Did anyone else think so at the end? Maybe I missed something, but didn't they just hang out for 1 night? Hardly enough to develop any feelings of love. It just seemed a bit much for her to be so emotional about a possible lost love from 25 years ago when all they shared was 1 date. Curious what others thought about this.
shareUp to that point she had not been able to feel grief over her husband dying.
I don't think she was feeling regret over not hooking up with Joe, because like you say it was just that one night.
Instead, with that letter he had reminded her how she eventually met her husband and it brought all those adolescent memories back.
What I got from that scene wasn't so much any sense of loss over Joe or the husband. What I got from the scene was her loss on innocence, or loss of all the promises that life holds when you are young. If you remember, she wasn't at all interested in the raunchy boys in the arcade, but Joe offered something "different", at least until he ruined it by sleeping with the neighbor woman. So in a way, her loss of innocence is really Joe's fault. I don't know if this makes any sense to you.
shareSee, at first I thought her reaction was a bit much too. I was like "what the heck is she so upset about?"
But I think she was upset about how her life had turned out. She was a kid who listened to David Bowie and Roxy Music and who wore ties and put eyeshadow on boys. And then in one night, her life changed forever. She loved Joe, but she couldn't get over the "love bites" so Ruth settled for Boots.
And that girl who listened to rock music and was crazy into fashion was now 25 years older living on a farm with 4 children and a dead husband. She just lost it. She had so much promise and potential, same as Joe, and it all came flooding back to her when she read Joe's note.
--- If peeing your pants is cool, then I'm Miles Davis
If you felt no one cared about you, you wouldn’t cry! She felt Joe cares, he gave her money, that touched her heart and made her drop her guard. Besides if you loved someone for a day, or a year, what is important is how deep and profound were those feelings. When Joe came back they both saw their youth in that moment and that makes anyone sad and would cry the years that have gone. It is not one thing or another, it’s a cocktail of emotions and they all came out when someone cared about her.. sorry if I am not making any sense !
shareyou make perfect sense!
shareTroy I'm sorry but I think that is absolutely delusional. She liked Boots before she even liked Joe. Heck, she might have even been trying to get closer to Boots, by going out with Joe and making Boots Jealous.
If you remember correctly, when they were talking about Bowie and Bryan (as Teens) Joe said Boots Loved Bowie and Ruth said "Really..." (And might have said something else like, didn't know he would like that or something, can't remember, only saw it once)
She also said the thing about Boots looking like he probably eats his boogers, I think to through off Joe on her liking him.
ANYWAYS- she loved her life, she didn't think she got the raw end of the deal, Boots loved her and was an excellent Father. Like previous Posters said, Ruth told Joe how she hadn't been able to cry. It was the saddest moment in her life and she honestly didn't know what she was going to do, but she couldn't cry.
Joe's note brought her back to simpler times. A happy time. A time when she didn't have 4 mouths to feed and deal with the physiological repercussions of losing the love of her life, dealing with losing the house and having to be the mother and the father. But then his contribution to her and the kids was also a weight lifted off her shoulder.
I really hope people don't think her reaction meant she still had feelings for Joe. At the cemetery she was almost disgusted by him being there and though that he would think he was doing everyone a big favor by gracing everyone with his presence.
(I'm not saying that, I loved Joe, I was just saying, she might have been thinking that he was thinking that.)
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*Human After All*
Just watched the movie and first I was confused about the ending.
But now I think, all Joe wanted in the end was to show Ruth, that she IS able to cry. He knew, that if she would read his lines and be remembered of the great young years, she would cry and doesn't has to reproach to herself, that she was not able to.
Pretty cool interpretation. You might be right.
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@Troy_McClure9
See, at first I thought her reaction was a bit much too. I was like "what the heck is she so upset about?"
But I think she was upset about how her life had turned out. She was a kid who listened to David Bowie and Roxy Music and who wore ties and put eyeshadow on boys. And then in one night, her life changed forever. She loved Joe, but she couldn't get over the "love bites" so Ruth settled for Boots.
And that girl who listened to rock music and was crazy into fashion was now 25 years older living on a farm with 4 children and a dead husband. She just lost it. She had so much promise and potential, same as Joe, and it all came flooding back to her when she read Joe's note.
What a brilliant explanation !!! Thanks, i totally agree. :)
"We are the people your parents warned you about."share
Maybe she could not cry because the debt had made her angry once the debt was paid she could now cry because she could see her husband in a different light his fiend covered Ruth and his family for him that is enough to make anyone cry.
shareI think her reaction was due to the fact she thought Daniel Craig was just completely superficial and that he thought he could waltz in a solve anything just with his money...but when she read the note she realized that the one time they spent together was as special to him as it was to her, and that 20+ years after that one evening together he remembered it as she did.
shareWhat I noticed was that Ruth takes out the cheque first (Joe having put it last into the envelope) and seems almost angry, or at least disbelieving, that Joe would return after 20+ years, and only give some money to her, thinking that's what she needed - still important, though, as Boots was heavily in debt when he died.
However, Ruth's feelings visually change very quickly as she takes out the note and reads it - two lines from the Roxy Music song that they joyously danced to all those years ago. To paraphrase, that "takes her right back", when it seemed Joe and Ruth were at their happiest.
I think Ruth bursts into tears and cries very strongly because she has seen Joe anew - he's was selfish and careless (having neglected her for Evelyn on the night of their date), but has now returned to that moment, and still retains that happiness, and knows how special it was for both of them.
Even after 20+ years, after all Joe has done since then, he still remembers it with the same fondness. He has given Ruth an outlet for her to display her emotions; as she said at the grave, "It's the saddest moment of my life, and I can't cry."
I hope my ramble has made some sense!
6? Do me a lemon! That's a poor IQ for a glass of water!
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I was thinking the same thing it seemed a bit exaggerated to say the leastWhen there's no more room in hell, The dead will walk the earth...
I think that was finally her crying reaction to her husband's death, not to do with her feelings for Joe.
shareExactly. At first I thought it was kind of odd, but then I started thinking about songs, and how they remind of of things. When I think about a song I think about time and place that surrounded it, when I first heard it and listened to it. Songs can connect us to different periods in our lives and unlock the feelings attached to them. I think the lyrics opened up the well of emotions that she previously could not open immediately following her husband's death. The feelings of youth and potential and romance. She probably sang the same song with Boots when they first started going out.
shareNot at all over the top, in fact it made alot of sense to me when I saw it.
With the death of her husband, the man she'd loved for all those years, and finding out about the massive debt he'd been hiding from her, she would have been stressed, in shock, numb and consequently unable to cry about any of it so far.
When she opened the envelope and took out the cheque, she mouthed, (as the music was playing and we couldn't hear any talking), that she couldn't accept it. Then when she read the note Joe had written I think it brought it all back, memories of youth with no cares and responsibilities, of her husband Boots as they would have probably got together around then, and of Joe, a connection lost as I felt she'd really fallen for him back then. It was the catalyst she needed to break down the walls and it let the enormity of everything come to the surface, and that's what we saw. Everything she'd been keeping in came flooding out, so no, not over the top at all I felt.
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(¸.•´ (¸.•´ Kim
I agree with this statement as that's what I got from it too.
I think with the end too it was left sort of open ended to viewer interpretation (as were other things in the movie) but that's stuff I like sometimes.
I was pretty perplexed by some questions I had about other parts in the movie I had but then I thought maybe that was the intent of the storytelling to let you use your imagination? I mean when time goes by and you recall things in life, you really only remember the pivotal moments, it's not so detail oriented. Feelings are really related to memories, important ones at least. I don't know though maybe you can't even relate it to moments in your own life? Who knows. I really enjoyed the film though, and I generally hate these types of movies so I was quite surprised.
Unrelated to topic, but the girl who played the younger Ruth was really beautiful.
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I doubt you've lost a spouse if you believe that.
Wayne Enterprises buys and sells companies like Stark Industries
IMHO, some of the posters here have captured quite well why Ruth reacted the way she did & why it wasn't necessarily 'over the top'. BTW, I am not British, but I was once much like 'dancing Ruth', and much of my youth is tied in with feelings the music of those days can evoke, as it did for the characters in the movie. If someone is younger than the characters portrayed in this movie (in the present), if they didn't come of age in the 70's, they might not 'get it'. I am of the 70's, and in some ways those were simpler times. To me, relating to this movie is in part about missing those simpler times.
This movie is also about spent youth. Time flies fast -- older people used to tell me that, and I just thought 'uh-huh' because there were SO many years ahead of me. As then happens, you're a teen, then in your 20's, 30's, 40's...you're busy living life-- you're a parent, or even a grandparent, with all the accompanying responsibilities, you look in the mirror one day and can't believe what is staring back and how fast you got there. You can't believe you are now the 'older folks' -- heck, sometimes you still think 18 or 25, but your body and life just don't match. A song from your past can momentarily transport you back to how you used to feel 'when you were young' -- and in doing so, it can also make you grieve for those times.
Time has a way of muting young, keen senses and strong feelings without your consent, distancing you bit by bit from youthful, idealistic passion. You change from someone going forward in life to someone yearning for when you were much more innocent, when you weren't burdened by so much responsibility, when you hadn't suffered real loss of people and things irreplaceable, when you were fresh and vibrant, with so much of your life in front of you, when simply listening to a good tune with good friends could mean so much -- and when you looked and felt really good! Each one of us at some point in our lives gets hit with a realization that this time is passing -- or has passed -- us by. You cannot recapture it, and you can never 'go back' (as both Joe and Ruth discovered). Your world is no longer the current culture, but just a memory (at the beginning of the film, Joe is 'replaced' by someone younger, representing that 'his' time has passed).
I think Ruth had a gut-wrenching, ice-water-in-the-face type of realization of where she is now compared to who she once was, someone whom Joe had a glimpse of so long ago, but in those few moments, he GOT IT. The note let Ruth know that she and Joe had experienced a moment in time so simple, but truly special, together -- it momentarily bridged all those years that had passed since. He still remembered her as the young, carefree Ruth -- someone she had not been, or felt, for so long -- and it made her remember who she used to be, and who she could never be again.
When we suffer a great loss, we experience again, to some degree, the feelings of past losses. After reading those lines in Joe's note from the song he and Ruth had bonded over so long ago -- a song that represented both their youths and a time before 'the fall' -- Ruth allowed herself to both realize and feel all her losses -- loss of youth, loss of her dreams, loss of her whole life in front of her, loss of people she loved who are gone -- loss of that young girl dancing to Roxy Music and Bowie with not really a care in the world. All the losses in her life 'hit' her at once, and she was able to cry, and cry well. It probably would be hard to relate to if you have not experienced something like this.
Yes Denise, I think we all feel like that one time or another, we have our memories and our fond recollections of the music of our youth that ties us to a particular time in our past. Well I must say I disagree with some of you who say that her reaction was one of disgust at seeing Joe at the gravesite, after all she was the one who told his sister that she had hoped he would attend. Don't understand how many of you came to the conclusion that she was put off because Joe thought he could waltz in and act the hero or do whatever he wanted. Joe didn't know what to expect coming back home, in fact he was reluctant to go but it was because of his friend Boots that he had come back.
The whole funeral thing where Joe finally sees Ruth is anti-climatic at best, if the movie is building up to this moment it sure is a let down, at least to me it is. If this is indeed the emotional climax of the movie that it leaves a lot to be desired. Ruth's reaction to me was strange, no kiss, hug or at least a handshake? The man didn't do her no harm, caused her no real hurt, one night listening to music and having fun doesn't equal to years of bitterness or indifference because things didn't work out, well to me anyway. When Joe went back to his sister and told her "that was weird" it was probably the only thing about that scene that I totally agreed with. After all Joe had come all that way back home with the best of intentions. Even after all those years, Joe still had a link somehow to Ruths soul, he knew what to say in the note, and in the end that was his greatest gift to her, because it helped her come to terms with the past and her grief over her youth, and Boot's death. Regarding the check well I don't think she was offended, like anyone else would do, especially when a friend comes and presents you with money in that situation they don't want it or feel that it's needed, but hey the man was wealthy and in the position to help and he did, and it was a geniune act of caring on his part.
Something really subtle happens when they're talking. She says something about him leaving to become an actor and do what he wants. He then says "I thought I was" which implied to her that he came back to see her (hell he missed the funeral). She then quickly diffuses the situation and says that she has to leave, understanding where he's going with the conversation.
I can understand why she'd be standoff-ish during the exchange.
You should pay attention to what his sister says Ruth adored her husband and was not even remotely into Joe after the funeral, how can so many of you miss this. listen to how his mother and sister talk on there feelings for Boots. Just why do so many feel her youth had so much to do with loosing her husband. She and Joe shared a moment over twenty five years ago he never called or visited them, how is she supposed to feel. In the end he misses the funeral, jeez's people take off the blinders he missed her husbands funeral no excuse given as she did not want one she knew who he was by his actions. The letter made her think about how they all were when they were young and that was what brought out the emotions. Joe in final act thought of her and not himself for a change. This movie is not about her grieving over her youth or a life she never had she was in bliss with her husband. She had a great life.
She made it clear upon there first encounter he was not getting back with her with body language. He thought they would pick up where they left off. How arrogant of him. His sister had to set him straight. They had four kids it never says she regretted any of it......You seem like a romantic so I will give you a pass.
Joe came to realize how she was with her husband and left her in tact with there memories. He finally realized who she became without him and out of respect did what he knew she would not accept, she was a proud woman this had nothing to do with missing out on something with him or she wishes she had chose him.
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