The beauty of this movie is that the burden it shakes out at the end subverts all previous understandings when watching the movie. Before you thought, it was a story of a grieving mother, unable to extricate herself after losing her son. But in the end, it was discovered that the mother who was just having an extramarital affair could not get out of the story of her extramarital affair. Even the death of her son did not let her come out.
【the biggest problem】
What is the biggest confusion about this movie? It's why Becca was so nice to the high school boy who killed her own kid. After watching the movie, I also read some movie reviews. Personally, there is no explanation that I agree with in the movie reviews I read. For example, Becca is liberating herself by liberating the boy. If this reason is used to explain confusion, many of Becca's performances are contradictory.
Becca sees the boy in full clothes and probably thinks the boy is getting married, so she bursts into tears in the car. If Becca wanted the boy to be relieved of his guilt, then why did Becca burst into tears when she saw this scene. Keep in mind that in the entire movie, Becca has never been in such anguish (including that fiery family quarrel).
Then the most reasonable explanation is that Becca mistakenly thought that the boy was about to get married, and his feelings for the boy were hurt, so Becca later asked the boy if the girl was his girlfriend.
You can go back to the movie and show the slow motion of the car accident. When Becca rushed out, she slowly saw the boy who stood up from the car after the car accident. Her expression was surprised. My personal interpretation of this standard definition means "how are you". The expression in the picture below is when facing the boy. Then in the next shot, he turned his head and saw his child was hit and screamed.
Then, the director also used several very slow slow motions, with Becca's hand as the center of the shot and the wedding ring as the center. My personal understanding is that the director is implying that Becca has an extramarital relationship with this boy, and it is still a sibling relationship. (The following shots are all taken with the hands)
So from my personal understanding, Becca's pain comes from the fact that the person who killed his son was the one he loved. Then it is more reasonable to use this basis to understand the story. For example, why is Becca unwilling to have another child, because if she wants another child, then she will be bound by the child in this marriage. Perhaps, Becca kept seeing the boy later, just to see if it was possible to really get together with the boy. That's why she burst into tears when she mistakenly thought the boy was getting married. The director arranged for Becca's husband to almost cheat, perhaps also trying to guide everyone to think about extramarital affairs.
How did the boy meet Becca? There is a very strange plot in the movie, that is, Becca dressed very professionally and went to the place where she used to work (Sotheby's auction house). This episode is not followed by the previous one. Maybe just want to say, Becca may be in the studio of the art auction company, and I met this boy who is a little artistic (he draws cartoons by himself)
There is one more place that may prove my guess. It was when Becca met the boy and said "I think we can talk", but the boy said "what to talk about". If the only thing they could talk about was a car accident, the boy didn't need to ask. It was because the boy couldn't figure out whether Becca was going to talk about the car accident or the extramarital affair between them, that he asked this question.
Of course, this is my personal understanding. But if this understanding is correct, then all the implications of this film will be reversed.
Including the end, Becca seemed to reconcile with her husband and let go of the past (in fact, her husband's monologue lines have proved that they did not solve this problem at all), but Becca found that her relationship with the boy was impossible to continue. Becca said that she likes the concept of parallel universes, which can be understood as she accepts that in this universe, she can't "have lovers get married", but in other universes, they can still live together. In other universes, Becca says, we can still do whatever we want (this "do whatever" translation may be problematic, but she does use the word "our ", which stands for " we ")
So personally, this movie is about Becca's extra-marital affair. Her relationship was so strong that her son's death did not shake her status as the object of an extramarital affair.
In the end, she held her husband's hand, not a sign of reconciliation, relief . It's just that Becca gave up this desire and compromised with reality .
The film would be bland without the hidden baggage of this extramarital affair.
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