MovieChat Forums > Enduring Love (2004) Discussion > Was Joe confused about his sexuality?

Was Joe confused about his sexuality?


I mean, why didn't he simply call the police on Jed instead of simply humoring him throughout? It seemed to me that the anger Joe felt was because he secretly believed that everything Jed said about God designing that balloon accident so that they could meet and fall in love was actually true and he hated himself for being gay and in love with someone like Jed.

Anybody else get that impression?



Brenda: Do you see anything wrong with this dress?
Jamie: Well, it could be shorter and tighter.

reply

Not at all. I thought he kind of pitied him more than anything else and didn't really think he was worth reporting to the police. He seemed way to cynical for that.

reply

I don't believe that Joe was confused about his sexual orientation. I believe that at first, he merely attempted to humor a man who he believed to be not running on all cylinders. Joe became prey to his own imagination and his own intellect when Jed suggested that Joe was responsible for the death of John Logan (the man who fell) by "letting him down," and Joe was fast swept into a vortex of misery and despair as this belief solidified into an obsession. I believe that this obsession was the real obsession that drove the movie and its characters -- Joe, in particular, appeared to be haunted by guilt. He even partially acknowledged this guilt when talking to the widow (Logan's wife), telling her that he thought that Logan could have been saved had it not been for the fact that the men let go. He then went on a quest in which he seemed determined to find out who let go of the balloon first. Only at the end of the movie was he able to let go in his own way, telling Logan's son that Logan was a very brave man who held on when all of the other men let go at the same time...

Joe seemed sexually naive in the first scenes in which most people would impute a sexual motive to Jed's behavior, as though not even considering the possibility tht Jed was sexually attracted to him. I believe that the attraction that Jed felt towards Joe was not truly sexual -- it was a variant of a religious delusion, only one facet of which was sexual intimacy. I believe that it is precisely because of this compounding of motives that Joe was so puzzled by Jed and by Jed's behavior.


Philip Chandler

reply

I'll agree with you:)
I thought the same thing, really! I think that Joe is shaming from the real senses inside him.
Jed for me, is not real. He is only in Joe's imagination.The false image Jed helped Joe to ill himself, from his own insanity, because he can't to live with the thoughts that he can to be a different..to be a gay..
To kill Jed, that is theheal-all. That he kills the real Joe and in this moment of the murder, Joe forgot ...

if the meaning/idea of the this movie was other, the all that story will didn't makes sense.


YevgeniMironovhttp://www.art-agentur.com/

reply

I've only seen the film once, and it was a while ago. In the book he calls the police twice If I remember correctly. But since he hasn't done any physical harm or anything (until the end of the story) the police tell Joe that nothing can be done.

reply

Jed is an educated male Brit. Joe is an educated male Brit. If either one of them were NOT Gay, it would be a minor miracle!


"The only thing green about England is the envy between the male members of it's upper classes." Kippling*


* Irving Kippling, a guy I just made up.

reply

You ignorant fool - coming out with comments like that just shows how uneducated YOU are!!!!!

reply

this is going downhill, if not off a cliff.

‘If lil red ridin hood shows up with a bazooka and a bad attitude, I expect you to chin the bitch.’

reply

I don't think that he was. I think that the Samantha Morton character failed Joe in that situation. I don't know if she was like that in the book, but my strongest feeling was that she blamed Joe for either being stalked or imagining that he was being stalked. She was blaming the victim and willing to believe the stalker over her lover. What kind of jerk was she?, is my question.

reply

oh yes, he is confused! (bare with me...)

When he is talking to his class, that most of what he says is his own opinion and from his own experiences. They must be right?

When his relationship with Samanthas character starts to fail, he talks about falling out of love, to match what he is going through.

Then he starts to say "what about when we fall in love with someone completely unsuitable, then it will be horrible and terrible and willnever work", he must also be talking about his own feeling and experiences.

He isn't talking about Jeds love, because Jed thinks they are perfect for eachother.

I'll find the exact quote soon.

reply

"When we do fall in love with somebody, somebody who we're completely incompatible with, then its all just tedious and horrible and terrible and just not going to work.
I mean, why do we do that?
I mean, is this just an aberration?
Are these people just deviants?"

Then Jed starts crooning from the back of the class.

Its the 'why do we do that', the 'we' part that makes me suspicious. I also wonder if he is calling gay people deviants, but probably not.

reply

I doubt this is referring to Jed at all, the sociology seminar parts are to give a commentary on Joe's struggle to accept the science of love faced with the artistic romantic notion of love being a mysterious magical thing.

Both scenes concisely show the deterioration of the relationship between Clare (Clarissa) and Joe. He is describing himself most definitely but he is also describing the fundamental differences that he and Clare have in their approaches to love. this really doesn't come out in the film as much, Clare's character is really underdeveloped and so you can't really get to see her perspective, whereas in the book Ian McEwan literally puts the reader in Clarissa's perspective for a chapter, to great effect. She is has very romantic ideals of love whereas Joe is a rationalist. They are totally incompatible in some respects and yet they can still fall in love - this really confuses Joe, not able to just accept things as being just inexplicable. Everything has a cause and a physical origin, love to Joe has no other origin than chemicals in the brain and no other cause than for keeping two _compatible_ people together to raise a family and give heir genes the best chance of survival down the generations.

"Are these people just deviants?" Has more meaning in that he is questioning whether they are fighting biology, fighting science because the impulses for procreation should make us fall in love with the people to who we are best suited, in personality as well as physically.

Of course it is more probable that Jed in fact takes his words here in the wrong way - the whole thing with Jed showing hinting on violence towards Clare starts after this scene, and it could be said that Jed feels that he is freeing Joe from Clare, seeing that he has seen Joe intimately describing the failure of his relationship with Clare to his class, unaware of Jed being present. This is a theme that creeps along in the book, Jed always seems completely harmless physically, it's just an undercurrent in his character, being such a needy pathetic creature it's hard to imagine him lashing out like he does in the film. But I digress.

It hasn't even occurred to Joe what Jed's intentions are at this point, and it would be a different story if Joe actually understood why Jed is acting the way he is, this in itself is why Joe reacts like he has cracked a conundrum when he discovers de Clerambault syndrome. He is scared and intimidated by things he can't understand and this is what rattles him so much with Jed.

Anyway I could go on and on about the interactions between the characters in this book, but I'll stop here.

Basically, This scene has nothing to do with Joe falling in love with Jed, quite the opposite in fact, it is about Joe falling out of love with Clare.

reply

As a university professor, I use the "we" pretty frequently when I'm asking my students to analyze motivations and behavior. I also use it in scholarly writing, and encourage my students to do so as well. Second person (you) is never acceptable in scholarly writing, and first person singular (I) is often uncalled for. As for third person (he, she, they), that just gets too complicated. Sentences become unwieldy (he or she, s/he, they with a singular verb - all fairly unpleasant options). One, meanwhile, tends to sound pretentious. Thus, we.

reply

There is no correlation between educational level (or intelligence) and sexual orientation - in Britain or anywhere else.

To impute such is not only racist, it's gay as well.

reply

i dont think he was gay at all i think he was simply trying to rid himself of the psycho stalking him. Also, whoever said it, he didnt kill Jed at the end, jeds still alive.

Plus if you watch the dvd theres a deleted scene wher he is in the police station trying to get something done, but they reject him.

Theres really no indication whatsoever that he falls in love with jed... how can you draw that conclusion? ITS... JUST... SILLY!!!

Il agree that Joe is confused throughout the film... confused as to why the psycho is stalking him. I think thats about as far as it goes.

Also i thought they strayed far too far from the book, which has a lot more depth to it. Shame.

reply

Well, what I got out of the film (I haven't read the book), was that it demonstrated how easily perfectly normal, reasonably secure, intelligent and successful people can have their lives messed up by another person or persons at vulnerable times in their lives.

Joe has insecurities about himself and his relationship with Samantha Morton's character, but probably no more than any other 'normal' human being. Similarly the wife of the accident victim, vulnerable in her grief, starts concocting a scenario in which she starts to doubt her husband and their whole relationship.

(I remember when I was in my early 20s, a long time ago now, I got followed regularly by a guy near where I lived. It happened on several occasions, and got quite scary. At one point, when he trailed me on to a bus, I got off near where I was I knew there was a cop shop, and went in to complain to the police. Joe also goes to the police, and like Joe, my complaint was not taken seriously because no physical contact or harm had been made. The policewoman, in my case, actually laughed, would you believe).

Anyway, I thought the movie was very clever in showing the way a person's self-confidence, even sanity can be so easily undermined by this kiond of stalking. I thought the Samantha Morton's character's behaviour was very realistic in detailing her response to joe's increasingly odd behaviour. Really good film, and a great ending.

reply

I don't think Joe was confused about his sexuality at all.

I think he showed tolerance, which at the end of the day was Joe's downfall.

I think that as a desperate human being, with his life falling apart around him, he uses all the skills he can muster.

Maybe giving Jed the contact, or kiss that Jed craved, brought a conclusion to the whole scenario, but sticking the knife in gave a conclusion to both partners. Jed, that he got the message that it was over and Joe letting Jed know that he had had enough, and that he did not mean anything to him after all. (bare with me on this one)

I loved this film. The beginning was a little shocking. But I find this film beautiful in its way. The whole feel of the film is so natural and realistic. The acting was superb.

reply

No, Jed made him feel guilty because he thought Jed wanted to talk about who let go first and that they all were guilty cause the doc didnt let go..

reply

Jed is an educated male Brit. Joe is an educated male Brit. If either one of them were NOT Gay, it would be a minor miracle!


What kind of idiot says this? Oh it's the guy who posted further up....


Now, or Never! Now and Forever!-Theobald Wolfe Tone

reply

The book explains it better, Joe tries to contact the Police in the beginning but was told it wasn't a police matter.

reply

I wish Daniel Craig had snogged someone fitter

iin na naomosa mitsumete aruku

RIP James Dean

reply

"Not at all. I thought he kind of pitied him more than anything else and didn't really think he was worth reporting to the police. He seemed way to cynical for that."

I totally agree with that, he definetly pitied him. In the movie at the beginning he said "He is harmless". So he had not really seen him as a threat.

It's not fiction! JK Rowling is Head of the Department of Muggle-awareness!

reply

[deleted]

Why do some people think that Jed isn't real?

Didn't Clarissa in the book talk to him and tell him her name (she said so in the first kitchen table scene in the book)?

And didn't Claire in the movie get stabbed by him?
If Jed wasn't real, how could he stab Claire?

Or do people think that Jed is real, but him stalking Joe was just in Joe's head?

I dunno...

-Amanda

"She will remember your heart when men are fairy tales in storybooks written by rabbits"

reply