MovieChat Forums > The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby: Them (2014) Discussion > Final Scene (Potential Spoilers)

Final Scene (Potential Spoilers)

posted 10 years ago by archiethorpmyles
13 replies | jump to latest

Does anyone have an idea or care to speculate as to what Conor (James McAvoy), while walking through the park, stops and stares at? I've considered that it was where he and Eleanor (Jessica Chastain) run to and watch the fireflies in the film's first scenes, but that doesn't fit the location or the layout, a (I think) small fenced-in area. Maybe a playground, and he's remembering their son?

I've not yet seen "Him" or "Her," which may expand on or illuminate this.

Thanks.

[–] Tailz38 10 years ago

It's the park where they watched the fireflies. I think what the ending is showing is that love never ends. Connor is there, walking through the park, and he looks to the section where he and Eleanor were at the beginning of the film. He remembers their time together, and she appears (but not really there), suggesting that she'll always be a part of him. And he will always be a part of her. At least, I think that's so. :) One of the best film endings I've ever seen.

[–] jltyler 10 years ago

SPOILERS******

I agree, Tailz38: It is a great dénouement, as great as the sequence (which includes the most subtle flashback I've ever seen), in which Eleanor returns to their apartment to find Connor, her grief finally abating.

However, in regard to the ending, I think the fact that we've been told before she leaves for Paris that she plans to return, and also that she takes the same path as Connor, more than suggests that their relationship will continue, that although it will never be the same as it was, love never dies, it just changes.

[–] Lawdent 10 years ago

Her hair is longer in the final scene, indicating that she has returned from Paris. Also, the fact that Connor is now running his dad's restaurant clearly indicates that some time has passed. When she is following him from a distance, I was waiting to see if she would turn the same way he did, or go the opposite way. When she did turn his direction, that left me with the feeling that they would eventually get back together.

"When the legend becomes fact, print the legend."
... "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance"

[–] powblopwiz 10 years ago

The ending they chose in "Them" is the ending of "His" story. I read that the ending of the "Her" version is even more hopeful.

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[–] Sir_Alfred 10 years ago

I read it as in the future, and they were both REALLY there in the park.

Their paths crossing once again, and this time she was pursuing him.

"In this world a man, himself, is nothing. And there ain't no world, but this one"

[–] neondaydream14 9 years ago

Spoilers!

I also saw it this way.
The thing he looks at is Eleanor crossing over the road beyond the park behind him - if you watch carefully the park is on a corner and he second-glances as he first catches sight of her. In the apartment when she tells him she loves him he says "I know" as if he knows that she will find her way back to him eventually but he knows she has to go away at that moment. I also saw the ending metaphorically, she is a spectre haunting him, as if they will always be tied together even if they aren't together. It's an open ending really, but full of love either which way. Sad and uplifting all at once!

[–] artemis1644 9 years ago

Or isn't that important?

[–] Waldimore 9 years ago

Nothing I've read in this thread even remotely makes me feel better about THEM.

[–] TheRealJaneDoe 8 years ago

Nothing I've read in this thread even remotely makes me feel better about THEM.

That makes two of us.

I wanted to know more about her, but I can't sit through it again.

Look at us. You pretending to be me, signing a book I didn't even write. -Selina Meyer

[–] TheGirlWithAKittenTattoo 8 years ago

I think you know the answer by now, still, in the ending of 'her' it was shown that El calls out Connor, just a 'hey' though and he looks back at her and smiles. It kinds of points at their getting back together I guess

English is not my first language, so please excuse any mistakes.

[–] kenny-164 8 years ago

Ftr I hardly consider myself a reflexive optimist when it comes to endings that are more or less open ended, but neither am I a rank pessimist.

I can discount some of what is mentioned above that would lead to a skeptical view. For example, I don't see Eleanor following him through the park with their history in the park if all she has to do is tell him she found someone else. Why even bother? Why bother to let him know she's back at all unless she wants to at least explore going in a direction that brings them closer?

Connor on the other hand gives all the signals of still being in love with her. He's alone, needs to get his thoughts together "before the rush". So where does he go? Somewhere that reminds him of her, of their shared past.

He's not "moved on", in other words, and I agree with the mention above that when Eleanor said she loved him, the way he said "I know" indicated NOT that he was not prepared to say he loved her, too, but that her love for him meant they still had a future.

What that future would be, however, IS left open. I think they have to find a way to recognize in practice what I think they already know in their heads, which is that they can't have the same love they had before. It will have to reflect the difficulties they've been through.

Both fathers in effect allude to a truth about relationships. People can fall in love more than once, I think it beyond question. But even if the notion that "only one" can, well, really get to you is perhaps something less than universally true, there is a lot of power and truth to the notion that some aer going to be harder to get over than others. Maybe some you never "get over". Both dads say that in effect and implicitly suggest that Eleanor and Connor are, respectively, those people.

That in itself does not mean that they will work it all out. But I think as the film ends they are poised to make a real attempt to do so.