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Discussion about ending and totality of movie

posted 15 years ago by bcthedj
32 replies | jump to latest

This is a very good movie, but the ending keeps me from calling it a Great Movie.

The ending - which I won't go into the details for those yet to see this film - leaves, imho, many unresolved threads, and many questions. Not the least of which is did this film get 're-edited' in some fashion by someone other than the director (studio honchos?) to attempt to reduce its run time into a more palatable length for convenient showing at your neighbor multiplex, and in that process got the ending all screwed up. 2 hours and 20 minutes, as it is now, is a bit long for anything less than a sure fire money making blockbuster epic complete with obligatory car chase and shoot 'em up bomb blast. So curious if it had been longer - to include the resolutions I'm asking about - but did get chopped just to get to try to get it to fit in with the 'norm' so it could have some chance at selling those tickets to the popcorn munching 'Merikan Movie Going Public.

Now, that being said, and as I said - this is a very good film. And in some senses of the word it does offer a type of resolution and proper ending, in a sense. And for sure was worth the time out of my life to watch.

But it was soooo close to being something VERY special (even saw one message thread here from December 2008 using the word Oscar). So please do see this film.

And once you've seen it, and to those who have already - please ....

Offer me some thoughts on the questions I've raised. Give me some reasons and examples of how you find resolution and completeness in the ending ?

Or/and offer up some various plot/story thoughts of how YOU would have ended it. I might return the favor - do have a few in mind already.

But, no need to think it has to end in a baby food formula fashion that leads us by the hand like a TV Movie of the Week - some 'esoteric fuzziness' is no problem.

Thanks

BC Kelly
Tallahassee Fla

[–] 15 years ago

[deleted]

[–] Krustallos 15 years ago

Flatley has it entirely correct (on this occasion ;-).

The film is about character. Julia has finally chosen the kid over the money, put someone else's interest over her own, joined the human race. Whatever happens after that is just detail.

I used to want to change the world. Now I just want to leave the room with a little dignity.

[–] AEMuss 15 years ago

It's not that obvious. All of her decisions right to the last could also be seen as being made to stay in the running for the money or to save her own life. In the last scene she did have a gun pointed at her and she lost hers in the traffic. It's not like she had much of a choice. I guess she made a moral decision by not throwing the kid back into the traffic, but she never intended to kill him. At best you can say her decisions that kept the kid alive were ambiguous. Maybe that's part of the beauty of the movie. Regardless of all that, her acting was spectacular.

"Creasy's art is death. Today he's going to paint his masterpiece."

[–] tex-30 15 years ago

I think it was ambivalent on purpose, and I didn't mind that. She said I'm taking you to your mother, so I think there is room (and precedent) to make more wrong choices. Was the rest of the money really in the trunk? We don't know. Was it still back at the last hotel? Could be. Was she going to take the boy to the airport hotel? Maybe, maybe not. All we really know is that she risked her life to save the boy

[–] bogwart-1 15 years ago

Obviously the money was all in the car, which is why Santos double-crossed his friend.

As to the rest, I would imagine that Stockholm Syndrome played a large part in it.

[–] martys-7 15 years ago

The movie clearly shows that in a hotel room Julia splits the two million dollars and puts half the money in a plastic bag while leaving the other half in the suitcase. Then she proceeds to keep the suitcase with the million dollars in the closet and leaves the room with the plastic bag to meet the kidnappers. She was a pathological liar - which is part of being an alcoholic/addict - so she told a lie to the Mexican thug who thought the other million dollars was inside the trunk of the car when it was actually back at the hotel.

She lies again in the last scene telling Tom that she is taking him to his mother, when she has no idea where the mother is. The mother had disappeared with whereabouts unknown after experiencing a psychotic breakdown the day before Julia kidnapped Tom. She was actually bringing Tom to Mitch who was waiting at the airport hotel and then she was going to try disappearing in Mexico with the million dollars left.

However, the point of the movie is that she redeems herself by risking her life to save Tom and trying to correct the wrongs she has done. After allowing her alcoholism to destroy her life and finally committing a senseless criminal act, she tries to do save the child's life. She can feel affection and empathy and is able to do something for someone else despite the odds being against her and the likely possibility of getting killed - which indicates she has humanity left in herself. Whether she will be arrested and extradited - which would be most likely - or drink the million dollars away before the law catches up with her, it is irrelevant.

[–] porfle 15 years ago

I can't remember exactly--didn't Santo check to see if the money was really in the trunk before he drove off?

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[–] hodie 15 years ago

He did check the trunk and seemed happy with what he saw. But I don't know whether the entire $ 2 million was in the car.

I would think he'd have been happy with $ 1 million!

Don will fix it. He knows what that nut means to Utz and what Utz means to us.

[–] Poltergeist40 13 years ago

I understood that all the money was in the trunk of the car ? It didn't actually occur to me that she had left some of it behind in the hotel. I don't think it's the sort of movie where it's necessary to have a watertight conclusive ending. Fact is that near to the end she started exhibiting signs of actually caring for the kid. The last line leaves you wondering what she's actually going to do but then so what as I say. I enjoyed this movie a lot but it went on too long and parts of it were actually comical (not that that was a bad thing actually).

[–] eylem-tokay 12 years ago

We even don't know if it's 1 million either.He just looked at the money and didn't check the amount.

[–] hodie 15 years ago

[–] vilj-1 15 years ago

Your posting was perfect and explains exactly the way I figured the movie. There is nothing for me to add. I am glad someone saw and interpreted the film exactly as I did. Tremendous performance by Tilda Swinton.

[–] s0570272 15 years ago

she told tom she was taking him to see his mother because that was the story the whole time when in reality she was taking him back to the hotel room to be reunited with her grandfather. she is going to jail. she got *beep* out of the money, she lost it all. she lost everything but a sliver of humanity in saving tom. that was the point. i don't think it was very left up in the open. it was a very blunt ending.

[–] risc_taker 14 years ago

I think that is the main thread as Ebert points out in his review. Yes she is a constant and pathological liar. After all the ordeal and trauma of saving/protecting the boy, she STILL lies. Whether she wanted to keep "duping" the boy (to continue her original yarn to him), I think the director wants to show throughout the movie that she will lie even when telling the truth is advantageous.
I also agree with martys-7 about the whole "redemptive" theme, even though her character seems minimally changed.

As to the last scene(s), I think it was shown explicitly that the money was split into the plastic and the suitcase, with the suitcase being stuck into the closet. Perhaps she put an empty suitcase in the trunk, split the 1 mil from the plastic bag further up and put it in another suitcase, etc etc..

You're always going to have within our government, those that are ABOVE THE LAW.

[–] theteeto 14 years ago

Please tell me you're joking. This movie was forty minutes too long.

[–] moizmad 14 years ago

As to the last scene, I didn't notice Santos making a detailed count of the money in either bag or case, so maybe Julia palmed a wad or 2 beforehand, she didn't seem overly upset at losing both. I think she slowly became attached to little Tom, possibly awakening a motherly instinct she had never experienced, and the
little guy, never really knowing his own mother, came to love Julia. (That bed scene with Tom and Julia....talk about your Stockholm Syndrome!) So did Julia take Tom back to Mitch and then head south with some money or did she take Tom with her and wait til the grandpa bites the dust and Tom inherits his millions and her and Tom live happily ever after in Argentina?

[–] 14 years ago

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[–] anngorah 14 years ago

I come up with a different take on the final scene. I believe Julia lost most or all of the money to Santos in the car, and that she will continue on the run with Tom, which is why she said I'm taking you to your mother. It seemed to me that Julia never really intended to return Tom to his grandfather, but that this was just an endless loop of events and failed schemes that only tightened their bound to each other. For them, the road goes on forever. With the superstitious and off-balance mother presenting Julia with a good luck charm, and violently reacting in fear to Julia's appearance wearing the black mask...yeah, I'm going to go with a sort of Twilight Zone conclusion as well.

[–] saltandpepper66 14 years ago

I think the ending is basically a joke: that after all the scheming she lost the money and finally realized the boy should be with his mother. I don't think you're meant to really figure out if she's lying or where the money really is: in the end, she became attached to the boy and decided that nearly getting killed wasn't worth it so she is returning him to his mother. I thought it was a brilliant ending and unexpected. All movies should be this good.

[–] GuyOnTheLeft 11 years ago

I'm not so sure she lost the other million. It's possible, but it is not shown in the movie to be the case. If that was what the filmmakers intended, they should have shown her taking the suitcase to the car (though admittedly they did show it back out of the closet on the bed), and when the thug put the garbage bag of cash into the trunk, they should have shown him doing something that could plausibly be interpreted as opening a suitcase and checking it to see if there was more cash inside. Instead, they just showed him putting the bag in, maybe tapping something we can't see, then closing the trunk.

--------
See a list of my favourite films here: http://www.flickchart.com/slackerinc

[–] anthropo 14 years ago

ITA!! The ending is horrible, not a payoff at all for everything that happened.

[–] TheJesusAndMaryChain 12 years ago

DON'T READ IF YOU DON'T WANT TO KNOW ABOUT THE ENDING.

The ending didn't bother me that much. It was more about Julia's relationship w/ the kid and how her character evolved over the course of the film. Who'd have thought after watching the opening scene with Julia doing shots in a bar and dancing to The Eurythmics that this woman would risk her life for this kid in the final scene?

Julia reminded me of the John Cassavetes film, Gloria, which also had some loose ends and, in my opinion, was also about the relationship w/ the boy more than about her escape from the mob.

- Jesus died for somebody's sins but not mine

[–] SeisCinemaSeis 14 years ago

IMO it's an average thriller at best that boast a terrific performance by Tilda Swinton.
The number of plot holes and incoherences are amazing. The entire third act is ludicrously over-the-top, nonrealistic ad nauseam. I mean each one of the acts depicted in the movie could happen separately, but put together they are only a ridiculous mess.
e.g. How come a broken woman who has no money to pay for a gun can afford to pay gas, hotel rooms, food, drinks (lots of drinks), clothes, etc for her and the boy during several days?
What happened to the mother? She was simply "erased" from the movie. We don't know if the police went after her or not. We don't know if she stayed in L.A. Her part was simply vanished as in an act of magic.
Besides the mexican characters couldn't be more stereotypical. It's like if the director told the actors "you gotta be meaner, remember that every mexican is a mean, dirty criminal, so be as dirtiest and meanest as possible". Frankly it borders on racism.
The acting besides Tilda is subpar with the exception of Bruno Bichir (Diego), and that's it.
Just like good production values alone doesn't make a good picture, a terrific performance alone doesn't makes good, a mediocre picture, either. Perhaps it makes it "bearable", that's all.
Finally the movie is over-long. 30 min longer that it needed, plus the ending is quite anticlimatic. It feels like if the director didn't know how to end the movie properly.

5/10 (all those 5 points due to Tilda Swinton's amazing performance).

[–] filmfancy 13 years ago

"How come a broken woman who has no money to pay for a gun can afford to pay gas, hotel rooms, food, drinks (lots of drinks), clothes, etc for her and the boy during several days?"

I think this was answered in one of the deleted scenes on the dvd. Julia got Mitch to write her a $3,000 cheque by telling him a lie that someone was after her because she owed money.

She promised a guy the money to get her a gun; instead she stiffs the guy, keeping the gun and the money, and using it while on the run.

"What happened to the mother? She was simply "erased" from the movie. We don't know if the police went after her or not. We don't know if she stayed in L.A. Her part was simply vanished as in an act of magic."

It was briefly mentioned on a tv newscast in the movie that the mother was suspected of the kidnapping and had probably fled to her native Mexico as she couldn't be located in California.

This is kind of ironic since Julia and Tom wind up there.

What I didn't understand was why Mitch kept helping Julia. He loved her--but why? She didn't seem to ever give him anything in return. She just kept getting into problem after problem. Why would he risk his life for her by getting involved with Tom's grandfather and being the go-between in Mexico? He even gives her the suitcase with the two million dollars, knowing that she might never return with the boy.

What was the hold Julia had over Mitch?

"Fasten your seat belts. It's going to be a bumpy night."

[–] MrBelette 13 years ago

Since Mitch told Julia that everybody knew Helena's story but no one believed it does it mean that she invented all about it and that she wasn't even Tom's mother ? Tom's grandfather was a public figure she could have read it all in the newspaper ?

[–] filmfancy 13 years ago

I think no one believed that Elena would get Tom back as she was an alcoholic and unstable.

"Fasten your seat belts. It's going to be a bumpy night."

[–] Noir-82 14 years ago

A lot of you guys have the point-of-redemption wrong. It didn't occur in the freeway when Julia lost $2 million on the last minute. It occurred in the hotel scene when Julia confirmed receipt of a cool $2 million but chose not to walk away from Tom.

Superb acting from Tilda Swinton anyways who's had my eye for a while now since I first saw her in Constantine. It's amazing how a self-centered, murderer/kidnapper had me rooting for her well before her character change.