I did like this movie but....

She would have to be proven dangerous to herself or others for them to just FORCE her away. Even that whole freak out scene in the restaurant in front of the shrink, I can't see being a legal reason to commit her. He didn't even seem concerned enough to have a session with her.

I did like the movie but the whole deeming her insane for those reasons was just way too far fetched.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=07zBJUKT9n8

Well said. They should have worn the ear-piece throughout the movie. I mean, I would if I had an invisible friend! What I would really love to change is the ending (she leaves Phil and shows up at Dylan's doorstep, well trailer). They have steaks and wine and laugh and kiss under the sky full of stars :) As she whispers "I am here. I will never leave you." The end.

You have to realize that the screenplay was written in 1992, before cellphone use was widespread and long before Bluetooth headsets. The film is certainly guilty of not trying to update the screenplay ... Dylan gets on a plane without ID, too. And that people do notice them talking becomes a plot point.

In terms of talking to "themselves" in public ... you have to assume that they were actually quieter than what we hear on the screen. Having them play it realistically would have left the audience straining to hear them. But you also have to assume that the entire experience of communicating this way is so odd and irresistible that it makes you far less careful than you should be about being observed. And that's at least a bit of a stretch. That could have been addressed in a revision of the screenplay, too.

In terms of the ending ... there's some chance that they get to Canada on that train and start a new life. I won't say how large that chance would actually be, but that's what I think we're supposed to think. There's also the theory that Dylan can return to New Mexico without anyone realizing he'd violated parole. I don't think that flies (no pun intended), at least not in 2014. In 1992, he maybe gets on the plane with a false name, they have no idea where he went even if they suspect he took a flight, so they can't connect him to the stolen car in NH; and they can't prove he left the state. To make this work in 2014, you need to get him a fake ID for the flight (they still won't rent him a car if he has no credit card he can use). Very doable, but they didn't bother.

The involuntary confinement is also, of course, a weak plot point that could have been addressed in a rewrite. You could have the husband and his colleague lie to Becca and have her consent to treatment, and then she is given a half-biased and half-fixed evaluation which paints her as a danger to herself. But to sell that, you would absolutely want the husband to believe that to be true -- so then you need a misunderstanding where he thinks she's suicidal.

Joss is such a good screenwriter, and this has so many fixable holes, that I think it's essentially a first draft. At this stage in his career, he would have needed a producer to give him some good notes. It's a shame that they didn't do a thorough rewrite of the screenplay to fix both the inherent plot holes and the ones created by the 22 year passage of time.

Prepare your minds for a new scale of physical, scientific values, gentlemen.

THEN came that scene when Dylan's employer fired him. One thing had bothered me before that, you've mentioned it : how the main characters didn't bother to wear a blue tooth earpiece when they talk to each other in plain sight (that scene where Dylan chats loudly although he knows his colleagues are standing right behind him was just ridiculous)