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Ending a huge disappointment to me spoilers

posted 10 years ago by withnail69
27 replies | jump to latest

All through the film Naomi Watts explains why she is comfortable childless and it was refreshing to hear after all the Judd Apatow (you must have kids to be happy) story lines. And then... this pointless u-turn "One year later" crap at the end. Almost ruined this film for me. Unnecessary. While we're young ... we could have been good friends and you let me down like all the others!!!!

Loved the majority and made me really glad not to be a 20 something at the moment. Hipsters, instagram etc. Urrgghhh

[–] SpiderManGrrl 10 years ago

I agree. I thought it was great to have a movie where the couple didn't want kids as it was something I could relate to seeing as my husband and I don't want children but of course they had to make them want kids after all.

[–] siobanphotogirl 10 years ago

It is rather a dangerous turn-around.
They did seem quite comfortable not having kids.
If they really wanted kids, they would look more longingly at their friends with the baby.

All of a sudden deciding to adopt a baby from Haiti, I can't help but wonder if they would regret their decision very quickly. It seemed like they were getting that baby because of pressure they felt to have one after having resigned not to have any.

Like Viola Davis' character says in Eat, Pray, Love, "Having a kid is like getting a tattoo on your face. You kinda need/want to be committed to it!"

[–] Cyraxote 10 years ago

A year later = all of a sudden? I think they said they didn't want kids because they hadn't been able to have one, and all the "we don't want one" was just their attempt to resolve the cognitive dissonance of that situation.

[–] siobanphotogirl 10 years ago

I do believe the adoption process can be quite lengthy, can't it? Even if you're 'rescuing' a child from the poverty of Haiti. They were going to pick up a child that had been matched to them.

[–] Cyraxote 10 years ago

Perhaps the speed of the process is the part that's unlikely, rather than their desire for a child. I just don't think you can take what characters say about what they want at face value, especially in a movie like this.

[–] azurit 9 years ago

the ending was a disappointment. i think they should have gone to Paris instead of adopting.
on the other Hand Josh and Cornelia always wanted a child they just pretended not to. Noah Baumbach filled this film with too many items.

[–] MvanB 9 years ago

The end was totally unnecessary and a slap in the face of people who remain childless for whatever reason and have peace with that.
But no, even in this movie one can't be happy without a child. If they really always wanted a baby why wasn't adoption mentioned earlier?

"If you can't see 'em, you know you've got proper invisible runes."

[–] Thomasina 9 years ago

The end was totally unnecessary and a slap in the face of people who remain childless for whatever reason and have peace with that.

At this point, I think I have posted this same thing at least two other times, so it's starting to seem pointless. But from almost the beginning of this movie, it was totally, unambiguously clear to me that while Cornelia claimed to be childless by choice and happy with that decision, she was actually lying. She absolutely did not "have peace with that" decision. This movie isn't making a blanket statement that "one can't be happy without a child"; it is saying that people who desperately want children (like Cornelia and Josh did) can't be happy without them, no matter how many times they try to claim to themselves and others that they are really fine. This rang completely true for me, since I have known a lot of people who have had infertility issues, and some of them had gone through very long and painful processes before admitting to themselves and everyone around them that they just won't be able to conceive.

If they really always wanted a baby why wasn't adoption mentioned earlier?

This also rang completely true to me. For some very involved and complicated reasons, adoption is unfairly seen by some (not by everyone, but definitely by many) as a second-class, lesser form of parenthood that would only be acceptable to them if all avenues for having a biological child had been exhausted. Since when the movie starts Cornelia had clearly not yet come to terms with her grief over the fact that their attempts at conceiving and fertility treatments had been unsuccessful, she wasn't ready yet to consider adoption as an option; but by the end of the movie, she was. I wish that adoption were not so stigmatized in our society, but the fact is that is is, and this movie's depiction of that was very true to life.

[–] Rheli 10 years ago

It seemed like a very Jamie ending, didn't it? Not a Joshie one.

[–] NeedysBoy 10 years ago

"It seemed like a very Jamie ending, didn't it? Not a Joshie one."

Yes.

It seemed like a Jamie thing -- career in the dumper: "so I'll use someone to make me feel better".

 "Maybe it's another dimension. Or, you know, just really deep." --Needy

[–] Rheli 10 years ago

I mean it was a Jamie ending is because Jamie would not be beyond adding a happy ending to a movie to make it sell better whereas Josh would feel more need to have an ending that's true to the subject matter.

[–] NeedysBoy 10 years ago

And I meant a Jamie ending because he wasn't beyond exploiting others for his benefit.

Jamie exploited Darby's connection to the Afghan War vet, and he exploited Josh to connect with Cornelia and her dad in order to get his film made.

 "Maybe it's another dimension. Or, you know, just really deep." --Needy

[–] Maximus70 10 years ago

I was disappointed with the ending as well. They could have ended with his documentary release in Cannes or something--anything--else.

[–] missy9s9 10 years ago

Really? I felt like they wanted a child all along but the intensity of infertility treatment had made them shy away from going down that path again. It was almost the trigger for how receptive they were to this new friendship and a fresh way of directing their lives. But it all circles round to the same point they started at. I could have accepted them remaining child free but it didn't seem like incongruous that they did choose to adopt.

[–] Cyraxote 10 years ago

Well said. Thank you.

[–] spank-my-17 10 years ago

Yes, this.

[–] IMDB_Vits 10 years ago

She did want a child, but she was afraid of another miscarriage, as well as all the risks that come with being pregnant at her age. Adopting was the perfect solution.

[–] outsideartist 9 years ago

I guess I just have a prob with the 'a baby makes everything right' implication at the end. Some couples do better without kids and the idea that a marriage is not complete unless it includes children is a cop-out. Not that Ben wouldn't have been a great Dad, but with what money were they going to give this child a life, and how much of that decision was based on jealousy of their friend Willow's parents? Their life was not perfect, either, as we see during Ben's conversation with Willow's Father 'I am still the most important person in my life'. Ew.

[–] Thomasina 9 years ago

All through the film Naomi Watts explains why she is comfortable childless

But it was completely clear to me from the moment that part of the storyline was introduced that every time she claims to be happy to be childless, she is lying--not just to her husband and everyone else in her life, but also to herself.

Maybe it's just because I've known a LOT of people who've gone thorough the horrible ordeal of fertility treatments and other expensive and painful attempted remedies for infertility, but nobody subjects themselves to that process if they don't want to have children. So as soon as we learned that they had undergone fertility treatments, it was totally clear to me that she had at some point just started claiming that she was childless by choice (even though it wasn't true) as a way to reconcile herself to the fact that she couldn't get pregnant.

[–] usernumber655321 9 years ago

Thomasina and a few others seem to have actually been paying attention to the film. It wasn't as though you even had to do any 'analyzing' to understand that Watts' character wanted children. She speaks directly about infertility and miscarriage multiple times. While I had my own criticisms of the film, it cannot be justifiably criticized for perpetuating the "couples MUST have kids to be happy" idea.

[–] mikelepost 9 years ago

It was not totally clear to me that Ben and Cornelia secretly wanted to have children. I accept that interpretation, but I also accepted Cornelia's claim that she'd made peace with the fact that they didn't have kids, especially since that claim came right after a cathartic moment in the film and I wasn't given any reason to doubt her sincerity.

I also had issues with the end of the movie. It seemed to me that While We're Young set up an intriguing situation where 40-somethings who don't have kids are estranged from their same-age friends with families but too old to fit in with the younger generation. That was interesting to me.

Instead of finding a path where they could find happiness without kids at that age, the ending seemed to be saying "Nope - there is no way middle aged people can be happy without having kids." The idea that people in their 30s /40s need to settle down into monogamous committed relationships and have kids is continually reinforced in movies, it was sort of nice to see a film deviate from that cliché.

I'm a middle aged married guy with kids I love, just tired of Hollywood selling the idea that this is the only path to happiness and it felt to me like While We're Young flirted with being different but ultimately retreated toward convention at the finish line.

[–] truetexian 9 years ago

ditto

Ending a huge disappointment to me *spoilers*

Ending a huge disappointment to me spoilers