MovieChat Forums > Nocturnal Animals (2016) Discussion > My thoughts on the ending. Strength, Wea...

My thoughts on the ending. Strength, Weakness, uncertainty, ...

posted 8 years ago by WalterWheyt
15 replies | jump to latest

I just watched this movie yesterday and my initial thought was: Underwhelming.
But i was still cought up with its themes and characters somehow. I was still trying to solve the story.

So here are some thoughts. I dont claim to have the perfect answer or explanation. I just think it might be a piece of the puzzle.

Edward was called "Weak" by Susan and Susans mother again and again. But we never really see his weakness.
Infact, the only person that seems to be weak in this movie is Susan herself.
We only get told that Edward is an uncertain bet for the future. But do we actually see it?
Susan is from the beginning unecrtain about her work. She even sais she doesnt like what shes doing. When she confronts her mother, she doesnt show strength. She even apoligizes for bringing up her brother. But why would she apologize?

She gives up on Edward for another man. A man with money. A man with looks. But also a man with no heart or Love. He is the "no risks" guy at the cost of actual love.

At this point, susan clearly is the weak person in this story.

In the last scenes, where she is getting ready for the dinner, she leaves her ring at home, puts on a revealing dress, gets rid of the make up, in a literal sense. She realizes how fake her life actually is.
Sitting there waiting for edward, she slowly realizes that she is the weak person. He shows that he is strong enough to resist her, a strength she doesnt have. It shows her uncertainty.
It wraps perfectly that Edward does to her what she did to him, just in a slightly more twisted way. His revenge is perfect. Because its not edward that is actually performing the revenge, but Susan herself taking revenge ON herself, arranged by edward.

[–] Farshnoshket 8 years ago

What you say certainly makes sense. Some people like to dissect Edward's story and compare characters while others prefer to say that Ed's story is simply an allegory of the main story. Personally I like to connect the characters because when I think about Ed's story I think about how Ed wanted Susan to see the story. Since Susan thought Ed was weak she immediately places Ed into Tony's character, but as a viewer of the film I realize that Edward actually thinks Susan is weak so in fact Edward feels Tony represents Susan. Susan may not realize this when she reads the story, but comes to that realization only at the restaurant when she realizes Edward will not show and wants nothing to do with her. The different views of Tony shows just how good of a writer Edward has become basically tricking Susan into thinking one thing, but then realizing her mistake later. Susan also had mentioned that Ed shouldn't put himself in his story, but she couldn't help to think he had. If Edward did write himself into the story I believe Andes is the character he considered himself. Again Susan would not realize this until she was at the restaurant getting stood up. Her realization at the restaurant puts a whole new spin on Ed's story. She may also realize that Tony's death also points to Susan's abortion because Tony accidently shoots himself in the stomach, after being blinded by Ray, Ray representing either Susan's mother or Hutton, who basically stole Edward's wife and daughter from him.

[–] docstar84 8 years ago

Remind me again when does she call him "weak"? If anything she always gets defensive when her mother or he calls himself weak

[–] WalterWheyt 8 years ago

On the street. She doesnt say it, but implies it. Then Edward says "weak, weak, weak" repeatitly and tells her how she implies that he is weak.

A very similar situation in in the book, with the words "weak" being repeatet over and over again.

[–] tigerfish50 8 years ago

His revenge is perfect.

There's nothing quite so pathetically weak as craving revenge - especially nineteen years after being rejected. Therefore, either Edward has become bitter and pitiful, or it's not revenge at all. This idea of a manly Edward seeking revenge on his ex-spouse is a teenage fantasy perpetuated by those with infantile intelligence.
Susan was unfaithful to her husband; she chose another man who was more successful; she aborted their child because it would complicate her new relationship. All of this is very understandable, and probably not at all uncommon. If Edward is still fixated on revenge for these 'offenses' after all this time, he's an emasculated buttercup.

[–] Farshnoshket 8 years ago

It's revenge. Edward proves his point and then doesn't show up. That's revenge.

His actions crush her. You don't understand that, so it's actually you that needs a better understanding on how something like what Edward did to a person in a very 'weak', vulnerable position would effect them.

The tear tells all, except you, who prefer to play the blind man.

Edward spent 19 years writing a novel, so he didn't wait 19 years to plot his revenge. He probably started soon after the split, but it took 19 years to finish his book, which in itself tells me maybe he's not made for writing, but his revenge drove him to finish the book. If he didn't have that drive he probably would have never written it. It was the revenge that drove the project.

duh duh duh duh.

[–] poumas 8 years ago

That story didn't take 19 years to make. More like he watched some Korean thrillers from the 2000's and he made his own version.

[–] edinabb 8 years ago

That's why there are more movies, Oscar winners even, of men hitting the bottle, numbing themselves on uppers and downers, taking it out on strangers, and even mass shooting.

All those long and quick deaths are preferable to simply expressing, "you hurt me and this is how it felt."

There's no time limit on how old an experience has to be, for a writer to draw from. Aren't a lot of stories inspired by childhood memories? In terms of this couple, they travel in different social circles, her behavior was to cut him out of her life ASAP, that nobody knew (Hutton forgot too! ) of their history.

When a first love and marriage have gone wrong, just like a first job, house, childbirth and rearing, or huge property investment/IPO that is your whole life turned out the worst way possible - of course its not brushed off easily.

It's even a love defined primarily by pain and regrets, across time and space. Wuthering Heights stuff.

[–] tigerfish50 8 years ago

If you enjoy revenge melodramas, good luck to you. I hope you found this one fulfilling.
For numerous reasons, I know I saw something very different.

[–] JohnBonDon 8 years ago

Best alternate interpretation to my own that I've seen of the movie, WalterWheyt. 

Personally, I just feel that Edward had wrote the story to express his feelings to Susan for what he did to him. After she read it he was going to meet her but then decided not to because he finally got over her which is him becoming strong.

However, your alternate interpretation is really good too.

And like you, I also thought the movie was underwhelming. I don't think it was a very good movie. The idea was a little interesting but it just didn't deliver at all for me and I felt that Jake Gyllenhaal was a total miscast mostly as the character in the book since I can't buy that a man with Gyllenhaal's athletic physique is supposedly such a coward and weakling. And the whole business where somehow he becomes even more aware of his looks like shaving and keeping his hair in check after the brutal murders of his wife and child which he was unwilling to do anything about to me is completely out of step with how someone going through a deep depression would be like.

[–] Farshnoshket 8 years ago

I can't buy that a man with Gyllenhaal's athletic physique is supposedly such a coward and weakling.

Question: What would you do in the exact same situation? Not buying they stop, but after the flat tire.

[–] poumas 8 years ago

I completely agree with you. Edward is not weak. Tony is not weak.

I read some other threads calling Tony weak and pussy. They are so wrong.

I have been in a situation like Tony, in a position where three armed guys, took me and my gf into their car. I was being beaten up, while my gf was getting molested. Luckily they just wanted money and they didn't proceed like the psychos of the movie.

I am alive today because I didn't play hero, because I was calmed enough to think the situation and just obey the criminals. Tony had hope, he knew he was screwed but he had hope they were just after money, or maybe beat him up. The last thing he wanted is what happened, rape and killed. I was in his situation and I can only see two options of what he could do in that situation, when he is left by Lou in the middle of nowhere.

The first option is what he did, get help, get the police and hope for the best.
The second is realize that there is no hope. That your wife and kid and being raped, and they may be killed there. Then he goes into a suicide mission to find and rescue his family, even though it is probably gonna fail and he and his family will die, which is probably the best, because after that hell they just suffered nothing will be the same.

He takes the first option because Edward was an idealist, he had hope. Lou told him that he had never killed anyone before. And because its obviously the most logical option.

I just wanted to add this to what you said. Because you don't really touch the book story. There is no weakness in Tony, and you should put yourself in his should if you think otherwise.

[–] edinabb 8 years ago

"weak" is an important way to justify treating him poorly. You reduce someone's worth as inferior, fixed, irrelevant to growth and survival in any way possible, in order to chew them up and spit them out. Which is Ray's way of fun.

[–] msalah80-897-681639 8 years ago

Exactly my thoughts !Tony is Susan, not Edward. She gave up on her loved ones to save herself. But what I can not get is how the revenge part in the novel corresponds to real life. Perhaps Edward knew somehow that Susan is not happy and trying to resist the ugly world she lives in (through her art), and he again shows that she is still weak even when trying to get revenge, and she gets deformed in the process. I don't know, that is the best I can come up with.

[–] 8 years ago

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