Jim and Julie?
Did they end up together in the end? Was it supposed to be implied? They didn't seem to show any signs that they liked each other.
shareI'd say it was pretty darn well implied without them making goo-goo eyes at each other constantly. There were several instances where both showed interest in each other, and Julie especially stood up very strongly for Jim when Pat was having issues with him. Pat picked up immediately that Julie might have had more than a friendly interest in Jim. Near the end at the Hannassey ranch Julie was acting cold toward Jim because she didn't want him to get hurt dueling with Buck over her. It was obvious to me that by the end as Julie and Jim rode off together they were going to be a couple, living on Julie's old spread on the Big Muddy that Jim had bought from her earlier in the story.
shareI have a serious issue with the romantic element of this film. McKay supposedly loves Pat so much that he is willing to travel miles to marry her and adopt her culture and live among her family, yet after a petty disagreement he decides he doesn’t love her anymore and instead gets with her best friend.
Are we supposed to believe that he realized that his love for Pat and her love for him was never real and just a romanticized illusion based on infatuation?
Real love is eternal; it doesn’t end in 30 seconds because you find out your lover has undesirable qualities. It’s like as soon as he found out Pat wasn’t this perfect image he idealized, she became damaged goods to him. Loving your partner with all their faults is what true love is. Pat’s problem was that she was spoiled, but it wasn’t something I considered a deal breaker. I believe McKay’s actions like running off without telling her and having her worried to death, and then buying the land but choosing to remain cordial to her family’s enemies were more egregious than her thinking him a coward. It’s not like he did much to prove otherwise, which is also very frustrating for the viewer. He never allowed Pat to have faith in him because he hid so many things from her. Like Pat said, why hide these things from the person you love? I found his love turning off like a light switch hard to swallow and him falling for his fiancée’s best friend indigestible.
“Little by little the look of the country changes because of the men we admire.”
I wouldn't say it was a "petty disagreement" that led to their eventual falling out. It wasn't over just one thing either, but a series of them over the course of the story where we witness both of them having doubts about the person they were about to marry. Pat was questioning Jim's core values! They were engaged not married so I don't see the issue of them having this serious falling out- even if both thought they were/had been in love with each other. I would say marriage is what many think eternal- not the concept of "real love" as you put it, before wedding vows even take place. I don't see an example of him not loving her any more- he wisely & not happily came to the conclusion that they weren't right for each other. I don't see one thing wrong with McKay's actions in the story. He seemed the more mature of the two. Obviously the drama unfolds in a film's running time- not as in real life. So things happen at times in a compressed fashion unlike real life.
He didn't "get with her best friend" until nearly the last scene in the movie! He fell for her after he had broken up with Pat- you make it out like they'd had this romantic interest in each other long before that. It was pretty well evident soon after they first met that they liked and admired each other. I have to politely disagree with your interpretation and assessment of the romantic subplot.
I believe they did have a romantic interest in each other long before he broke up with Pat. You said it yourself, you could tell Julie fancied McKay by the conversation she has with Pat defending him. Even Pat picked up on it. And I wager McKay was falling in love with Julie after the time they spent together at Big Muddy. This is why it was relatively easy for him to dump Pat after their argument. She fell off his pedestal while Julie had already caught his eye.
Thanks for the civil debate.
“Little by little the look of the country changes because of the men we admire.”
"Did they end up together in the end? Was it supposed to be implied? They didn't seem to show any signs that they liked each other."
I had said in my reply to the OP's post above that I think it was pretty well implied that the two of them "got together" in the end, as well as liked each other throughout the film- without showing goo-goo eyes to each other. Again I think the two of them were shown to have liked and respected each other from the time that they had first met, but each was too honorable to let any feelings of attraction go any further than that, until the situation changed near the end to allow that. Julie was being a good friend to Pat by trying to convince her that she had found a good man who loved her. She certainly wasn't trying to break up that relationship and move in on Jim.
Spot on, tommy, as usual.
No disrepect intended to the poster to whom you've made your response, but I am guessing (judging by her comments here and in another thread at this board)that she's still very young and has not yet reached that point in life where she can grasp all the subtilties and implications in this film's narrative and characterizations; and some of her ideas re: proper behavior among men in relationships aren't always amenable to the way she seems to think they should be. This romantic way of thinking is often in variance to the way things actually are, but quite typical of most of us when we are young; but life has a way of bursting our little bubbles and teaching us all, sooner or later.
Julie obviously does consider Jim Mckay to be a good catch for Pat and probably wishes she'd met him first, but there's nothing at all to implicate her in any attempt to sabotage the relationship between Jim and her best friend, Pat; if anything, tommy, it's exactly as you said: Julie demonstrates her nobility and her concern for Pat, by laboring to convince the latter she's misjudged Jim and trying to persuade her to go back to him and salvage the relationship.
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I think we see that they are attracted to each other before the characters actually realize it. Certainly they knew they each admired each other, that's what we see, but I don't think they dared let it be known or admit it to themselves.
It's the scene at Blanco Canyon where Rufus realizes it that does it. He calls them each out, "you, you're protecting him, why?" the looks they gave each other was that realization that they loved each other.