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Question about the significance of the ending? (Spoilers)


I have been thinking about it for so long, and I just can't figure out what the storyteller was going for by ending with the mom going out onto the porch and calling for her son's dog to come?

Is it like the dog is all that is left from the three lives that were lost...

Thanks!

"...Never invest too much emotion in one thing. It's always a set-up to the pain of losing it."

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[deleted]

You can take it that way. I think given the history of the director that that it might be a little more profound than that. I feel like he is speaking to the character of his family. Giving you one more sign of how glen became to be the person he was.

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What does that have to do with the ending? Because all they care about is the dog, or is it something else?

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I thought the ending was after they died, people mourned but they went back to there lives, they forgot, but some stayed in the darkness, like Glen's parents.

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anyone else have more thoughts on this?

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I definitely agree that the ending with Glen's mom was really significant, as well as the other characters reaction to the events. It's showing that even though life does end, it still carries on. Even in complete darkness, life will eventually go on.

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It bookends with a comical opening sequence with the HS band practice and the focus on the director ("like a slege hammer to my heart"). This is small town America. These are the people and this is what they do.

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my take on this one is simply everybody moves on
While it might be losses to the close ones, to the outsiders, they just don't care

------
'What is fame? Everybody knows your name: never again are you alone.' - 2Pac

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I sort of see it as like you said, the poor dog was all that was left of Sam's family. But I also think the mother was just trying to carry on and call the dog in for the night as an attempt to keep some semblance of normalcy to her life.

Well, in the immortal words of Darkwing Duck, 'Lets get DANGEROUS!'

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The characters in the final scene are behaving atypically normal given the circumstances that have just transpired in the film. My interpretation is that the director was trying to communicate the parents denial, by the apparent absence of a reaction to the tragedies that have just occurred, which is consistent with the denial of their sons dangerously unstable emotional state which obviously, without proper acknowledgement and attention, eventually resulted in the tragedy that they are, in this scene, emotionally denying and thus the destructive cycle of tragedy continues. This ties in with the mothers conviction to the son, arthur, earlier in the film, about not denying your emotions. This conclusion is compatible with a possible interpretation of the films intrinsic sentiment, that not confronting trauma is ultimately more damaging than accepting your reality, however insufferable it may be.

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I believe everyone here, although an older post, has the right idea, but there may be even more to it.
There's a line in the movie detailing how easy it is to ignore the things in life that hurt us, but that we mustn't let that happen. Its important to express your pain.
The quick scene has so much to it. By detailing the denial of the parents, it not only explores the catalyst behavior that made Sam Rockwell's character become what he became, but also sets an overall tone of small town America and its often putrid apathetic toxicity.

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This is a very old thread, but I think it's a lot simpler than you make it. I think it simply means that life goes on. In the case of Glenn and Annie and Tara's story, the only life that was left was Bomber's, and the only people left to take care of him were Glenn's parents. If Glenn hadn't had parents someone else would've taken Bomber or he would've gone to the pound.

When my ex-brother-law died unexpectedly of a drug overdose, I brought his two cats home and they became my cats. My nephews couldn't take them because they already had two cats. I was without cats so I took them. If I hadn't taken them, the detective said she would have taken them. Life goes on. It doesn't matter what size town you live in.

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