1.) They got together via the magic of the montage! It's assumed. In the various clips they show stages of a relationship, holidays, leisure time, social time with friends, family time, etc. It's a very unique and effective approach and denotes a sense of history quite quickly.
2.) She's trying to get him to come to her and admit that he was the one who made a mistake. This happens is basically every relationship that goes sour. Games are played to make the other come to, and Gary is treating it as most guys do: games that don't really hurt people but are about winning. When he sees Brooke cry and he talks to Johnny O, he realizes it's not for games and he's about to lose the girl he loves; thus, he confronts her with dinner and his epiphany concerning relationships (the epiphany she wanted him to have) "It's not about doing things you love to do always, but it is about doing things with the person you love."
Unfortunately, it was also a breaking point for Brooke. There comes a time when you've been dumped (as really, she was playing the role of the dumpee) that you become emotionally numb. At Gary's dinner, Brooke was at that point. There becomes too much history, too many bad things to be easily washed over and work through. Not to mention even if you could, most people that hit that point flat don't want to be in a real relationship. They want a new beginning, with someone new, that they can treat as a casual thing. She had her new beginning concerning her job and travel, but Gary wasn't new. Simple as that, she couldn't do the beginning again, much as she probably wanted. She knew where it would head.
3.) You hate when movies leave you thinking? I can understand wanting closure, but in terms of the ending, this movie is very "European" in that it ends in a realistic manner. Gary learned a better way for relationships to work and to less self-centered and take responsibility at work and in his life. Brooke seemed to be less concerned with details and a nicer person in general.
I enjoyed the movie, not by best by any means, and an odd fit, but it is a fairly unique movie. Very sad, very depressing. If I have any criticisms, they didn't seem to develope the Brooke character at all. They also seemed to try to put too much into the Johnny O character. He should've either been a jerk or
For the ending, I think it was satisfactory. There was definite chemistry between them, as well as planned meetings (her coming by his tourboat, them saying they had lots to talk about). It really could've gone two ways: they got back together...or they never really talked to each other again.
I watched it the first time just after moving out of the apartment my girlfriend and I had shared, and it hit a little close to home for both myself and my date. It made me think about past relationships, and go over what I had actually taken to heart, whereas what I should have taken from it. I think that was the real point of the movie.
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Pandjy
18 years ago
Well said.
Enjoy today - its gone tomorrow
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lievlife38
16 years ago
For the third question, u can take the movie how u want to...like myself, some assumed the re-aquintance meant they would re-gain their relationship all over again...on better levels, especially now that they had a chance to diminish the intensity of their flaws. I think the ending isn't when the movie goes off, but rather what u believe happeneds afterward.
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diamonds19c
15 years ago
Wow, great points. In the end when Gary and Brooke run in to one another, it alluded to me that they both realize that they get along much better as friends, than in a romantic relationship. It hinted that if nothing else, the respect was there (for each other).
But I saw the movie was being really realistic because many of us tolerate a lot from the ones that we love and then one day a fuse blows and the faults are exposed... even the ones each person didn't realize was there or was too selfish to care about. Johnny O helped Gary have an epiphany about how he is viewed by his friends... Johnny eloquently and lovingly explained to Gary that he's just a selfish dude, but their problem (friends, Brooke, family) was that they all loved him so much, that they never brought it to his attention, as Johnny O explained because they all accepted that he was just being "Gary."
At some point, we all need to check ourselves because it's really easy to blame the other person... in this movie, as tolerant as Brooke was for a long time, she was an enabler to Gary's selfishness ("I lay out your clothes like a 4 year old," I went to a Notre Dame game that wasn't fun for me," )etc... yet he didn't return the same.
It just proves that in order to maintain the things and people that we love, we have to give back the same in equal (subjective) portions as much as we can.
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