MovieChat Forums > The Lifeguard (2013) Discussion > Why did Matt kill himself?

Why did Matt kill himself?

posted 11 years ago by monstermayhem32
8 replies | jump to latest

I was just wondering why is that Jason's friend ended up hanging himself. I am guessing that he was probably resenting the fact that his friend was spending more time with Leigh and kind of neglecting him.

[–] allisonmcd 11 years ago

I think he had a bunch of issues, that are never fully explored including survivor's guilt with being the son that is alive and thinking his mom resents him for it. He got it in his head that going to Vermont would solve everything but the moment Jason started stalling, Matty took it really hard and like many teenagers lacks the foresight to see life beyond his immediate problems. I also think he didn't have many people he felt he could lean on and eventually that included Jason due to his being distracted by Leigh.
However, I think the screenwriter/director's motivation was to have Leigh realize being 16 was not a magical, awesome time like she was trying to recreate.

[–] Airman87 11 years ago

Matt did not have a father figure in his life.

Matt's only real friend was Jason whom he was going to flee to Vermont with.

Matt sees Jason spending a lot of his time with the attractive woman, Matt feels alone.

Matt tries to open up to Todd around the campfire about his life problems, because he did not have a father figure, and instead of listening Todd just tries to take [sexual] advantage of Matt.

Matt pulls Jason to the side and says they have to leave for Vermont right then, because the addition of Todd coming onto him only builds his frustration with the town.

Jason says he cannot leave right then because he needs to collect more money. Feeling like his only friend is starting to back-pedal and might bail on him, he leaves without Jason (this is later repeated by Jason to Leigh as to why Jason thinks Matt left).

Instead of Matt leaving like everyone had thought, he went to go kill himself instead.

[–] Terrapin2212 11 years ago

He still could have gone to Vermont alone. He could have just gone to the highway and hitchhiked there if he wanted to go that badly. So now we are supposed to blame Leigh for being in the picture, yet she had a good effect on Jason in the end I think.

[–] shailosweetkittycat 11 years ago

REALLY DUDE? Nice spoiler for people that haven't seen it yet, you are supposed to use the SPOILER feature for stuff like this.. Thanks man!

[–] queenoftheuniverse1 11 years ago

Don't read IMDB message boards if you don't want the possibility of having something spoiled for you. Surely you realize people are going to put things in their subject line sometimes that actually relate to plot lines, etc. Therefore, anyone who does not want a film spoiled for them should not go onto IMDB and start reading message boards related to films they have not seen yet.

[–] Terrapin2212 11 years ago

I was wondering the same thing. It actually took me a LONG time to realize it was a suicide. At first I thought it was the gay man who was dead on the tree and I thought the boys had lynched him for making advances on the other boy, then I thought Matt was murdered.

Its never explained why Matt killed himself.

[–] timlin-4 11 years ago

Now that would have been a movie

[–] barkbarkwoof 11 years ago

He read a spoiler.