I watched this film and kept waiting for some kind of revelation that Simon/James was actually one person who had been sectioned to a secure ward in a psychiatric hospital. It seemed likely that it was SUPPOSED to be along those lines the entire time.
When other members of the cast started showing up in various other roles, I was like "Ah ha! I get it! He's actually had a nervous breakdown in the 'real' world; something has happened and he's suffering with multiple personality disorder and the people he's seeing are imaginary versions of the real people around him.
For instance I believed for a bit that the security guard who was constantly being a pain might have actually been a real security guard from a psychiatric wing, and the reason that Simon was having so much trouble constantly getting through is either he wasn't supposed to be trying to get past, or that the guard was trying to establish what 'personality' Simon was that day.
The annoying boss I believed was going to turn out to be a psychiatrist who was more interested in "James" than "Simon" (because I'd assume to a doctor, James would be the more interesting case due to his seeming more stable, social and direct than Simon who was like a breakdown waiting to happen). I expected to find that Simon's constant need for his Boss's attention was likely due to his desperation to prove himself sane enough to be released into the real world, to be noticed and approved of as sane.
The other characters, like the diner waitress could have been easily a substitute for hospital cafeteria food service provider, and the other workers (including the other staff around him) easily substituted for various orderlies and nurses, etc, who found James more agreeable than Simon).
Simon's mother is also what led me to think these things, as it seemed to me she was suffering with psychiatric issues too, or clear alzeimers, something along those lines where her memory or her thought processes weren't clear. It seemed Simon could be suffering the same things. The other woman at the home that Simon sees I thought could be a representation of the other side of his mother, another personality he sees as well as "James".
I believed Hannah to also be in a similar position as Simon in some regards...I believed she was sectioned also because she was suicidal and delusional about how people followed her around (the way she went off and got quite annoyed when she spoke so quickly of it struck me she wasn't completely together as she had first appeared). At points she gets quite high strung and emotional rather quick and I thought it reasonable she too could have had a nervous breakdown and ended up in the same hospital.
The parts where Simon is on the "train" I thought was more likely some sort of symbolism for the drugs he was on, he took that train every morning before work, and every evening after (much like one might take medication) and it wasn't until afterwards, things started occurring in the story (such as James showing up on the train for the first time, or him seeing Hannah on the train, etc. It seemed slightly symbolic that perhaps the briefcase scene where it snaps away in the doors of the train meant something was 'breaking' in Simon, it was this day he got told by James (whose face we didn't really see properly) was 'in his place'. It's this day he 'loses his ID card' and effectively, starts to lose his identity at the same time (perhaps the James personality was coming through more and more, trying to stifle the Simon personality).
Pretty sure none of that is accurate however, or someone would have bothered explaining it in the film. At the end when none of this happened, I just found it completely disappointing. I know not every film HAS to have some kind of explanation, but it helps to give reason to the hour and a half you watched when something at least makes sense, lol.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
We've become a race of peeping toms.
reply
share