++++++++++++++++Spoiler Alert+++++++++++++++++ Half the other reviewers just didn't get it - this is a very good movie with a trick ending that ties all story lines together wonderfully. Most of the negative reviews were written by people that missed the entire point of the movie. Without going into great detail on the three (really four) story lines this is the hook: all the story lines are simply imagined by the author character (Liam) as he composes his novel.
A prize-winning author is in Paris working on a novel, having just suffered through the death of his young son in a swimming pool accident. The movie starts and ends with him at his desk in a hotel room - the opening scene fades out with a faint "watch me" heard (imagined) by the author. The movie ends with the same scene, but now we know the "watch me" was uttered by his son just before he died in the swimming pool. We even meet his son at the end, the little boy sitting on the fountain. Everything from the opening scene to the ending scene all took place in the author's head as he sat in the hotel writing his novel. The story lines and their characters are simply the author rationalizing away his guilt for the death of his son. As he realizes that all his characters are manifestations, twisted sometimes, of his own psyche, he alters them, going so far as to entirely remove them from his novel. Thus we have the lawyer finally diving into the pool and disappearing, (as he removes her from the narrative) and slowly all the other characters just disappear, as he removes them from the book. Even his publisher is a figment of his imagination, a character created when he realized that his writing was becoming jaded, and far too close to his own life.
That's it. The key to understanding this movie is to realize that everything between the opening and closing scenes all took place in the author's head as he worked on his novel. As he came to terms with his son's death, the characters he drummed up disappeared, each created and played out as he worked to soothe his inner guilt. My two cents!
A prize-winning author is in Paris working on a novel, having just suffered through the death of his young son in a swimming pool accident. The movie starts and ends with him at his desk in a hotel room - the opening scene fades out with a faint "watch me" heard (imagined) by the author. The movie ends with the same scene, but now we know the "watch me" was uttered by his son just before he died in the swimming pool. We even meet his son at the end, the little boy sitting on the fountain. Everything from the opening scene to the ending scene all took place in the author's head as he sat in the hotel writing his novel. The story lines and their characters are simply the author rationalizing away his guilt for the death of his son. As he realizes that all his characters are manifestations, twisted sometimes, of his own psyche, he alters them, going so far as to entirely remove them from his novel. Thus we have the lawyer finally diving into the pool and disappearing, (as he removes her from the narrative) and slowly all the other characters just disappear, as he removes them from the book. Even his publisher is a figment of his imagination, a character created when he realized that his writing was becoming jaded, and far too close to his own life.
That's it. The key to understanding this movie is to realize that everything between the opening and closing scenes all took place in the author's head as he worked on his novel. As he came to terms with his son's death, the characters he drummed up disappeared, each created and played out as he worked to soothe his inner guilt. My two cents!