Summary


Can anyone, uh, explain what exactly happened in this movie?

reply

Although there's some misdirection during the final act, at the very end its revealed that the brother and sister had incestuous sex many years ago and had a baby. When they visited to get Tommy to sign the papers to sell the farm to the oil company, they tried to convince him that their dad, Josiah (play by Robert Patrick), raped her, but the final scene indicates that the story Josiah had told Tommy was true, that it was in fact consensual sex between the siblings that produced the child. The baby is killed and buried. I think the part they told Tommy about Josiah abusing them was accurate (e.g. him taking an iron to Tommy's ear), probably incited by his wife's suicide. It's also revealed at the end that Josiah is actually a ghost talking to Tommy, and that the three kids killed him 23 years earlier.

Here's some bullet points of the highlights:
-The brother and sister had an incestuous relationship when they were young
-The mother killed herself when the daughter got pregnant
-Josiah became a mean drunk (I think) and started abusing them
-The three of them (maybe with Tommy merely watching) killed the father
-The siblings killed the baby, probably as soon as it was born, and buried it
-Traumatized by it all, the daughter had her tubes tied after the baby was born
-Tommy started seeing Josiah's ghost when he moved back to the farm
-Tommy dug up Josiah's body, along with the baby, which are charred
-Josiah's ghost saw a vision from his wife about how to cleanse everybody of their sins
-With the siblings back at the farm, Tommy murdered them and the tree catches fire

Parts of that have to be assumed because it's not fully fleshed out, but that's the gist of it I think.
_________________________________________
Never believe. Always question. Rebuke belief, a.k.a. bias, a.k.a. groupthink, a.k.a. ideology, the bane of skeptical, logical reason.

reply

Thanks!

reply

Thanks. It sounds awful, Im not watching that.

reply

Great summary. Thanks. (Oh, how I miss the IMDB message boards at times like this!)
How about Boone? What happened to him? Was the gold poisoned? Cursed?

reply

Oh, how I miss the IMDB message boards at times like this!
No kidding! That was a huge disappointment. So many great conversations on those IMDB message boards. I even had a ridiculous 12-part post on the 2009 movie Triangle, and of course Donnie Darko spawned many discussions. It was a great centralized place everyone could go. Their decision to discontinue those boards hit hard, and everyone scattered to places like this forum.

The movie is a little foggy now since it's been a couple months, but I do recall it being mentioned by a character that the gold was cursed by the gypsies, and Eli stopping the girl he rescued from touching it at one point. My impression was that it was poisoned, probably by the gypsies themselves, although I'm not sure we can land on a concrete answer one way or the other. I'd have to watch it again at some point to see if the film itself hints at a more definitive answer. My takeaway is that it was poisoned, however.
_________________________________________
Never believe. Always question. Rebuke belief, a.k.a. bias, a.k.a. groupthink, a.k.a. ideology, the bane of skeptical, logical reason.

reply

Some other tidbits I noticed...

Tommy was seemingly normal at one point since he clearly had a wife and child that now have a restraining order against him. The murder of the father, mothers' hanging, incest, and murder of the baby drove Tommy mad. He wasn't born that way because Eli said to Tommy "You're still bat shit crazy". If his brother was born handicapped he would not have said that. Mary and Eli were clearly very comfortable with lying. I also think the tractor is a reminder to Tommy of dad's murder which is why Tommy is so desperate to get it moving.

There's also some misdirection at the beginning where the director makes you think that Tommy might be a pedophile - but he's not. In fact, he has implied impure thoughts about Mary as well. I'd go as far as to say Tommy may've been jealous of Eli. And the masturbation scene with Josiah - while weird - was innocuous in the grand scheme of things (Plus it all happened in Tommy's mind). The title of the movie gives away a lot to me; It's what Josiah *Saw* - not what Josiah *Did*.

This film has quite a lot of layers to it. You will be thinking about it for a while.

reply

Great observations. And yes, agreed about the title, which helps frame what's going on right there itself.
_________________________________________
Never believe. Always question. Rebuke belief, a.k.a. bias, a.k.a. groupthink, a.k.a. ideology, the bane of skeptical, logical reason.

reply