Looked it up online but all it says is the answer might be found in the final scene.
??
I'm not too good at finding abstract messages or hidden gems.
Why did she leave her in the mountains and where did she go? Trying to produce a movie?
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If you choose not to decide you still have made a choice
I may have had a different take on this movie. Yes, it stymied me too over Val's disappearance. I have thought about it overnight and have appeased myself with the following. I think that Val was the personification of Marie's character when he was younger and then it was all about her. As she wrestled with the script it made her force herself to look at her current place in life. She had to reconcile with being older and no longer being the ingénue she was when she had first preformed in the play. Have you ever seen the symbology where the snake makes a full circle and begins to "swallow" it's own tail? Watching the clouds that last day rushing in, that morning something in her finally clicked and allowed her to let go of her past and come into the new role as the older woman. Full circle. (Either that or Val was real and had had had enough...bye Felicia.) I like the interpretation that it was her battling with her younger self. She had to let go of seeing herself in the role that she had played and begin with her new role. You see her acceptance of that when the younger girl didn't want to take her advice about "the pause" to make a certain scene more effective/dramatic. She had learned that to see all as now is. Changed mightily by the introduction of social media and progress in general. It can be hard when you are older to accept the changes that come along as we age. Here's an example: my Mom was in her 80's when everyone begin pretty much keeping in touch with everyone else by email. She had a choice. Stay out of the loop or get with the program. I'm pleased to say she embraced the Internet and became fairly savvy at using it for her wants and needs. It was great for us, she made it easy for us to stay in touch. It's easy for the young who grow up with it but when my Mom grew up there wasn't even TV. A lot had changed since she was born at the beginning of the century. Ah, I blether on. I hope something I wrote made sense to you.
shareWe know Val was a real person, the writer/director said she was. I after that last "bad" rehearsal, Val left. She told Maria, she believed her differing view point was just confusing Maria. Val reminded Maria, anyone could run lines, with the actress. Val was clearly upset, on the bus ride home. She even set apart from Maria. I think Val simply left. Leaving Maria to continue to struggle with herself and the script. Until Maria accept the inevitable, she was a woman in her forties.
shareI guess as with all film it is up to personal interpretation.
I see it the other way around that Valentine identified with the older character in the play. For example when they go swimming Valentine is the one with inhibitions and does not shed all her clothing Maria is the free one who does without a thought.
Valentine was the one who had everything under control (yes it was her job) was the more informed business-like character who did all the research etc & she was the one who was helping Maria to see the character in a different perspective as Maria could not see past her loss of her own youth.
They are shown in the film discussing what happened to the older character in the play...while Maria is sure she dies, Valentine tells her that she simply disappears that the fact that she dies is not a foregone conclusion she could have gone somewhere else and started over.
This mirrors what happens with Valentine's character.
She is just not there anymore (as the older character in the play) she could have died but its not a foregone conclusion, she could have started over elsewhere.
That's just make take on it.
Some parts of this movie were uncomfortable for me and I need to look deeper as to why.
I can't hear you over the volume of my hair.
Ah, that's the greatest thing about some movies. They make us think, question and look outside of our normal frame.
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