At the end of it all who do you feel worse for?

The poor eighteen year old daughter, Victoria who just died.

The dead dog on the piano.

I feel bad for everyone in this movie to some degree, except for David Siegel. But the kids who have had to be raised in such a shallow, naive, shortsighted environment are the ones I feel the worst for. I was incredibly saddened but not at all surprised to hear that one of their children has already died at such a young age. Those kids don't seem to get much nurturing from their parents, and you just can't expect to raise so many kids in such a way and not have at least some of them turn out to have serious emotional or behavioral problems. No child deserves to be saddled with that kind of baggage.

Next on the list of who to feel awful for would be the nannies, maids, and other staff who work so closely and tirelessly providing for this family with seemingly so little thanks and almost nothing of actual value to show for all their years of service.

The adult son Richard is more pitiful. His appalling descriptions of his father's behavior and treatment of his first family are awful, but he is also a grown man now who not only has the power to hold his father accountable and doesn't, but also willingly participates in their disgusting business and reaps huge benefits from it. He seems at times to be laboring under the delusion that if he shows enough devotion it will cause his father to realize what a good son he is or that it will at all make up for the previous decades of terrible parenting. If that's the case then it truly is sad, but it is a sadness he seems to be willingly accepting.

Jackie is also pitiful. Her stories about time spent in a physically abusive relationship and (in my opinion) her emotional neglect by her current husband make me feel bad for her, but like Siegel's grown son she clearly has made her choice about what she is willing to put up with now in return for living such a lavish lifestyle. I've watched this movie about 20 times and each time I see it I'm both fascinated and saddened by moments where Jackie's eyes will sort of glaze over and she'll temporarily become quiet, and for a moment that insecure girl from before the money came along will become visible, and to me it seems like the weight of her situation is really gnawing at her behind her smiley facade all the time. But then up that weird grin comes and she's playing the hyper rich glamour mom again, and it's so off-putting and awkward and pathetic at the same time.

The endless parade of secondary figures with their own varying degrees of tragedy are part of what makes this movie so endlessly rewatchable for me. Jackie's childhood friend who loses her home, their driver friend who is experiencing his own fall from grace, the numerous pets that are dead or dying or getting lost or not cared for, the people buying timeshares who clearly cannot afford the payments, the uncomfortable Miss America as she's forced to laugh off David Siegel's gross on camera flirtations. It's just a giant glorious trainwreck of misery in all shapes and sizes.

The nannies, definitely. I was tearing up when one of the nannies talked about leaving her own children behind, and how even though it was sad for her she still loved the Siegel kids.