fantastic film, what did the last scene mean? (spoilers)

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This was so obvious to me and I'm wondering why it wasn't to many other viewers.

Sorry, but that makes no sense. Why would Marie be dreaming about Abe's parents telling him that he's a failure? Those dreams were obviously Abe's represented his insecurities. Only the dancing scene was Marie's dream. It's tragic because the whole time Abe was after a girl who wasn't attracted to him, while the woman who loved him was right under his nose. There isn't any "hope" in the ending, just like in Welcome to the Dollhouse. That is Todd Solondz style. I like that his films are honest, but they possess a cynical mood to them as well.

It is in no way Marie's dream. Abe has visions of Marie which allow him essentially to talk to himself. Solondz economically signaling the shift into this interior realm by putting Marie in situations where she normally just wouldn't fit.

The whole film is about Abe and at one point says he always thought of himself as a dark horse. At the end the spirit of Abe returns to his house. A glimpse inside Marie's psyche reveals that she secretly loved him.

The reviewers didn't miss the point, you did.

But the story is clearly told through Marie's eyes. She is the outsider looking in at this and relaying the information to the audience through her own filter, of course. It's told backwards (SPOILER) but it's how she sees it. I think it's clever-she's demure and mousy in the office but we the audience get to see what she thinks and feels and, most importantly, what she sees.

The lines between fantasy and reality are very blurred in this-it requires a few viewings to 'get' it. And I'm certain Soldanz intended it that way.

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Just watched this last night and I never thought of the interpretation that the entire film except for the last shot of Marie at her desk is actually Marie's fantasy. Neither was the possibility discussed in any of the MRQE reviews I read, although I suppose it isn't really the job of a professional reviewer to give away the ending of a film. Anyway, I'm not entirely discounting it.

What some reviews offered instead was that the ending could be read in two ways, either a glimmer of hope, a tender thought about the now departed Abe (the dancing in Marie's apartment), or a cruel joke. I only read it as the former, and still can't see how it could be the latter. I mean I know as a film it's mostly quite bleak, as Solondz pictures are, but those closing moments seemed nothing but heartfelt and tragic, but faintly hopeful at the same time.

Speaking of the ending, those end credits and the cacophony that accompanied them were so jarring after the subtlety of the final scene! Probably more jarring than anything else in the film.

It is explained by the director and actors in the Q&A posted in the thread

Actually that's not true. Some of the scenes were reality (for example: the coffee shop scene, the scenes where Marie looked like and played the demure quiet secretary). The rest were Abe's fantasy (i.e. where Marie was more of a cougar/vixen), EXCEPT for the final scene which was Marie's fantasy and after Abe died.