Basically there could be no sequel as Kathleen Turner's character would probably be caught after her true identity is known. Even if she didn't use her real name (Mary Anne)how hard could it be to track her down, a beautiful rich American lady in an exotic country?
how hard could it be to track her down, a beautiful rich American lady in an exotic country?"
pretty hard and your talking 30 years ago,the worlds a big place and was a lot bigger[not literally] in 1981,she could have been anywere under a new identity,the chances of finding her would be slim.
A sequel would be a waste of time and would diminish the effect of the great ending. The story is best left with Ned rotting away in jail, marveling at the exquisite manner in which he was suckered.
You're right, though - while the yearbook doesn't exonerate Ned, it proves that Matty (actually Mary Ann) is still alive, and was probably behind the killings. With her photo, she would eventually likely be caught, unless she kept a very low profile.
I assume that Mattie has been clever enough to research countries without extradition treaties with the U.S. It would be hard for the police to launch an all-out manhunt unless they publicized the fact that they were looking for Mattie and showed her picture. At that point, she could leave for the nearest country that is safe for American suspected murderers. It's an intriguing posibility; if there is a manhunt, Mattie could be trapped in a single country just like Ned is trapped in prison.
Please no sequels...ever. It ended as it should. The tendency to sequalize and serialize and remake every movie and book these days just waters everything down and makes it lose it's punch.
But the movie does end sort of ambiguously in that way. It is possible that Ned could prompt the interest of his friends to look into it..But it would likely not be easy to find her and could take a long, long time. If ever. But it is one of those things we are left to think about and imagine.
The Florida police (or any state police) don't go looking for fugitives in foreign countries. What are they going to do? send a photo of her to every "exotic" land? What's the definition of "exotic"? Where are you going to look? Would they expect cops in Belize or Tahiti or Fiji to go looking for a person who didn't commit a crime (or the crime) in their own country? Local police are too busy giving speeding tickets and stopping people for busted tail lights to bother looking for someone they think is dead.
Whitely Bulger hid in plain site for, what?, 30 years? She can stay gone forever.
Surely no extradition treaty with Brazil at that time?
And that's assuming they even find out she is in Brazil. The powers that be did not enjoy all their present-day resources of ID tracing. It was before the US became totally paranoid after 9/11.
Besides, they have one real culprit successfully prosecuted. I am sure the police would usually settle for that if they believe any other culprits will not be returning to the US to cause more problems.