The ending is pretty bleak, but the fact that you see Kirsten cross the street instead of walking into the bar suggests there still may be hope for her. Do you think Kirsten ever got sober ... or that Joe ever had another relapse, for that matter?
shareI knew a few girls like Kirsten when I was growing up. One pretty girl named Michelle, who would screw any guy for a bottle of vodka, ended up committing suicide at the age of 30. Another beautiful blonde girl named Mary, who was a stone cold alcoholic at age 16 and slept with just about every guy I know, ended up married to a very successful engineer and had a couple of kids, and is by all accounts very happy and sober.
So you never know. It all depends on how much determination the girl has to make something of her life.
I think she was just going back to wherever she holed up and started all over again after she managed to sober up to see her husband. I have always imagined that she probably ended up dead eventually, from either just the booze, or more dangerous things - like eventually drugs. Her character didn't seem to me to ever be strong enough to overcome it.
shareShe probably stayed an alcoholic. She was in denial the whole way through the film and refused to admit to anyone, even herself, that she had a problem. If you can't admit that you have a problem, you're never going to be able to overcome it.
shareI agree. I watched the film for the first time last night, and I do believe that Lee Remick's character wasn't really strong enough and didn't want to admit she had a problem. She wanted to suck Jack's character back into the world of drinking once again.
shareI agree, I think the reason this film is so effective is the duality of the characters. Kirsten was always week willed (remember a the beginning , her talking about the chocolate?). Isn't it more poetic if she doesn't get clean?
But I tend to like unhappy endings :-)
www.myspace.com/scumbalinascinema
she died in some fleabag hotel with an empty bottle of booze on the floor
next to the bed.
I don't think Joe relapsed, he was very committed to his sobriety and his daughter to the point where he wouldn't give in to his wife when she refused to stay sober.
I think Kirsten has a longer road...she was young, naive and hadn't been through enough to consider sobriety as the only answer to stop the pain. She keeps saying the 'world is so dirty sober' but what she is really feeling/seeing is her own self-loathing. Now she's lost her husband and abandoned her child, will that make her feel less self-hatred or more? She'll be back drinking and sleeping around and that will just compound the problem. In the end, I think it will be like Susan Hayward in "Madam X". But there is always the possibility that she'll hit rock bottom and realize her mistake and get sober.
Ugh! Those pictures are worth a lifetime of words.
shareI think she finally got on the wagon. I like to picture them together. Bust that's just me.
shareshe went back to daddy at the nursery..........daddy was going to help her get better, esp when she took off with those bums he told her husband about
yes, daddy was going to help her get back to normal.......we love dadddy
Myy ex best friend has gone completely off the edge. She cheated on her husband with a low life she met on piratesonline, lied to me for months, and was verbally and emotionally abusive to her children in front of y son and then lied about that. She is now divorced, will not let her sons see mine as we are a bad influence. There is a restraining order on her new beau since he attacked her oldest son and her parapalegic brother. Real man, huh? All along she has stood by him. All this happened in about 15 months.
The downward spiral is not exaggerated.
[deleted]
A tragic death would seem to have been foreshadowed by her description of her dream not long into the film.
shareGood point, dbeane!
shareThe ending, I think, is open-ended. Although one does not know what will become of her, I DO think there is hope for her. That's because after Kirsten leaves Joe's apartment and walks down the street, she does NOT stop into the bar. One has to keep in mind that when talking to Joe at the end, she does not seem to want to admit that she has a drinking problem. That's the way Joe was for much of the movie. However, the fact that she does NOT stop into the bar at the end might mean she would come to acknowledge her problem. I think that deep down inside, Joe still loved her. It's just that he did not want to slip back into drinking again. Perhaps, seeing that Joe seemed to over-come his addiction might make Kirsten want to do the same. One of course will never know.
shareThe ending was pretty bleak. I don't think Kirsten had fallen low enough as the film ends for her to give up alcohol. Perhaps when her father died this would precipitate a change in her.
Away with the manners of withered virginsshare
I think Joe stays sober.
As for Kirsten I have much less hope. She finds the world ugly without alcohol - reality is not pleasant no doubt about it and for some, escapism and anything but having to look at the world as it is, is just too difficult.
Denial is so much more than a river in Egypt ....