just wanted to be alone for a while i guess and he will not try suicide thats a clear indication in a first ,he is weak from inside.his character is kinda of loser ,its like what if i am not getting this i am happy with what i have got ,what if that thing sucks.
thanks for responding, I agree that his character is incredibly weak as well. but it is such a tragic human quality that rarely is accurately portrayed in film.
I just finished watching the movie and I don’t think he was contemplating suicide.But I will agree that the glove did seem to pull him back from the moment of desperation he was experiencing
cool, i too think that the glove moved him in the other direction.
He was contemplating attempting suicide, yes, paralleling his suicide attempt at the beginning of the film. But, like much else in his life, his suicidal impulses do seem half-hearted. Sekzee, you say “he realizes that he is still loved and needed.” I think it’s more about Leonard’s life as a tension between the romantic fantasy that he invents for himself around Michelle (and including the escape to California) and the pressure to conform to what’s expected of him, which is centered around Sandra (and includes staying more or less in the neighborhood and taking over the family business, etc.). Once it’s clear that the Michelle option was not going to happen, he can either throw himself into the ocean again, or he can settle for Sandra and the family business. The ending is less of an epiphany and more about Leonard grasping onto the only option he has left.
ok I see your point in Leonard denying his expectations that Sandra’s father and his family had signified and instead, allowing himself the opprtunity to love again, this time with a troubled young woman much like himself. However he had developed feelings for Sandra and if it werent for her and Leonard’s own family, he most likely would have ended his life (not necessarily in the ocean but one way or another). And the idea that he must settle for a second rate love is chilling and unsettling. I dont believe that his misguided justification of the truth, however distorted it may be, was a fabricated romantic fantasy as you put it. He truely cared for Michelle and I genuinly believe that he was happy in the end. As for the paralleled beginning and ending I think your correct in a sense that the film opened with the pain of losing his fiance and it ended with the pain of losing Michelle, but I dont think the bay/ocean in the final scene had anything to do with thoughts of drowing himself a second time. Yet this is open to interpritation and I am just stating my thoughts :)
Thanks for sharing Matt
“He truely cared for Michelle and I genuinly believe that he was happy in the end.”
I think it all depends on one’s perspective of these sort of things. For me, his feelings for michelle could not have been genuine or healthy. He was an obviously troubled guy who had a fixation.As for him being happy in the end,who knows. It felt as tough he was just going through the motions with Sandra and going back to her was him settling down for “the only option he had left”
Also, i was truly bothered by the timeframe of the story. Leonard hooked up with Sandra on Thanksgiving and by New Year’s Eve,everything had played out. This gives me even less confidence in anything Leonard was feeling..
him not committing suicide didnt work for me as an anti-convention. maybe i would have liked the ending better if he chose not to go back to the dark-haired girl. to just be lonely and depressed, wandering the earth.
but if he showed his final expression as one of ambivalence when he went back to her, that would have been too conventional too. i think the director painted himself into a corner with the ending of the movie. he didnt have anywhere to go. doesnt matter much to me anyway. the film was a throwaway romance story with very little of interest in it..
I thought the ending was very sad (how Michelle left him and he decided to just go along with his life as if she’d never been there and be married to Sandra). But knowing of his many past unsuccessful suicides, and seeing that he didn’t try to kill himself in the end made me think that he is possibly better now, having a better understanding of love after being left twice by two women he fell in love with (his first wife and Michelle).
Maybe at the end, when Michelle left, he finally realized that there was no way they were meant to be together. She had issues, he had issues, and Michelle was just a problematic (and really selfish) girl who I felt just toyed with Leonard over and over. Yes — it did seem as though Leonard was grasping onto his only other option in those few final scenes, but Sandra wasn’t a bad option.
And yeah, Joaquin was perfect in this role.
i think the director painted himself into a corner with the ending of the movie
Maybe, but so had Leonard, so formally I don’t see that as a problem.
Sekzee, you’re right to point out that his feelings for Sandra appear to be to some degree genuine, thought clearly not infused with the degree of (albeit somewhat misguided) passion as are his feelings for Michelle. Although as I said, I see his decision to go back to Sandra as resoluteness to settling for a life that will never be quite satisfying for him because he doesn’t really have a better option in front of him with Michelle unavailable. I’m more cynical, I guess, but I see Leonard as being drawn to Sandra mostly A) because she’s attracted to him and he’s lonely enough to latch on to anyone who takes an interest in him, and B) because it what both sets of parents want for him.
You all are making very astute observations! The more I think about it the more I realize that his love for Michelle was misguided. Leonard believed that Michelle needed him and so he took it upon himself to look out for her and became obsessed. I think he is bothered with the idea that Sandra loves him for the same reason, she wants to protect him because he needs her. This is why he makes such a strong effort to fall in love with Michelle and start a new life.
Patapon
Spoilers – no peeking ;)
I would like to discuss the last scene of the film. After Michelle informed Lenard that she is not going with him he is clearly upset. He makes his way to the bay and suffers a momentary emotional break down before he realizes that he is still loved and needed.
This scene has contrived a difference of opinion between my family and I. My parents and brother were lead to believe that at that moment in distress and grief, Lenard must have been considering suicide, and if it werent for the glove, which reminded him of his life with Sandra, he would have gone through with it. I personally dont think he was contemplating suicide on the beach. Sure the film has suggested that he is unstable and the opening scene was an obvious attempt to end his life but there is certainly nothing hinted at in that last scene meant to direct the audience into believing that he was about to try again. In fact I believe that by not hinting at another suicide attempt made for a much more powerful ending. Im curious as to what others got out of Joaquin’s marvelous performance during that last segmant of the story.
Do you believe that he was at the point of suicide again? Or had he supressed that idea altogether?