Why didn't she tell them, really? (spoilers)

I really liked the movie but I had these same thoughts. I don't think it is possible for the family to not have discovered that the child was quite sick, surely some doctors or someone else must have known the child was sick and would have most likely come to her aid or at least explained that to the people trying to commit her for murder.

My understanding is that she did inject him and stayed with him all night. She didn't see any reason to explain as they would be "excuses." She was guilty, both of giving him what I assume was a genetic disease and of ending his life.

My favorite part of the movie was when the sister, a professor of literature, rails against novels trying to explain murderers...what do they know? We can talk all day and try to explain every little detail, but what does it matter? What do we know? It happened, this was her story, her suffering, her punishment, her release.

What do you want me to do, dress in drag and do the hula?

I am so glad that I am not the only one who thought the premise was weak for the same reasons that have been pointed out.
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I didn't get the disease was genetic. When was that info imparted? What scene? I didn't catch it.

To me, what she did was incongruous with her being a medical doctor. Not that doctors are impervious to emotion and psychological distress, but she just collapsed in on herself so completely. Why did she have to kidnap him? As a doctor, she would have complete access to him under any circumstance and still could have administered a 'mercy killing' to her child. It was totally selfish on her part to deprive her husband/the boy's father of being with his child.

Also, there's an answer to Juliette's question in that dramatic scene with her sister asking what could they have done? They could have loved her. That's what families do for each other in situations where life kicks us in our gut. As a doctor, she knows that disease can strike without rhyme or reason. Yes, it was her child and losing a child is a singularly painful experience. I get that.

But I just don't buy into how it was handled by Juliette. It was indulgent in a way that doesn't speak well of the character, so why care about her?

Ultimately, it ruined the film for me. Performances notwithstanding. I sat through this film for an emotional payoff and wasn't satisfied with what the writer/director offered up.

Also, what was the age difference between the sisters? I don't think that was thought through. In order for them to have had some childhood together and be a big sister to her, be available to look out for her, take her to dance classes, the years separating them could not be more than 10 years. And how old was Juliette when this happened? Lea? How could her parents brainwash her if she wasn't really young. For Juliette to be a doctor and a mother she had to have been at least 30. How old could Lea have been in order to be brainwashed and unable to go see her sister of her own free will without her parents keeping her from doing that?

As a writer, I get the feeling that the script writer only had a vague idea of a relationship between an older and younger sister, without really understanding how it would play out with the older one being a doctor. There was no consideration about how long it would take for her to become a doctor, then have a child, plus the child's age, who was old enough to write.

This may seem trivial, but it's part of the problem with the whole premise. The younger sister seems emotionally connected to childhood memories of her older sister. That could only happen if they had significant shared experiences before the older one went off to school and her adult life. And again, her parents could only brainwash her if she was young enough to be under their domination. It's harder to dominate older teens who tend to be rebellious by nature and will find ways to defy their parents if they want to.

Ultimately, these questions kept me from feeling this was a good film. I really cannot accept that Juliette would rather go to prison, be perceived a monster by her family for killing her son when it was in reality a mercy killing, not a cold-blooded one. (Obviously, I'm not pro-life.)

Well, I think the plot was strong and tight if you carefully add all the information and hints the writer/directog left through the whole thing. But since the theme was not the string of events and their refolding (to Lea OR the audience), it was sufficient to let the logic behind the events to remain in the bacround, not fully explained but exists and explainable if necessary.

What a maroon, geekBruin. Even if she had explained her motive, the premeditation would still have made it murder, legally. She said she wanted to go to prison, which she would have anyway. She would have felt even worse if they had somehow pardoned her, but they wouldn't have. "Oh, you killed him because he was terminally ill and beginning to suffer? That's okay, then, you can go home." The pain inflicted on her by that punishment was nothing compared to his pain which he would have suffered had she let him die of his illness. Perhaps her prison experience may have been the most appropriate thing from her point of view, as it removed her from her mundane life, in the same way that people who self-mutilate do it to find relief from emotional pain of a much worse kind. But it comes down to the fact that she did it to spare him that horrible death from his illness, and even if she had revealed that, it wouldn't have made any difference in her punishment.

I too thought at first that the premise was weak because I began to suspect early on what was behind her crime and punishment, but the ending reveals the theme: You never know who or what someone really is until you know ALL the facts, and people are rarely how they appear. It's food for thought. The beauty of the film is in how she gradually sheds her coating of ice and opens up to her family. There doesn't have to be any dramatic surprise ending to make it a beautiful film, just as it it doesn't rely on sex, violence, loud music, or special effects.

Someone in a previous post said something along the lines of , her kid was dying it would be tragic I get it but.....sry that was really roughly quoted but was something like that.

I really do not think you DO 'get' it...you think she should be considering her parents, her sister, her husband, herself... this is her child, she carried him for 9mths , she's nursed him, she's bathed him , she worships the ground he treads, she dreams of giving him everything and seeing him grow up into a strong man and of all the wonderful things he'll do, he is an extension of herself he's is more than her, more than anyone in the universe, if a heavenly (yeah like that exsists!- another topic!) being came down and said, "choose, the rest of the universe dies or your child dies?", she'd choose her child to live in a heartbeat.
I've not lost a child of my own so neither can I truley 'get' it but as a child I watched a mother lose her son to an accident, a friend lose his brother to anuerysm, as an adult I've watched my sister lose a child, my whole family lose a niece, sister, cousin, grandchild to a brief but painful tragic death by leukemia aged 10. I have a son he's now 10, I'd rather die than see him harmed, I would have done the exact same thing she did in the same circumstances, except I don't think I would've of felt guilt over genetics etc not enough to go on living and punishing myself having to be in the world when he wasn't, I'd make sure to bring two injections. Having only one child affords me that luxury though and is intentional for the exact reason.
I remember I was 14 and I stood and watched my friends mum standing at his grave wondering how can she still be breathing, knowing she sent him out that night , if only she'd gone to fetch his brother herself he wouldn't of died, then it hit me his brother, his other siblings of course she had to go on living, she had to look after them too, and I saw the hell that must be, no thanks not I. The only people a parent can even begin to consider when facing a childs death is their other child/ren, I've seen that happen, they cling to them and everything and everyone outside that is gone, for a long time, perhaps forever.

No I really really do not think you GET it!

We all know, we aren't facing the untimely and painful death of our child, we're watching movies about it and debating the issues, we're clear minded at present WE know its very bad situation for the father and the rest of the family and her actions have caused them pain in one way but is it any more painful what they assume happened than if she had told them the truth and they had all watched him die a long or short painful death? They lost two people instead of just the boy but they had lost her too anyway, she will never be the same person again (in a way the movie shows she does get some 'self' back in the end but only after it shows the hell she's endured) but to expect a person in her circumstances esp with the knowledge she had of what her child was about to go through, to be thinking in any way of anyone, other than her child or even afterwards expect her to have the strength or motivation to explain to them what had happened shows a simple lack of humanity.

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