Clarification for stories 1 and 2?

Fuller had accepted a settlement. Once he took the money, he forfeited his right to sue. (Not sure if this is strictly true, for instance if you are unduly pressured into an agreement and can provide proof, or received bad legal advice,you might have a case.)

Albert said they could have the sandstone, then waffled and said "tentatively" they could. In the car afterwards, the couple discuss his answer but Gina decides to treat it as a definitive yes, since Albert clearly had no use for the stones and someone else would take them anyway.

The native sandstone story is the most altered of the three stories from its original source. In the original story, it's just the couple--they have no children--and though the husband seems to be operating on a separate plane, he pretty much let's his wife steamroll over the old man. Reichardt enhances the tension in the story by making the wife the boss of the family, and the other members essentially disgruntled employees. In the story, however, there is a passage at the end where the wife imagines what she'll do with the stone when she gets it (in the story, they leave the old man's house without the stone and unsure if they've secured it), so the stone represents a sort of inspiration.

But in the movie, there's a clearer sense of Albert's emotional connection to the stone when he mentions the stone was there before he and his brother bought the property and seems truly troubled at the prospect of giving up something that has been such an integral part of his life. This is in the story as well, but really comes across in the wounded performance of Rene Auberjonois. There had been plans for the stone that never came to fruition. Reichardt, by letting Gina and Ryan acquire the stone and also adding the tension within the family, takes the opportunity to suggest that Albert's pile of stone, is now Gina's pile of stone, a monument to plans that will never come to fruition.

In the case of Fuller, when someone's injured on the job, they can either file a worker's comp claim and collect the insurance money, or sue the employer for negligence, but you can't do both. Fuller opts for the first, but comes to the realization that it wasn't enough money to cover his mortgage and other expenses and his injury has left him unable to work, so he decides he'd rather sue. But having taken the insurance money, he gave up his right to sue. This is what Laura has spent the prior eight months trying to explain to him.

Thanks for the responses everyone.

Interesting info about the differences between the original sandstone short story and the movie version.

Must've either overlooked or forgotten about Albert's connection to the sandstone. Makes that segment of the movie feel even more jarring and unresolved (in a good way), especially with its suggestion of a relatively happy ending (I recall Michelle Williams smiling to herself, cup of wine in hand)

Thanks again.

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