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So Did The Family Make it Back before the Storm?

posted 9 years ago by JaysonT
12 replies | jump to latest

(SPOILER)

Not sure why everyone is saying it's a confusing ending. My friend Helen and me both watched it and it's pretty obvious the storm was real. It really is crazy that everyone thought he was losing his mind when in fact, he was right all along. A few questions came to mind though--

1) So they see the storm at the beach. How far away are they from home? Can they make it back to their shelter on time, or do we assume they die there?

2) What was the first storm about? That made no sense. Was that just a little storm but proving to the wife that her husband was telling the truth?

3) The boss had no right to fire him. He was a good worker. If anything, Shannon's character should have sued for worker's compensation and unemployment. He has a family to support.

4) What was the daughter going into surgery for? She was hard of hearing, not ill.

Other then that, the movie was very good. Shannon deserved to get an Oscar nomination, especially in such a weak lineup like 2011. How did he miss? Chastain was also fantastic. And the daughter wasn't annoying, like so many little girls in movies.

[–] sabennett525 9 years ago

I can answer at least one of your questions...you wondered why Hannah, the daughter, was having surgery because she was not ill just deaf. Actually the surgery was to place a cochlear implant into her inner ear in hopes of restoring at least some of her hearing. These implants tend to be most effective in individuals who have had the ability to hear and speak in the past, which was the case with Hannah.

[–] HapHazzard 9 years ago

1. If you watch the final scene as he looks out, it's not just the storm, it's a tsunami forming. They're not going to survive. Hence his visions of his wife soaked that freaked him out so much. He was having a vision of the fact he and his family would die in the tsunami. The irony of the movie is that if they'd stayed home, inland, they would not have been affected by this disaster.

2. The first storm was a regular mid-west storm. Enough to send him down into the shelter at the height of his paranoia and when it's over, it's his wife's point of view that everything will be ok that allows him to try to move past his fears and the visions. Which ultimately is what dooms them, because it was this that he had foreseen, not a storm at home. His own actions and her reactions to them are what put them there at the place and time his visions had been about. It was a self fulfilling prophecy of doom for his family.

3. The boss had every right to fire him. He had without authorisation taken heavy works equipment from the job site to use at home. The insurance risks to the company alone while he was driving that equipment home would necessitate anyone being fired for that, let alone the fact he'd effectively stolen heavy machinery for a few days. That he meant to bring it back is not the issue. No, a tribunal would not have helped him. He was dead to rights on that.

4. The surgery was for a cochlear implant to give her some hearing back.

[–] Dejay 9 years ago

Thanks, I missed / didn't remember the tsunami. Super stupid ending lol. They gonna die lol. Cassandra syndrome. I guess the silver lining is that you could count these premonitions as evidence that there is an afterlife.

[–] mersk (8) 8 years ago

Uhm, no. That's not how evidence works.

[–] MoviemanCin 9 years ago

An excellent post, Hap. And I think you nailed it.

Schrodinger's cat walks into a bar and doesn't.

[–] mrbrightside89 9 years ago

I just watched the ending and I'm pretty sure the storm is a lot worse than a tsunami. You can also see tornados forming over water and some pretty big storm clouds. Granted this is up for interpretation but I think the storm is supposed to be more than your average storm.

[–] TearofLys (2666) 4 years ago

"1. If you watch the final scene as he looks out, it's not just the storm, it's a tsunami forming. They're not going to survive."

You can survive a fucking tsunami. Thousands of people right along the shoreline of the boxing day tsunami did. The people in the movie should have started running inland and to higher ground as soon as then knew what was happening, but they sealed their fates by standing there gawking at it like a deer in the headlights.

[–] AllyWheels 9 years ago

How was it obvious that the storm was real, and not another of his nightmares?

"My kids never had the advantage I had. I was born poor"
- Issur Danielovitch Demsky

[–] MoviemanCin 9 years ago

They all three saw it, Wheels.

Schrodinger's cat walks into a bar and doesn't.

[–] BBogus 8 years ago

It still could be a dream in which all three see the storm.

[–] AllyWheels 8 years ago

Exactly right Bogus.
I wonder whether those who say it's obviously not a dream because the others also see the storm, have considered this fully.

"My kids never had the advantage I had. I was born poor"
- Issur Danielovitch Demsky

[–] SlackerInc (1121) 4 years ago

That would be not playing fair with the audience on the part of the filmmakers.