MovieChat Forums > Naked As We Came (2019) Discussion > What did Lilly tell Elliot (off screen)?

What did Lilly tell Elliot (off screen)?

posted 10 years ago by kuhske
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Could someone tell me what revelation Lilly has told Elliot (according to Elliot's monologue)? The senator's name is Ryan, not Eric, right? I am confused. Thanks.

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[–] bar_b_q_boy 10 years ago

I think Lilly told Elliot that he is the senator's son and that he and Laura have different fathers.

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[–] kuhske 10 years ago

Brilliant suggestion as it seems plausible. I think the director shouldn't put in an ambiguous monologue like that at the end. Thanks.

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[–] CDM_moviereviewer 9 years ago

I was actually just going to say that he was adopted. He didn't look like his mother or sister. Your scenario, however, fits also. I understand the need to bring more Mexican American/Spanish characters in Hollywood, but none of them look Spanish at all; and I do not simply mean being white, because true Spaniards are actually white.

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[–] tristanp25 9 years ago

My take is it had to do with Ted and her living arrangement with him. Before Elliot approached Ted and pretended he didn't know what was going on, Lilly told Elliot all about why Ted was living with her in the first place. All that time Elliot thought Ted was just the grounds keeper and cook when in fact, he had a life of his own, a boyfriend and was an author looking to exploit the family in his new book in exchange for being Lilly's company.

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[–] SteverB 9 years ago

Do we really know if Lilly told Elliot anything? It might have been Ted taking dramatic license in the book he was writing. Ted is the narrator, yes?

If she actually did have a conversation with Elliot of a revelatory nature, my money is on Elliot being told that he's the senator's son and not his father's son. I didn't see anything to support that Elliot was pretending not to know about Ted because his mother had told him already. It makes more sense (to me, at least) that Elliot would want to stay with Ted because he'd been told the person he thought was his dad his whole life, wasn't.

Regardless, it's really a surprisingly good film!

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[–] dascalargo 9 years ago

I agree with your second suggestion.

On her last night, Lilly made a deathbed confession to Elliot that he was the Senator's son. Elliot, stunned by the news that the man he thought was his father wasn't, then went to Ted's room to seek solace, perhaps even to share the news so he'd have someone to talk to. The revelation that Ted was actually there to write the book about Lilly and the Senator prevented him from doing so.

Although I think Lilly grew to care about Ted, she also knew she had him hooked. She never had any intention of sharing the story with him, but as long as she was alive he had a reason to be there and she had his companionship and assistance.

By the end I think Ted had feelings for Elliot, but that first night it was clearly seduction. He wanted to bed the son and find out what he knew about his mother and the Senator. The question came too quickly for it to have been incidental or mere curiosity. Getting the information was Ted's primary motivation.

In the end, discovering that he was not Lilly's husband's/Laura's father's son freed Elliot. Earlier he had admitted that he worked in the family business only because he felt obligated to do so. Elliot looked peaceful before a panicked Laura woke him. At some point after leaving Ted's room that night, it dawned on Elliot that he wasn't "stuck" anymore. By the time she and her husband left, his relationship with Laura already seemed to be improving, and him being out from under her thumb would probably make things easier between them.

And the little grin at the end? I think that was him realizing that he was now the only person (other than the Senator) who knew the truth about his mother's affair.

Two side notes:

First—let's face it, folks—in reality at some point someone would have noticed the gap of nine months between the affair and Elliot's date of birth.

Second, if you're the type that thinks more deviously, maybe it was the realization that he was about to have dirt on the President of the United States of America that made him grin at the end.

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[–] xatian11968 9 years ago

The film is tricky here. At the very beginning, Ted, who we don't know yet, starts a preamble to the film. This is where we're first told that Lilly had an affair with a Senator, and conceived Elliot. Ted goes on to say in his voice over that he asked whether or not she would ever tell Elliot the truth as Lilly is walking under a sunlit sky, and then the frame freezes to a pose that later in the film Lilly wakes up screaming from as a dream.

The lyrics of the into song also ties into this situation that Lilly is ultimately facing, that being, her revealing to her son that his whole life was a lie, and hers was a tragedy as a result of that lie. And the acidic relationship she has with her children is proportionally a result of this life lie that she's carried with her, for all of Elliot's life.

The monologue at the end, who is also Ted (and not Elliot) serves as confirmation that Elliot finally did have that most important discussion with his mother, but its easy to confuse if you missed the preamble monologue at the very beginning. Surely there is some speculation that Elliot might go on and do something about the discovery/scandal. The film was truly about the dynamic at the end of Lilly's last days as she faced the incredible angst of both her children, and her attempts to find a way to come to terms with the multiple life changing factors of death and truth. Ted ends his monologue opining on that "fear" of truth.

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[–] xatian11968 9 years ago

The film is tricky here. At the very beginning, Ted, who we don't know yet, starts a preamble to the film. This is where we're first told that Lilly had an affair with a Senator, and conceived Elliot. Ted goes on to say in his voice over that he asked whether or not she would ever tell Elliot the truth as Lilly is walking under a sunlit sky, and then the frame freezes to a pose that later in the film Lilly wakes up screaming from as a dream.

The lyrics of the into song also ties into this situation that Lilly is ultimately facing, that being, her revealing to her son that his whole life was a lie, and hers was a tragedy as a result of that lie. And the acidic relationship she has with her children is proportionally a result of this life lie that she's carried with her, for all of Elliot's life.

The monologue at the end, who is also Ted (and not Elliot) serves as confirmation that Elliot finally did have that most important discussion with his mother, but its easy to confuse if you missed the preamble monologue at the very beginning. Surely there is some speculation that Elliot might go on and do something about the discovery/scandal. The film was truly about the dynamic at the end of Lilly's last days as she faced the incredible angst of both her children, and her attempts to find a way to come to terms with the multiple life changing factors of death and truth. Ted ends his monologue opining on that "fear" of truth.

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[–] seanspotatobusiness 9 years ago

I don't think it was Elliot's monologue because it refers to Elliot by name, as in the third person. In the subtitles it says "narrator".

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[–] felixlizarraga-622-747154 8 years ago

Visually, it is pretty clear than Elliott and Laura have different fathers, as he's clearly white and she's not. I do not think that there is any ambiguity about that.

I fart in your general direction.

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