MovieChat Forums > Jesse Stone: Death in Paradise (2006) Discussion > Confused on sister (spoiler)

Confused on sister (spoiler)

posted 13 years ago by tropixanne
4 replies | jump to latest

I just saw this movie over the weekend on Hallmark. (I was in/out of the room, so perhaps I missed this; however, here is my question)...

When Jesse & suit went to see Billie's 'big sister' she said something like she would try to 'sue her father for all he was worth', and seemed to indicate she was molested by him; HOWEVER, the movie ended up showing that Billie was molested by the author/killed by the businessman. OK, so (aside from her sister's death, what was the older sister's issue?)--I haven't read the books, so I apologize if this is obvious to those who have. She just seemed to have something else going on, and I wasn't sure if we were supposed to just "know" what was going on.

[–] ghtx 12 years ago

I think that the father was just a big jerk, but not a child molester. Both of his daughters were messed up.

[–] auctionmaestra 12 years ago

I feel that the script intended us to believe the sister had been molested, thus setting up the father as a suspect. But, it turned out to be a red herring. This whole interlude was handled badly, imo, but I really liked this movie otherwise.

[–] nrangerseven 10 years ago

True, I think the sister's explanation was written deliberately vague to lead us towards the father. However, the parenting was obviously bad. In a white upper middle class household you are not normally going to find parents who just let their 14 yr old daughter disappear and not tell anyone. Something is incredibly wrong there for them to have that reaction. They were more concerned about what others think of them than the welfare of their own daughter? That's a red flag. Gotta wonder what else happened to those girls that the parents swept under the rug. The whole town knows your daughter is a whore doing drugs and you do...nothing? The sister probably placed a lot of blame on the parents for what happened so I can see how she'd say she wanted to sue them even though there were no actual grounds for a lawsuit. She's angry because her sister desperately needed help and got none from the two people who should have done something. Yeah, I'd be pissed too.

The people you idolize wouldn't like you.

[–] Rick-34 11 years ago

If they were setting up the father as a molester, the purpose would be to explain why Billie had become the prematurely promiscuous girl that she was. It is not unusual for a pattern of sexual abuse to translate into a teenager being willing to be the victim of other, much older men.