Just watched this movie over the weekend. Can someone please explain what was up with that ending?? Was he imagining the scenes in the hotel room? Did he actually have those people perform and simply pretended to take pictures them?? HELP!!!
Why do movies keep doing this to me? I’ll add it the list with Unfaithful.
I think that he was imagining the whole scene. He stole the knife, went to the hotel, probably even delivered the food. During his imagination he was taking pictures inside his own room. Just like when he was imagining going into their house, etc.
IIRC he did not take any photos of them while he was ‘posing’ them. He took innocent photos of his hotel room. I believe that having the evidence missing later will help his defence.
Well, the very end was the scene of Robin Williams happily accepted into the family, which was intentionally ambiguous–that’s acknowledged on the commentary on the DVD–but I’m pretty firmly convinced that it was a fantasy. There’s a possibility that the whole hotel room scene, like the home invasion, only ever happened in Robin Williams’ head. (Please excuse me for not remembering the character’s name. Was it Jack?) That explains why the pictures he got back were only photos of the fixtures in his own room. However, in a rough cut of the movie, apparently the photos of the couple in the hotel room were shown. In that version of the film, however, the home invasion was also real, so the character’s behavior was definitely softened in the final cut. The point of the photos of the hotel room fixtures is just that without his connection to the family, the character’s life is empty and sterile.
I kinda figured it that he did break into the husband’s hotel room and did force them to pose and made them think he was taking pictures. But he didn’t actually take pictures of them, therefore showing absolutely no proof that he had actually done it.
And yes, I think the “photo” at the end was a delusion.
I saw it at Sundance 2002, and this was one of the audience questions fielded by Robin Williams and the Director. RW’s take on it was that motel room scene actually happened, and the empty photos were from the character ‘setting the scene’ for the later action.
[spoiler]
The only scenes that were not real was when Cy was in their house, and they come back and treat him like Uncle Cy - a part of the family.
Near the end of the movie, when we are back in the interrogation room, he asks Dr. Benton if he was a good man. Cy then answers it himself and has kind of a breakdown – he starts to cry and says stuff like “I can tell you’re a good man. You would never do things like make your children pose for disgusting pictures…”.
From that scene, it seemed to imply that Cy himself was a victim like that, whereby someone (like a parent) took kiddy-porn photos of Cy. This caused him to be socially messed up in life, and also gave him sort of an obsession with photography. He longed to be part of a normal happy family, and after seeing pictures of this particular family, he “adopted” them as his own. When he saw pictures of the husband having the affair, he felt betrayed all over again, and was enraged at the guy. Cy went to the hotel because he wanted to punish and humiliate the guy, just like Cy had been abused as a child. (He also used photography as a weapon when he took pictures of the little girl and sent them to the store manager - Cy himself wasn’t a pervert, he just wanted to scare the guy who fired him). He wasn’t using film in the hotel room because he didn’t have any interest in actually having the photos, he just wanted to punish the husband (and vent frustations against the person who did it to Cy as a child).
Earlier in the movie Cy talked about the fact that children take different types of photos than adults take. Adults take pictures of major events, and kids take pictures of ordinary things around the house and yard. Those were the types of pictures that Cy had in his camera (and at the end, he seemed pleased to see them). So it seems that Cy is always stuck in childhood, in a way.[/spoiler]
AV8R, yes! That’s exactly how I figure it to be. I just wasn’t able to phrase it as eloquently, so didn’t really try.
Strangely enough, i also say this movie this weekend, and I’ve been thinking about the ending ever since then.
I agree with AV8R. I think the stuff in the hotel room did happen, but Cy only pretended to take the pictures, because the abuse in his past made that type of picture repugnant to him. But, he wanted proof that Will was having a affair–the pictures he put in the son’s photos didn’t get the reaction he wanted. Cy expected the wife to kick Will out (maybe thinking he then could marry her himself–remember the “flirting” scene where he shows her that he’s reading the same book as her, and him telling Will what a lucky man he is–Cy would like to be more than just the uncle, but he was willing to settle for that when he thought the family was happy).
So we have a conflict between Cy wanting/needing the pictures, but being unable to actually take them. He did terrorize the husband and his bimbo (the cops’ involvement convinces me this is real)–his moral compass is off enough to allow that, but he didn’t take the pictures–because in his mind, this is a bigger transgression and he can’t bring himself to do it! So he’s pleased when he sees his pictures because they are “good” pictures–pictures like a child would take, not like the pictures that were taken of him when he was a child. In the end, in his mind, he did the right thing, he didn’t take the “bad” photos, so everything is alright,and he still can be part of the family.
Ahhhh…thanks so much. 
I hate being confused after a movie has ended.
AV8R Awesome. I think you hit the proverbial nail on the head.
The police officer said near the beginning that they found two rolls of film, one still in the camera. One was of the couple, and the other were the “innocent” pictures.
I missed that comment at the beginning.
When I was watching the scene in the hotel room, I thought he was taking pictures to get more graphic evidence to give to the wife, because he thought she needed to see somethinge more graphic to get enraged about. So I guess he was really taking pictures of them.
When you see ‘the other woman’ sobbing in the tub with shower on, you don’t see the gash that she incurred minutes earlier when Sye barged into their room. No gash, no barging. Thus, it was all in Sye’s imagination that knifey photo session. Final answer?
When I was younger and I found out that children were abused in unspeakable ways, it upset me so much that I had a panic attack.
But my mother said,“As horrifying and painful as it will be for those children, they will get through it. And all we can do is hope and pray that they get help.”
It reminded me of the way the mom told her son that they could send out happy thoughts and hope it would make him feel better.
I can see what AV8R writes, but no one since to ask, who is Jenn, the person in the phone with nina before start to talk why Sy, who is the confident, the “i love you” was so deep, make me think things…
Reported (poranasa, serial spammer, claims to be an “Internet marketer.” In Pakistan. You bet.)