My only problem with the movie .... *spoiler*

Thanks ... I guess it would be worthwhile to see the short. Someone in another thread commented that they found that even more affecting.

I totally get what you and Melinda are saying, but wouldn't it have been safer just to alert the doorman/men and stay inside? How likely was it that the 150-pound wife was going to blast her way into the apartment?

If memory serves, when the hero answered the door at one point, I'm not sure he even looked through the peephole; fortunately, that was the doorman, which seemed kind of a conflict to me. Anyway, it seemed more dangerous to me to get the daughter out and expose her to the elements. I think I might have stayed holed up inside prepared to call in reinforcements if possible.

@ JMKilling

Yes...which is why that particular story decision feels like a plot contrivance. The writer likely found it difficult to come up with a plausible reason for Sophia's need to leave a highly secure home at that hour; it should be obvious that a greater risk of danger was probable as soon as Richie and Sophia stepped into the city's nightlife.

I think a motivation for not returning to the apartment, in the first place, would've made the most sense. We really didn't need to see the angry wife since the lawyer made Maggie's situation clear during his jail consultation; the low-level threat to Sophie and Richie becomes clear. If the filmmaker really wanted to put the wife's anger into a scene, an extended verbal confrontation on the steps of the government building would've been sufficient. We never saw the wife's emotions in such a way as to validate Maggie's frantic pleas to remove Sophie from the safety of their apartment.

The high-rise complex with its city views is affluent-occupied, with a door man and security monitors. At minute 19:28 (Netflix), the apartment door appears to be metal with a thick metal door frame. Its long reinforced stainless steel knob plate incorporates a deadbolt with the main lock underneath, and a peep hole to boot. I assume the filmmaker made the modern home high-end, secure, and clean - in contrast to Richie's place - to establish Maggie's financial status at a young age of 25-27 years old. It sounded like she and her daughter had few friends; they depended heavily on each other and home was their haven. So it goes against Maggie's implied character to demand that her troubled, estranged brother take her beloved Sophia to his apartment in a low income, crime-ridden area of the city.

Richie and Sophia were MUCH safer staying indoors and could have called police if the suspicious woman came back knocking or yelling. As others have said, the doorman could've been put on alert as well; an intelligent Sophia would have known this too. The wife was fairly composed when she spoke to Richie in the hall; she did not seem manic or to be experiencing a Lizzie Borden, "bath salts", or meth moment. It's doubtful that she would've attacked an innocent child; she was there to confront Maggie as a home wrecker, her nemesis. Maggie's fear was so over-the-top with what we view during the jail phone scene that it remains an overreaction by the film's end. In fact, Maggie seemed the unhinged one - paranoid and manic - as if the mystery woman was a female Mafioso about to assassinate any one of them. But the wife didn't look to be all that dangerous or crazed; she conveyed no creepy threat and had no backup bodyguard...she quickly left the moment Richie pressed her for more info. Perhaps the wife character should've been written to seem more unstable or villainous...and Maggie less frantic and more sympathetic.

That night, a scorned woman was not getting inside the apartment...unless she used a detonation device and power saw in the manner of Limitless (2011), or via the 20th floor windows with Mission Impossible style.




"Don't get chumpatized!" - The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters (2007)

Yup. Little sister has made such a point of controlling her life, and her daughter's, that she perceived the visit from her affair's wife (just learning that he's married, and physically abusive are serious shocks to her worldview) as something that could pull the curtain way back and undermine the illusion she's worked so hard to create. It's sort of pulled together in the end when she tells Richie that they come from different worlds. She's convinced herself of this, until Richie reminds her, "I know exactly where we came from." To her it was "dangerous" to allow the wife to interact with her daughter. And must've felt very threatening.