Is this just completely meta (potential spoilers, obviously)
I just finished this movie.
It opens with the author writing, and it closes with the author writing. Alone, in a dark room, surrounded with cigarettes, alcohol, and a pill bottle.
Is the entire movie completely meta? Is it about the writer/director creating an interwoven story?
The discussion with the publisher seems meta, also, with its mention of each subsequent story being worse than the last. Arguably, each story in the movie is a lesser version of the same thing: loss of a child.