The ending spoilers
So the last scene... Was he meeting a new lover or was he meeting for a new job interview?
shareI think it's possible for it to be either. What a movie!
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MovieChat Forums > Boulevard (2015) Discussion > The ending spoilers
While the movie doesn't make it explicitly clear, it makes more thematic sense that he'd be meeting a new lover. After all, the movie turns on his acting on sexuality above all else. The uninteresting job was a bi-product of his settling in the more primary aspects of his life.
shareYou're right.
I was just blown away by the confrontation scene between Nolan and Joy on the stairs, and Joy's final line? Wow. The one thing--the only thing--I notice about Boulevard versus One Hour Photo, which it closely resembles, is Robin Williams' penchant to continually smile, which in this film became obtrusive but made me wonder if it was part of his deteriorating mental condition. He literally couldn't keep from smiling.
But dear God is this an underrated movie. That scene at the nursing home with his monologue...SO sad.
The one thing--the only thing--I notice about Boulevard versus One Hour Photo, which it closely resembles, is Robin Williams' penchant to continually smile, which in this film became obtrusive but made me wonder if it was part of his deteriorating mental condition. He literally couldn't keep from smiling.
I don't think I'm following you here. Other than being quiet, underrated dramas, I don't see much similarities between "One Hour Photo" and "Boulevard" in either tone, style, characteristics, story, plotting, or well, anything else, really.
"One Hour Photo" reveals a very deeply damaged person who has grown into a person with unhealthy and, indeed, illegal projections and intrusions upon the lives of others. "Boulevard" is also a damaged person, albeit in a completely different manner, but whose whole purpose in life is to be kind and not cause harm to others.
And while I wasn't there to witness, I feel confident in saying that excessive smiling was not part of Robin William's deteriorating mental condition as it relates to advancing Lewy Body Dementia, et al.
But dear God is this an underrated movie. That scene at the nursing home with his monologue...SO sad.
I agree with you here. It is an underrated slice-of-life gem.
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I don't think I'm following you here. Other than being quiet, underrated dramas, I don't see much similarities between "One Hour Photo" and "Boulevard" in either tone, style, characteristics, story, plotting, or well, anything else, really.
"One Hour Photo" reveals a very deeply damaged person who has grown into a person with unhealthy and, indeed, illegal projections and intrusions upon the lives of others. "Boulevard" is also a damaged person, albeit in a completely different manner, but whose whole purpose in life is to be kind and not cause harm to others.
Well of course it doesn't resemble One Hour Photo line-for-line. It does present a man whose repression is so total and volcanic that the film's suspense lies in exactly that: What will he do? What lengths will he go to to reveal the man beneath the automaton? There's even a final hotel room scene, as in One Hour Photo, where his manner of acting is really unpredictable. It's a virtual replication of that film in somber tone, stark production values, and, yeah, definitely these are "characteristics."
And, I would argue, Nolan in Boulevard most definitely hurts Joy. He hurts his co-workers. He's lived a lie, just as the deranged film-developer in One Hour Photo does. Both films are about how cowardice can be lethal. share
is Robin Williams' penchant to continually smile, which in this film became obtrusive but made me wonder if it was part of his deteriorating mental condition.No. There are pictures of a genuinely solemn-looking Robin at an art gallery shortly before he died.
The incessant smiling could have been his way to portray a "people-pleaser."
When evil is viewed as good, righteousness is viewed as evil. share
Glad you enjoyed it. I wrote it.
shareI agree with Baileythedog.
When Nolan gets up to shake the guy's hand, Nolan had this very HUGE smile on his face, and that smile was not seen at any other time in the movie. So, as the viewer, I got the feeling that Nolan was meeting a guy for a date, & that he was finally really happy.
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I saw it as he was going on a date, but it could be anything really... And I think that could have been the point sort of 'in life anything can happen if you allow it to' he hadn't allowed himself before but now he did and he was happy about that
We crash into each other, just so we can feel something.
It was intentionally open-ended. He had some kind of opportunity, and he was taking it. I think it was intended to be an upbeat ending to a very downbeat film.
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