Unfair ending


Let's see Mason ends up alone without his friends, he may have been denied the right to know his kid, and since he's teaching his writing career may have stalled.

Sam ends up with a new business, a nice looking kid, and gets to go to bed with freakin Superman every night.

Both these people were involved in this messed up twisted relationship and I don't see how its fair that only one of them really gets punished for it in the end.

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Because that's the way things work in real life.

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"Because that's the way things work in real life."

This and also because he should have just asked her to marry him in the first place and for me, the ending was showing him the life he would have been living if he had asked her to marry him before she fell in love with someone else.

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It has nothing to do with punishment for promiscuity. It has to do with them coming to a life changing moment, and only one of them being able to grow and change.

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Yeah that is the way that I perceived it. It really wasn't about Mason being punished more so than us witnessing Mason and Sam grow apart. Mason did not seem regretful at the end; it just seems like he was more nostalgic and maybe even entertained seeing what his life could've been but I don't think he wanted that life for himself.

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Time came for him to man-up and he punked-out. Sometimes the consequences for that, especially when there is another human being on the way, are harsh. Better he suffer than the little boy.

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Yes, the ending was unfair. Unfairness should not, however, be an excuse to not like the movie.

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The ending was fair IMO.

Yes Mason did outgrow his old ways, but a little too late so the ending was appropriate IMO.


Anyways, if it's any consolation, Mason will never find another Samantha but there are tons of other girls that can be great in their own different way. If he keeps his head level, I don't see why he can't find the same happiness Samantha & James have sometime down the road for Mason.

Trust me. I speak from experience for someone who actually went through the exact same thing as Mason's story.

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Not to be a jerk, but in my opionion, as you've stated having been through a similar experience as Mason, which I have, I think you should have a little more respect for yourself. Mason didn't do anything wrong, compared to what Sam was doing. It reality while they both had someone on the side, for the most part Mason kept true to their deal of being able to see people on the side and stay together. Sam was the one who completely lied and screwed him over, even after his last desperate effort to keep them together. The director himself basically admitted in the commentary that the child is Mason's. And in that respect Sam is a very vulgar character for lying to both of these men. To have any respect for her, especially since you say you speak from experience, is both negligent and disrespectful to those of us who actually have dealt with this situation...

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I totally agree.That child is going to grow up and want to know his real father. Who is he going to be pissed at? His mother! That is not the kind of lie you perpetuate. That is why I was so pissed at the ending. Also the director unfriended me on facebook after I made my feelings known. It also looks like my previous comments on this movie have been deleted from this message board. Humm???

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I saw this movie in 2008 and I did not realize that the child looked like him until I viewed it a few months ago in 2014. I considered Sam as the deceitful and
manipulative party as well opposed to Mason who was carrying on with their arrangement as normal. But like I said above what we witnessed was a couple growing apart the issue that ignited this was Sam falling for the traditional James and her wanting monogamy over polyamory.

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It depends how you look at their relationship and the eventual break up. It wasn't about anyone being punished or rewarded; it was about Sam and Mason realizing who they each were as people and what they needed and wanted out of life.

Being in an open relationship was consensual, so any consequences as a result of it were the "casualties" of a war they both engaged in. Sam's outcome was what "she" needed for herself, and Mason discovered that their relationship wasn't what he wanted either. During the scene where the student asked him out for drinks, he declined. It is something that he likely would have agreed to in the past, but not anymore. So, his outcome was the result of what he needed as well.

Sometimes, people need to be alone to figure themselves out, and that appeared to be what he was doing. I kept thinking to myself, that Mason truly wasn't sure of what he wanted and he wasn't sure of himself. We all move at different speeds; Sam was ready to commit and start a family, Mason wasn't. Mason would have been punishing himself to live a lie (marry, have a child) when he clearly wasn't ready. No one was punished, they just broke away from each other to build their lives as each needed to live it.

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