Call me stupid, but the very ending.....

If I got it right, it was not his family but another family which he felt very sorry for, which we saw in the beginning of the film. The problem is that Babbage had been on the job so long that he had become a little bit insane. We, the audience, were supposed to have felt sympathy for him and gotten into his brain and emotions, and in so doing, we were supposed to understand him and sympathize and go along with his insanity. But it didn't work. We didn't care about Babbage because he was totally unsympathetic. we thought he was just crazy and would not have been surprised, based on his bizarre behavior throughout the film if he turned out to be the perp. This is typical Hollywood which demands far to much suspension of disbelief from us just for the sake of them wanting to indulge in spectacular or bizarre melodrama. I'm sure everyone was disgusted by how he messed up the crime scenes and didn't call the cops for help. But Hollywood figured if the cops were called, then the so-called suspense at the end would be obviated. All they really accomplished was to make the film silly and unbelievable. Poor Clare Danes, who is a good actress and gave it her best, was perplexed by a role that basically didn't make sense, so she came off inconsistent in her motivations and looking stupid. She deserves better.