MovieChat Forums > Everything Must Go (2011) Discussion > Something was missing

Something was missing

posted 12 years ago by osubuckeye420
13 replies | jump to latest

I enjoyed parts of this movie, but the entire time I felt like I was missing something.

I guess that I never really understood why he was locked out of his house and what was preventing him from going back inside.

At first I figured it was because his wife had filed a restraining order against him and was living in the house. That didn't make sense though because the cops came and cited him for the open container, but didn't say anything about a restraining order.

Then days pass and you realize she isn't even in the house.

So that got me back to my initial thought, what the heck is preventing him from entering his own home?

I thought maybe they had an alarm system, but then he threw a baseball through a window and no cops came... so that obviously wasn't the case.

Even if they did have an alarm system and the responders came... he owns the house, his name is on it, they can't kick him out of the inside.

I understand the cops telling him to move all of his crap out of the front yard because there was probably a municiple ordinance in effect... I don't understand why the cops wouldn't have let him inside the house though.

It's just hard to really buy into a movie that is suppose to have a gritty real life vibe to it when the premise is completely unrealistic.

Anyone else have these thoughts when watching? Or maybe someone could explain what was preventing Ferrell from enterting his own home (outside of a locked door, which can easily be opened by calling a locksmith or the police who could call a locksmith)

[–] clever-username 12 years ago

You sure did miss something.
The film asks the exact same question.
YOU ARE SUPPOSED TO BE ASKING/ANSWERING THAT QUESTION.

The film is the answer to that question.
Without which, there is no film!

Will Ferrel is paralized.
He doesn't go into the house for the same reason he doesn't borrow a truck and move into an apartment and restart his divorced life.

[–] osubuckeye420 12 years ago

But, I never felt the question was ever answered. That's my point.

The thing that prompts him re-entering the house isn't some self discovery or re-awakening.

It's his sponsor tossing him an envelope with divorce papers and the keys to the house (after it is revealed his been sleeping with his wife) and telling him he's going to lose it.

I guess you can say that he's more prepared to lose the house because he's let go of all his other material possessions... but what kind of a message is that?

I felt that the movie was going for a, "you can only gain awareness after you lose everything" type message... but the main character doesn't ever gain awareness.

It's just a bunch of bummers and at the end a chick hands him a photo with a "hang in there buddy" message on the bottom.

It was a bit of a letdown for me.

Before someone gives the whole, "well he passed up the liquor store, he returned the beer and he made amends with those he wronged" line. He had done that for 6 months in the past, and then relapsed. What's to say he's not going to do it again? I don't ever feel that the movie makes that clear, and it all felt kind of pointless for that reason.

Some flashbacks would have been nice. Things that would show us how this time was different from the last time.

Unless the message is that there is no hope for alcoholics unless they lose everything and everyone they love. I didn't really get the message. If that is what they were trying to send, I think that's a horrible and untrue message to send. You don't have to destroy your family and lose your house in order to gain clarity. I have friends who were legit alcoholics who were able to turn it around through support and through buying into the consequences of their actions.

Again, I'm going to get the "he had the support of the kid and the pregnant chick" line. Again though, I would like to know how this was different from the past. In the past his wife stuck with him and he still screwed up. Who is to say that he's not going to do it again in 6 months?

[–] c_moore_04 12 years ago

I don't feel the story is saying that there's no hope for alcoholics at all. His wife was a recovering alcoholic as well, and when she received the news of him losing his job because the woman from work was filing a suit, she decided that she had had enough of him not trying (remember, the detective says something about him not going to the meetings as he should). I think the movie is more of an analysis of character. The point wasn't about Halsey being an alcoholic; I think the point comes out more when he's having his "showdown" with his new neighbor, where he tells her how everyone in that neighborhood hides in their homes--every single person on that street had something to hide. For Halsey, he couldn't hide it any longer because his wife put it out there for everyone to see.

[–] osubuckeye420 12 years ago

I got that, and I actually thought that (the convo between Ferrell and the neighbor) was the best scene in the movie and was the closest the director got towards hammering home a point.

I felt they were going to build on it, but it never really happened.

He says something along the lines of, "you're all as screwed up as me, but you get to hide in your houses and I'm out here". Then he sobers up and the movie continues and they never really revisit it.

Again, it just felt like something was missing that would have tied everything together.

I'm gonna move on from this movie though... I've thought about it and I don't think that my opinion on it is going to change. I appreciate the responses and if anyone else got more out of this movie than me, I'm glad. For me, it just didn't connect.

[–] justin-209-152796 12 years ago

I felt like a lot of the power in this film is what they didn't do and what they didn't sort out. It was very realistic in that sense to me and made a lot of hard choices not to wrap everything to well. It was hard to LOVE the movie but IMO it definitely was helmed by a confident and consistent team, that succeeded admirably in their efforts... whether the majority likes it or not.

[–] Balcones 11 years ago

"He had done that for 6 months in the past, and then relapsed. What's to say he's not going to do it again?"

Who knows. I think he will stay sober this time though. In the past he had gone sober for his job or his wife. This time he is trying sobriety for himself. He sees reflections of his dad in himself (his dad even drank the same beer as him), and he does not like where his life ended up after high school.

[–] KingLongshanks 12 years ago

I'm not sure this, or every movie have a "message" to deliver... sometimes it is just a story... of seemingly random events.

I saw it as a story of the "dark ages" between 2 chapters of his life. The movie starts at the end of the old chapter, and ends when it is about to begin again. All we see is the few days between... he is at a fork in the road, and we see the path he chooses.

He may fail again... just like any movie we don't know for sure what happens when the credits roll. We get to imagine that he succeeds in changing his life around, and maybe reconects with that woman from high school... she seemed interested... so long as he was over whatever crap he was dealing with.

I don;t think you should always look for the message, or point. I write a fair bit, and when I do, I never try to deliver an over-all point... the story is about the characters and the events and that is good enough for me :)

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[–] MyersHome78 12 years ago

From what I understood, he first of all didn't have the keys, but more importantly, obviously all his stuff being in the front yard was his wife's way of kicking him out of the house and leaving him, so what if he goes back inside? What is he gonna do? He can't put his stuff there since he has to get rid of it anyway. He's staying outside, as shown repeatedly in the film, because he wants to watch his stuff so that it doesn't get stolen. Besides, I also think there's a deeper reason as well, but that's the main reason.

[–] nick-1036 12 years ago

OP, the film makers "think" they made this point clearly. They stated that his wife kicked him and all his stuff out, so he's out and she's in. Then she changed the locks just to be sure, so he doesn't have a key. The reason you wonder why he doesn't just break back in is because she's not home, or it appears she doesn't live there anymore. But he didn't know that, and felt that at anytime she could have come home, and then seeing that he broke back in he would be in serious trouble of losing her forever, remember his messages, he was trying to win her back.

So the answer is obvious, but i see how you were confused,

[–] kcolli11 12 years ago

I'm glad you brought up the alarm system! Because at one point in the film, the cop (I think) mentions that Ferrell's wife changed the alarm code. But then he throws the baseball through the window, and the alarm doesn't go off. That bugged me.

[–] apnesethkari 11 years ago

The baseball was in a glass cage of some sort, so thats why we heard glass break.

[–] 11 years ago

[deleted]

[–] Kuato_and_George 11 years ago

I said the same exact thing after seeing this movie.

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