MovieChat Forums > The Glass House (2001) Discussion > Some questions...

Some questions...

posted 16 years ago by Sea_of_Honey
3 replies | jump to latest

Questions ~

Did the social worker believe Ruby? I wasn't sure...I was so disappointed when she got there and everything looked normal! lol

Were Erin and Terry *always* going to kill Ruby and Rhett, or was their original plan just to slowly drain their trust fund by pretending, as Terry did in the bank, to be using the money for home improvments, music lessons, etc. It just seemed that the slow way would not have taken care of his debts, so maybe the idea was, from the beginning, to kill them quickly once they moved in?

Was Terry hitting on Ruby (pool and restaurant scenes, "shoulderbelt" part), or just trying to unnerve her into complaining so that Erin would not be sympathetic to her? Maybe he was planning on telling Erin Ruby hit on him? (I thought it seemed like Erin really cared about Ruby and Rhett, not just out of guilt).

After Ruby and Terry left the restaurant, *wtf* was he driving like that? He seems to drive normally in the car scenes after that...maybe because he noticed she was scared? He did look sort of surprized to see her holding onto the door. Maybe it was just the effects of all that Ketel One at dinner, lol..

Finally, during the scene where Terry is holding her down, why does Ruby say to Erin, "He won't hurt you, I promise?" Who is she talking about? I actually put the subtitles on and figured it was a mistake and that she meant to say, "WE won't hurt you," meaning if Erin would help, she and Rhett would go to the authorities and implicate only Terry, but idk...

Observations ~

I liked how it was sort of ambiguous about whether Vickie was fired because she drove Ruby to Begleiter's office without permission...or because they couldn't afford to pay her salary anymore...

I though Diane Lane was so good in this...Her expression when she's told to go see the medical director is *heartbreaking*...I'm not excusing what she did (or, rather, what she let Terry do), but the guilt really destroyed her...At times, I even felt sorry for Terry because he was in such a desperate situation as to the debt...Both Lane and Skarsgard made you care about the characters even though they are of course, both weak and selfish.

Just my 2 cents... ;)

"If you don't know you will you're new" ~ DocDuchaine

[–] HenryCW 16 years ago

1. Originally, Terry Glass definitely had a sexual interest in the girl. He stared at Ruby's breasts when she got out of the swimming pool. He made some excuse to take her to the restaurant, and there he told her that his relationship with Erin was not that happy. Ruby became uneasy and suggested that they leave. Glass was probably a little upset at being rejected and drove the car fast to scare Ruby. Then he leaned over as if he was about to embrace or kiss the girl. When Ruby stopped him, he pretended that he was trying to fasten the safety belt for her.

Later, he did try to kill Ruby because she was getting too smart and actually found out that Terry was in debt, and (more importantly) that he killed her parents. (Wasn’t Ruby a little stupid to tell him that she knew all these things when there was nothing she could do?) He had to keep Rhett alive since if both kids were dead, then the Glasses could no longer benefit from the trust fund. We see Terry going to LA to buy heroin, presumably to kill Ruby and make it appear as if she had an accidental overdose. But when he returned, his wife was dead and we know the rest.

2. It is not too clear how the Glasses could benefit from the trust fund for the kids, since as we see, its use was carefully monitored by the authorities. In the film, Terry was seriously in debt and we have seen him claiming expenses from the fund that he did not really spend on the kids. For example, he made Ruby left her old school and kept the refund of over 30,000 dollars. Later, he got Ruby accused of plagiarism and thrown out of the new school and presumably wouldn’t tell the authorities either. I believe he would continue to claim expenses for the Mexican maid although she had been fired. In the film, he told the authorities that he spent a lot on the renovation of his house to make the kids more comfortable, but in reality I believe he used the money to repay his debt.

But it is doubtful Terry could have got much from all the measures mentioned above. After all, the parents left the kids four million dollars, which according to the lawyer could provide them for the rest of their lives. The Glasses could not possibly use up a large part of the fund in a few years. Even if Terry engineered another accident to kill the kids without causing any suspicion, the money would not be passed on to them. So let us just say that the movie actually has some serious plot holes.

[–] Eeve1990 15 years ago

Actually, he goes to get the drugs for his wife. She is out of morphine, I believe, and he goes out to get her something else.

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"Just blast an air horn, make sure the killer knows we're escaping"

[–] HenryCW 15 years ago

I won't be so sure about that. Remember at that time they already had Ruby drugged and she was unconscious. Mr. Glass also said earlier that they had to "get rid of" (meaning to kill) the girl. So my interpretation is that they wanted to claim that Ruby was a druggie and that she died of an overdose.