Neighbour kids (spoilers)

I saw this movie tonight at the "Frames of Mind" screening in Vancouver (http://thecinematheque.ca/framesofmind/the-weight-of-elephants). After the screening there was a discussion, and it seemed that most people interpreted a key aspect of the movie a little differently than I did. Don't read further unless you've seen the movie (or want to be spoiled on it).

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The psychoanalyst who led the discussion was apparently of the view that the three kids who moved in down the street, with their ill mother and absent father, were just coincidentally reminiscent of the three missing kids in the news. In other words, they were thematically/symbolically connected but within the story, distinct.

It seemed to me that the movie was leaving open the possibility that the three kids were figments of Adrian's imagination, perhaps hallucinations, thus the first manifestation of a serious mental illness. So at the end, when Adrian went under the tarp, he believed he was saving Nicole, but was actually alone, essentially risking his life for nothing. Of course this wasn't settled, but was the film deliberately leaving that possibility open? Looking back, I'm not so sure there was anything in the film to suggest that Nicole and Joely were purely the products of Adrian's brain. But if not, then were they the three missing children being reported in the news? Who were the parents on TV at the press conference?

Please set me straight. It wouldn't be the first time that I badly misunderstood a movie in a way that the filmmaker never intended.