MovieChat Forums > The Poker House Discussion > The last 15 minutes or so ruined the who...

The last 15 minutes or so ruined the whole movie (Spoiler)

posted 9 years ago by denis-besak
4 replies | jump to latest

I mean, this young girl has just been raped by the guy she (naively, but hey, she's supposed to be 14) thought loved her and is completely traumatized by what happened and probably even more by the coldhearted reaction of her mother. She even wants to kill her rapist only to realize that her mother protects him and would rather die herself then live without her pimp(!!). Then she just walks away, drives (she is 14!!) to her basketball match, wins it basically alone setting a new record, picks up her sisters and sings along happily with them. Oh yeah, that's all sooo believable. What is she supposed to be, a super hero? A believable ending would have been that her team loses because she blows the final shot, her coach is mad at her and expulses her from the team, and she returns home completely disillusioned, then it's revealed that later she was turned into a prostitute herself and still lives in the Poker House. That would have suited the overall tone of the movie. But I guess the authors were just a bunch of cowards.

And does the movie truly suggest that she's not driving home but rather leaving the town towards New York to become an artist? Did she take custody of her sisters?? I mean, wouldn't that be kidnapping if she just takes along her sisters?

[–] kincaid-5 9 years ago

And does the movie truly suggest that she's not driving home but rather leaving the town towards New York to become an artist? Did she take custody of her sisters?? I mean, wouldn't that be kidnapping if she just takes along her sisters?

The statement at the end of the film says that she made the film twenty years after going to New York. The action in the film takes place thirty years before the film itself. In other words, "Agnes" didn't leave for another ten years, by which time the sisters were both grown.

Incidentally, in real life the story apparently had a happy ending, in that both of Ms. Petty's parents eventually got their acts together and are back in the picture.

http://redkincaid.com

[–] HenryCW 9 years ago

This film was supposed to be based on the director's own life. However, what happened in the last part was indeed ridiculous and did not lend much confidence to the truthfulness of the story elsewhere in the film. It was not clear why the script was written such that all the events were supposed to happen on one single day of the protagonist's life. It is easier for me to believe, for example, that Agnes was once the top scorer in an important school basketball game - but certainly not on the same day. Instead, too much had been crammed into the last part of the film.

Shouldn't Agnes be with her team in preparation for the big game? Instead, she made her sister Bee leave the house, smoked a joint and started to drink hard liquor directly from the bottle(!), then unlocked the door and went out to mix with the party's guests. I guess she was barely able to walk by the time she kissed the black dude and let him get on top of her, and we all know what happened next. She then had a big row with her mother, fired a few shots at Duval that missed, and then drove away in his car for the game. She then scored a record 27 points out of the last 7 minutes. Of course, there had to be that clichéd "magic" moment when the game was decided by scoring in literally the last second - something we have perhaps seen happening in (various) sports in movies 1,001 times.

The film's ending was decidedly weak for another reason. We are told that the real Agnes eventually was able to leave that miserable place and became an artist in NYC, but we are not told how. Instead, the "happy" ending (after a horrendous rape!) for Agnes was her triumph in the basketball court and - to use her own words - a "wonderful" evening with her sisters singing in the car. Such a "happy" ending trivialized the ordeal she had gone through, and - more generally - the miserable life the three girls were having from day to day. It appeared that while the film started by showing the miserable situation those girls were in, but then ended up somewhat cowardly and dishonest by sugarcoating over the inevitable damage such life would have done to them.

[–] bryguy615 9 years ago

I think the ending should have been, after she leaves, goes to the game, wins, sure why not, she comes back to find out the middle sister just got done servicing a client, & she says to her older sister, "its your fault", or "it was supposed to be you". Just a real FU end.

Or if she really did leave & become a success 10 years later, the film still should have showed that after she won the game, she goes home & allows herself to be pimped.

[–] Seth_Rogue_One 9 years ago

The thing is though, that she was used to so much crap that she always had to block out terrible experiences (her mother being a good for nothing junkie prostitute alone is enough to make most ppl cave in)

And the final 'stand off' with her so called mother was the moment that she finally freed herself from the genetical bonds of her mother cause she could see her truly once and for all as the terrible person she was, and that could in a sense be a liberating feeling I imagine.

I thought it was a little too much that they won the game maybe but I thought the last singing in the car was one of the best scenes of the movie, the lyrics translated what her sisters meant to her and there was "no mountain high enough" to keep her from being with them.

Also Lori Petty wrote and directed the movie and Jennifer Lawrence's character is based on her so I think that gives her more than the right to end it with a happy ending.

A wrong decision is better than indecision