A Couple Questions


So Amber sees Thayer at the store, and he's with another mormon guy, and they're about to leave on their mission. Then she sees him a few months later at the beach. First, why is he wearing a dress? And second, he's wearing a dress, but also hanging out with the other stoner guy he hung out with in high school and a few other people. He's not with anyone else from his church. Why is this?
Also, why would he want to fake his own death?
And last, he seems very strange in the beach scene and the scene at the movie theater. His answers don't make sense, he constantly changes the subject, etc. He seems like he's not in his right mind. Is this an outward sign of all the damage he sustained in high school? Did anyone else notice this?
This is a lot to think about, but I want to understand.

I was really touched by this movie -- there are so many subtle points that it really takes some analysis to understand them. It leave some things unsaid, so you need to really put yourself in the characters shoes to understand the dynamics of the situation.

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So Amber sees Thayer at the store, and he's with another mormon guy, and they're about to leave on their mission. Then she sees him a few months later at the beach. First, why is he wearing a dress? And second, he's wearing a dress, but also hanging out with the other stoner guy he hung out with in high school and a few other people. He's not with anyone else from his church. Why is this?
Also, why would he want to fake his own death?
And last, he seems very strange in the beach scene and the scene at the movie theater. His answers don't make sense, he constantly changes the subject, etc. He seems like he's not in his right mind. Is this an outward sign of all the damage he sustained in high school? Did anyone else notice this?
This is a lot to think about, but I want to understand.

I was really touched by this movie -- there are so many subtle points that it really takes some analysis to understand them. It leave some things unsaid, so you need to really put yourself in the characters shoes to understand the dynamics of the situation



I think that, at the point Thayer and Amber talk at the beach, Thayer is no longer a member of the church or something like that. Amber even asked him about his mission, and he says he "left early" and that "it was a good trip" but he didn't go into any detail about the trip or why he left early or why he even joined the church in the first place. It was a conversation that was left very open ended, without much detail from either Thayer or Amber about what they had been doing since they last saw each other. It was very much like most of their verbal conversations in the past. There was much more meaning in what was not stated verbally between them, except for the part about THayer wanting to fake his own death, which was off course stated verally. I really don't know why Thayer was wearing a dress, but throughout the movie, he was always kind of an "odd ball", so seeing him in a dress didn't surprise me much.

I think that Thayer wanted to fake his own death, in order to get away from the things that kept him unhappy and the low expectations by which other people expected of him. He just really wasn't happy in that town, and he had been self-destructing, because of it. Also, there really wasn't anything keeping Thayer in that town. The one person who could have possibly changed his plans was Amber, but she continuously rejected him, even when she knew deep down that she cared for him. I think that Thayer wanted his departure from that town, to be shrouded in mystery, and for the question to be whether or not he was actually dead, since it was stated that his body had not been found. So that leaves things up in the air, which I think was his goal.

Also, I think that Thayer was probably the most clear minded person in the movie, even if he had some self-destructive habits in high school. In my opinion, Thayer was an idealistic person, who was easily hurt and he was aching to be understood,specifically by Amber, seeing as how he had probably grown up feeling misunderstood by most people in his life. I think that in the scene, at the movie theatre, Thayer was both in the present and in the past. When he saw Amber on the beach, he was instantly reminded of their connection in the past in high school. Then when he saw her in the movie theater and cornered her in the bathroom, he wanted her to feel that connection for both past and present that he was feeling so intensely, in regards to her. But Amber wouldn't allow herself to give into the moment and to feel the connection between them.

"There is no world without Verona walls." Shakespeare

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My first thought was that the "dress" was actually the Mormon underwear?

I know...I almost thought the movie/beach scene was a dream montage.

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jmc86, that is what I thought at first, but Mormon undies don't look like that. Thayer is just weird. And stoned. Marijuana makes us do strange things, like wear a dress.

One of the only things that bothered me was the "it was only 5 seconds ago". I want to know what others think this means. For me he meant nothing had changed between them. He said "I was on the beach, blah blah, you were the same and it all came back to me" ..so their relationship, or whatever, wasn't a long time ago like she said..it was still there, still present, five seconds ago.

I really love this movie. I thought it could do without some boring scenes. I felt sort of lost when it was over, like I wasn't fully satisfied, but I think that is just because I'm such a GIRL and kept saying "Just make out already!" However, I felt like there was something more realistic about them not getting together, something I have experienced myself and could relate to. [which is probably why I wanted some love making to happen.

I'm just a musical prostitute, my dear. -Freddie Mercury

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The dress was the Mormon underwear thing, must have been recently after he left his mission. I believe that his whole Mormon phase was a front, to provide some character references and perhaps alibis for his taking out both his abusive brother and father (I completely believe that he killed them, they were not suicides or accidents).

His answers make sense when you realize that he has long been in love with her, and frustrated that she won't acknowledge the fact that she feels the same way about him. That was the most frustrating thing in the movie - the dirtbag wasn't Thayer, it was her. She fantasizes about making love to him, is most obviously in love with him but she can't seem to be able to admit it, even years after graduating from high school (when confronted in the movie theater).

As far as guessing what happens at the end, is he alive or dead, who knows. He could be very well alive (and I for one hope that he is) but has cut off contact with the crazy she-dog that has been tormenting him for years. I wish there had been a more concrete ending to it, and is the reason that I'm going to vote it as less of a movie than I thought it deserved to be. I'm tired of the authors getting lazy and not giving an answer at the end. What, do they think they're going to write a sequel or something? Give us closure!

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He was probably just being his crazy, unconventional self when he decided that he could just as well wear a dress to the beach. Who cares? But then Amber was there, and of course she has something to say about it.

I took this dress part as his way of expressing his questioning of society norms in general, dressing norms in particular. That's why when she asks him "why are you wearing that?" he asks the same question back to her, even though she is wearing perfectly conventional beach attire. In a way he wants to make her reflect upon her choices, and her reasons for doing everything she does, so standardly so.

That day at the beach he questioned her very directly on things that he never got around asking her before. Like the way she seems "ok" with everything.

- "Go" (to the sandbar tonight)
- "ok"

He was basically asking her out and she has nothing more than ok to say about it. So, he clarifies: go with me. It must have been disappointing, that she didn't give a minute thought to it, or show much emotion about it. But he didn't say how it annoyed him back then, he kept it to himself until this day when "it all came back"

That moment when he asked her out was the starting of their downfall. And that day at the beach was where all time converged. Past memories, present lives and future plans: she's getting married, he's faking his death. That's why at the cinema he talks about it all being 5 seconds ago. Time has a very subjective component when reminiscing. Also, that's why it seems like a missrepresentation: things aren't what they seem with them. Her life, their relationship, his death. And in a way I think he uses the dress to get her to think about this, because she doesn't respond very well to direct, verbal arguing. So he resorts to symbolic messages, more effective, less agressive, to try and get her to soften up a bit, which she does at the cinema, if only for 5 seconds when she hugs him, apologises and cries. But she won't allow herself much more than that, as soon as she opens her eyes her mask of indifference is back on, she doesn't know what he's talking about, he has lost his mind and she's ok with everything again.

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