*** SPOILERS ***
I don't think it's that simple at all. As I see it, part of the whole point is that it's complicated, and just like real life, not everything can be wrapped up perfectly.
Take, for instance, the final shot of the film, ending on Ben. In most films, Ben would either have died (and become the martyr) or woken up at the end (and given us the happy ending). Instead, we're left in limbo. What will happen to him? Will he ever wake up? If so, will there be permanent brain damage? Will his family continue to grieve as he stays in the hospital for months or years? Will he die on his own? Will they pull the plug? We can speculate, but the film doesn't tell us, and that's part of what I liked so much about it. It avoids giving us easy answers, but it still gives us a satisfying (in my opinion, at least) ending—one that leaves us thinking. In that way, it's much truer to how things typically play out in real life.
My own take on Kyle's story is that we're meant to agree that Kyle is being exploited, even though he says he isn't, and that the other children need to be taken out of the house. Even he seems eager to get out and make a better future for himself, despite his protests at the end—but only if he thinks he really has an opportunity.
The twist we're given at the end is another example of real life not always matching movie cliches. When Kyle makes his speech at the end, I don't think we're meant to conclude that he really is better off in the house. I think we're meant to reflect on how complicated his reality is compared to Nina's. In her mind, things are fairly simple: He needs to get out of a bad situation. As the audience, we agree. But Kyle reminds her, and us, that his world is complicated. Getting him out of the house takes him away from the only world he knows and the only home he has, as well as all his friends. Yes, he's being exploited, but he has food and shelter. Nina can't offer him that, and she hasn't thought far enough ahead to think about how completely it would change her world to try to offer him the things he'd need once he was out of the house.
So yes, she exploited him, in that her focus on telling his story drifted into thinking about how the story would affect her career but not the long-term impact of it on him or how he would be able to live day to day once the house was shut down. Was her exploitation of him worse than Harvey's? No, I don't think so at all. But in real life, it's not all good guys and bad guys. Life is complicated.
What should she have done? I don't know. Sometimes bad things happen even when you do everything right. The people in this film make good and bad decisions, and all of them are in various ways trapped, blinded, and disconnected from one another. But in a sense, it is that disconnection—the disconnection that allows these minors to be used sexually by people who don't know them, the disconnection that allows Nina to do a great story and lose sight of its impact on real people, and the disconnection that allows the feds to be bound by red tape keeping them from getting the kids to safety as soon as they know about the problem—that creates many of the problems for these characters.
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doginthefog
10 years ago
The reporter handled the situation horribly. On an aside, I think it's pretty tough for underage kids to be web camming. From looking into things, it seems to broadcast and get paid, you need to submit a lot of information to the site (funny enough pretty much all the information needed to get frauded like the couple in the movie).
You have to provide banking info, SIN, Photo id etc.
But back to the point, all the reporter had to say was that she would give the kid a place to stay and some food. But she really didnt want to. Even if she had to get him his own place, I think he would have been fine with that. He just didn't want to be going with her off to some uncertain future. In the end, her selfishness pushed the kid away
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si-baker
10 years ago
The main point is that from the perspective of the character Kyle he felt more abused and taken advantage of by the reporter than by a child sex trafficker or whatever you want to call him. Whilst that is obviously not true in all cases the movie put forward to you an example of how seemingly realistic that situation could be in this society. It also asks the question why the fact Kyle doesn't even think what he's going through is abuse? He sees it as normal to be on the internet doing what he is doing, and providing that service.
One of the weirdest bits for me was when the reporter was getting her kudos and congratulations after the report aired and there were all these people round her congratulating her and smiling, having fun and drinking. It then cuts to Kyle who is still alone, still in his situation. The telling of the story had become more important that the story itself and people effected in it. She full endorses that idea, any opportunity to help Kyle is empty, she offers help but then doesn't back it up with any substance or ideas. Because she doesn't really care, she is concentrating on her guilt, not his situation. At the end she realises what she has done and how she is like the child sex trafficker.
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charlzonder-es-maas
8 years ago
I really think you're getting that wrong. I think for the largest part she was just afraid to let him live in her house, which he really did ask for specifically! He had already come on to her before, it really seemed he was falling for her and he just desperately needed love and protection. And I really believe that she honestly wanted to offer him that (regardless of wether she was into him or not which I couldn't really tell) and at least look out for his best interests but then all of a sudden all her good intentions didn't matter anymore as those feds turned up at her office and started speaking more and more hostile along the way, in the end even making it seem as if she was the child abuser. At first she was the hero at her work and in the media for exposing these practises but exactly for the reasons of her really caring for the "victim" who's story she wanted to tell objectively, for making him feel safe and trying to assure his privacy and opening up to him to by giving her adress she gets nothing but accusations in the end and on top of that her superiors dropping her in the most coldhearted manner like a stone brick.
So there she sits: suspended from her job, unsure if she even still has a job, with feds above her head making all sorts of accusations, at the same time needing their help to try and ensure Kyle's wellbeing since they are going to act nonetheless of what happens to him in the end and not being sure if she can count on the feds for this (which in the end turns out she can't as they screw even their own plans up). Then she goes out bringing herself in even unsafer situations that probably go beyond what she can handle to try in a last effort to get him out of the mess that suddenly unraveled for her own eyes to! And then ofcourse she is to scared to immediately agree to let him live in her house as she knows that this might be gravely misunderstood by the world around her! Can you really blame her for that?!
Kyle doesn't see these things ofcourse as his world is so narrowed by this industry. The only thing he knows is that he is not in the bests of situations but at least it's alot better than the situation he was in before. Then this woman comes along that actually wants to talk with him and cares about him and his story and not the sex and turns on a light for him to hope for a better future. He slowly starts to trust her and then everything goes to *beep* all of a sudden which in his eyes ofcourse is because she betrayed him so he understandably gives up on her and probably on hope for better people in general. But we as viewers can see that this hasn't happened because she had bad intentions but simply because she lost control!
... if you want to blame anyone in this scenario blame the feds. I don't want to sound like a pothead but truly, in this case, when they intervened everything went south for both Kyle and the reporter.
Lastly I want to add this:
you say "in the end her selfishness pushed the kid away"
I say in the beginning the world's disinterest and selfishness drove the kid into the arms of a kind-of predator and extortionist or at least entrepreneur with questionable morals and values.
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uhrdavid
10 years ago
This explanation should win some sort of award. That is what I found to be the beauty of this movie. I know that this film was trying to make a social statement about how the internet destroys our relationships and our capacity for compassion and empathy, but I think that that point was overshadowed by how well it accurately it portrays the nuances of actual, everyday life and how technology doesn't always make things better. Every story is muddy and messy... and very well told and acted. I thought it was fantastic, especially for a movie I had never heard of until today...
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Gabe1972
10 years ago
One other thing you have to remember about Kyle, too...he's a kid. He's thinking like a kid and doesn't have the experience that would tell him that he should leave his situation. He's a typical kid. As adults, we know he's in a pretty bad situation, but as a kid, he just doesn't see it. He will later in life, and most likely he will regret it, wishing he had listened to other people.
The plural of mouse is mice. The plural of goose is geese. Why is the plural of moose not meese?
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Gheelnory
10 years ago
I liked this movie, gave it a good rating, and would recommend it.
But I do think that the weak point of the film is the ambiguous treatment of the video-porn operation. Those who say that the underage-actors porn industry is white-washed in this screenplay have a fair point.
I wish that the story had been less harsh on the Nina Dunham character. The screenwriter may have felt that the film's overriding theme of 'Internet use can lead people to be less empathetic and more exploitative' required that Nina be shown up as a user. And he may have felt that to show up Nina as a user, he had to show Kyle's current situation as 'not all that bad.' The porn operation had to be presented in a rosy glow of positivity in order to make Nina's efforts look Bad and Wrong.
Thus we get a video-porn operation in which the 'father figure' is warm and the kids aren't given drugs, aren't pushed to do anything they find degrading, aren't eventually pushed into physical contact with customers (prostitution), etc.
This overly-optimistic picture of what it's like to be an underage porn performer is a flaw in an otherwise excellent movie.
_ . _ . _ . _ . _ . _ .
Grey Fairy / White Wolf
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Gabe1972
10 years ago
I don't think the underage-actor's porn industry is whitewashed at all in this film. I think it shows how manipulative it truly is. The head of the operation, who's name I forget, has them thinking that he is the caring father figure who wants what is best for them, while the mature viewer knows he is nothing more than a vile, manipulative scumbag who truly wants nothing more than increased business. He doesn't care one iota about these kids. Not one bit. But the more he convinces them that he truly cares about their well being, the more he can manipulate them into doing. It's not whitewashed at all. Many of the smarter operators are really like this. They know the kids don't have the maturity or the experience to realize what is really being done to them.
As for Nina, I think they portrayed her in a very realistic way. In a way that a person in her position may really respond to the situation. She did do some questionable and morally incorrect things, but to me it seemed quite realistic.
Everyone is different, and people will react to similar situations in different ways.
The plural of mouse is mice. The plural of goose is geese. Why is the plural of moose not meese?
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