MovieChat Forums > Somewhere (2011) Discussion > Help with the ending please.....Daughter...

Help with the ending please.....Daughter?

posted 12 years ago by moviefreak_86
22 replies | jump to latest

Ok so I will admit I was not a big fan of this movie. I feel like it had so much potetal and such an amazing cast but I feel like the ball was dropped. I also hated the endign, not because it was open ended....but I felt like it was selfish. So what happened with his daughter? Did anyone ever end up picking her up from camp? I thought he was going to pick her up but then he is wandering in the desert? I thought he finally realised that his daughter needed him as much as he needed her.....I don't know...what do you guys think???

[–] InsecureNeuroticControlFreak 12 years ago

It's not like he went into the wild and just decided to forget his daughter. It represented him letting go of the superficial life he had before SO he could be the father his daughter needed. None of they money, the sex, the drugs, or the fame mattered... She did. That's all.

He picks her up from camp and becomes the father and parent she truly needs him to be. That's how I interpreted the ending.

Omgosh! I open my mouth and a little purse falls out!

[–] nunoanjos1 10 years ago

Maybe that was the meaning of the final scene. But again it felt kinda stupid watching him smile for the camera, walking in the middle of nowhere to somewhere. Like many other things in the movie, it's not realistic. Where is he going in the middle of the desert? He can't leave his car behind. He needs to go back to his car. He's smiling like he just saw someone, a ghost? STUPID!

[–] michahardy 12 years ago

I really liked the ending, i found it to be uplifting and it made me smile. It obviously signifies a change in his life. Like the other poster said, he is walking away from his previous life/self. It seems like he has finally realised what is important in his life and that is being with cleo.

[–] mandycw 10 years ago

I agree. the movie starts off with his life being empty. He is just going through the motions of living. After spending the time with his daughter, he realized that she made him happy. He smiled when she was around. They had fun together. I think when she went to camp he realized how much he needed her in his life. After he dropped her off at camp, his life was empty again. He even attempted to cook to recreate the enjoyment from food (that she had made him.)

When he stopped the car and walked away, he was walking away from his own life. Think about it. he stopped his car in the desert, which could represent his current empty life and he is walking up the road (not into the desert) toward the beautiful mountains in the distance. His future will be challenging and beautiful with his daughter.

For the posters saying he was going to commit suicide....what? why would you even say that. He was walking up a road. Not out into the middle of the desert to die. He saw his daughter crying about her mother and why would he want to hurt her by killing himself?

[–] nunoanjos1 10 years ago

LOL. And being with your daugher is a deep inspirational thought to end a movie? of course not. It's something EVERY parent in the world knows. Or at least the vast majority of parents. If everyone knows that, why end a movie with a lesson that is not a lesson but everyone knows? It's very stupid.

[–] chas437 12 years ago

Wow. A forty something actor finally grows up, what a compelling ending. Steven Dorff likes like 40 miles of rough road in this film. I haven't seen him in a film in over a decade, so he's a kind of hard to believe as a succesful actor, because he isn't one in real life.

I think the film needed longer, more detailed close ups of him eating spaghetti, him sun bathing with his daughter, brushing his teeth, driving around, etc. This is the only failing of the film.

I honestly believe this film was treated well by critics because of the director's last name. Its a very average film at best, with playing out, trite subject matter. How many people can relate to this type of character?

On a positive note, I think the younger Fanning sister will be the better actor in the family.

[–] DooleyNoted 12 years ago

Steven Dorff gave a solid believable performance in this film (though overall I found the film itself somewhat flat). However, your argument that he isn't a famous movie star so he can't play one would mean that actors could only play something that they are.

Tom Cruise is not a fighter pilot, a samurai nor a secret agent, so he can't play those parts believably, right? According to your logic, considering he's on the short side, Cruise should only be cast as an elf or a lawn jockey.

[–] chas437 12 years ago

My arguement is that in order to play a famous film star, you do need to look and/or act the part with a degree of believability which is different than playing any of the things you mention. To me, Steven Dorff just isn't believable in the role.

I do like the idea of Tom Cruise playing a lawn jockey:)

[–] DooleyNoted 12 years ago

I'd be first in line for THAT movie.

[–] barber2626 12 years ago

Personally I hate movies like that where like you said it leaves it up to us to "conjure up the ending". If thats the case maybe we should all get a part of the royalties then. Give me a break. I hate movies where I have to fill in the blank at the end. I feel totally ripped off. I am not in collage to interpret a movie...i pay to see this weather its on DVD or cable and I want it completely and tyo make sense and not leave me wondering or conjuring up anything..

[–] 12 years ago

[deleted]

[–] jimmatheson 12 years ago

Thanks for making me laugh.....I personally enjoy endings that aren't neatly tied up for you. But I do agree with you I'm not in college to interpret a movie either whether they want me to or not!

[–] ellaelise 12 years ago

Do me a favor: Go see a production of Waiting For Godot and get a brain.

[–] Fangs78 11 years ago

you want to be spoonfed. Got it.

Go watch Roland Emmerich movies.

[–] Bree_33 12 years ago

A new start. She wakes him up, I mean, her daughter.

------- __@
----- _`\<,_
---- (*)/ (*)------- ----__@
----------------------- _`\<,_
---- -----------------(*)/ (*)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~nec spe,nec metu

[–] pimp4u 12 years ago

I figure he left his car because it broke down again, was picked up by a van full of illegal Mexicans and gang-raped the whole time his daughter was at camp. That would make more sense than any of the rest of this crap movie.

[–] bootblack987 11 years ago

I took the ending to mean that he was going to walk off into the desert, never to be seen again. Or he would wait until a big semi truck came by and dart in front of it. Either way he would end up dead.

We see the scene where he is crying and says that he is not a person, he is nothing. There is no change from that scene, so we know he is despondent. He checks out of the hotel and asks that his belongings be boxed up and sent to an address...which does not exist. He makes no efforts to find a new home. I was hoping he was going to drive to the camp, pick up his daughter and then quit the business and buy a home and be a full-time father. Instead, he drives out into the desert and abandons his vehicle and wanders off into...nothingness.

He feels he is nothing and no one has any interest of importance in him except his daughter. Why stay alive and give her...nothing. So he ends his life to end his own sorrow and to show his daughter that his life was empty and now she can choose a life of substance.

A sad, miserable man and a sad, miserable movie. We have no reason for hope in any way, shape or form from what we see in the final scenes of this film.

[–] josiekmuir 11 years ago

Keanu Reeves, need I say more? This woman cannot write a story unless it's someone else's. She has silver spoon so far down her throat she has nothing to say that matters, unless it's someone else's story.