her by the end, I wasn't sure. I think he came to respect, admire, and care for her very much. He finally allowed himself to be open and vulnerable to her affection for him. Ned loved her platonically at the very least. But it was obvious there was physical attraction there - perhaps the beginnigs of romantic love? I really liked the ambiguity of this story, and how it is open to the interpretation of the viewer.

The way I saw Ned's character was that from the time he was a boy, all of the causes and effects of femininity had been deeply instilled in him. This happened during his critical, formative years and it altered his perceptions of sexuality. We don't know if he had been born with hetero, homo or bisexual tendancies, and neither did he. And in a way that didn't matter - the way in which he was raised determined his behavior. It's the whole nature vs. nuture issue. Are people born gay? Or are people born with the tendancy to be gay and the environment one lives in will determine their sexual preference?

I interpreted Ned as a man whose innate sexual tendancies had been either manipulated, stifled, or overindulged when he was a boy (during his training to play female roles). He evenually was unable to separate the man within from Ned the actor. This affected him mentally, emotionally, physically, and sexually. After having been engaged in sexual exploits with men and women, then having an ongoing affair with a man (Ben Chaplain's character), he all of a sudden finds himself physically and emotionally attracted to a woman in a more intense way than he had ever experienced before.

If you take his sexuality out of the picture, his masculinity was still corrupted in his growing years. So his perception of what a man is, regardless of sexual preference, had been grossly tampered with. In general, I believed him to be bisexual and capable of being emotionally in love with both sexes as well. I think the filmmakers, in one sense, were posing the nature vs. nuture question with regard to human sexuality and emotional needs.

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I just had to comment that most people here seem convinced he wasn't with the Duke "as Ned" but rather as an extension of his diving into a woman's character/simply acting.

Well, I had to say that the scene where they "break up" makes me disagree. He comes to the Duke in man clothing, and doesn't use his feminine voice up to nearly the end, where it can also be construed as a fond, playful part of their lovemaking, as far as he was concerned.

In addition, he looks truly stunned and is out of words for a reply when the Duke "confesses". Like it never occurred to him that he was being used as anything other than himself.

Now, with Maria, on the other hand, he most certainly has a scene in bed "tainted" by his will to "penetrate" her femininity, after he's lost his. To me, that is fake.

I used to have a , but damnit do I want a !

I think he loves her on some level. I have no doubt they will be together when he finds out who he really is – and she is going to help him. His sexuality isn’t as important as his confusion. All his life he has been told what to be, even when he is with the duke, the duke gives him a part to play. Thou Maria is strong, she isn’t dominating, she doesn’t give him a role, but forces him to define himself – to make his own identity. He needs her no matter his sexuality. And when I think they will be together – well that might just be my hopes as a romantic.

With the life that Ned had lived up to that point.. it was as much as Maria could hope for.

I don't think the film would have been as good if by the end of the film.. POOF Ned knows for sure that he is 100% in love with Maria. After I first watched I so wanted it to end this way, but it was just nice that Ned was starting to find out who he was a bit.. and it looked like he looked at Maria as a person vs how it seemed like she was something he cared for as an object like his pilllow.

I think that what we see in the movie is the first steps into a possible love relationship. The whole point of the final scene is that Ned has finally let himself out of the ridged box he put himself in. He's completely unsure if he is gay or bisexual or straight...he's just learning. At that moment he was making the decision to run with his feelings and not categorizes who he is as a person.

The ambiguity at the end of the movie is what I love about the the film the most, i think. Whatever ending you want Ned and Maria to have...they can have. The film maker didn't force his point of view about the outcome of their story on us. He left it up for us to interpret and decide.