[talula]

okay so i finally watched this movie last night and after searching online for an understand of the movie, i still couldnt get a grasp of it. basically its about a psychiatric doctor trying to save some guy's life. all i kno is that its about the conscious and unconsious and what u see isnt really what u see and stuff.

so anyways, could someone PLZ tell me what the heck this movie is really about?

[HERMIT]

It's basically about this guy that's involved in a devastating car crash that takes the lives of his parents and the woman that he was going to propose to. He's the last one left still alive at the scene of the crash, but barely clinging on to that life. As he's inching closer and closer into the throes of death, he is surrounded by onlookers at the accident that either try to desperately help him or just simply crowd around helplessly watching him struggle to stay alive.

However, as this guy is fading in and out of consciousness, his subconscious manages to "incorporate" these onlookers into this "imagined" life in which he is living out this "alternate" life. It is in his subconscious mind in which the storyline - as the audience perceives it - takes place. In real time, he's actually dying at the scene of the accident - but in his mind (and thus the movie's storytelling perspective), he plays out this scenario in which he's still alive and somehow maintaining some sort of attachment with the onlookers at the crash site - as if they are really a part of his life. It is a tragic tale in that it reveals that this guy needs closure before he dies: he was going to ask his girlfriend to marry him - but he never got the chance before the crash occured. But I'm sure, as you recall in the end of the movie, there is a resolution - although it is very sad.

I know this is probably a bad explanation, but I hope it helps enlighten you a little bit.

[talula]

thanks!! i didnt get the part tha the storyline was actually the subconscious part, thats why i got so confused when the ending happend.

ohh and u know the paintings? like it has his name on the back of the paintings right? when the girlfriend (naomi watts) sees this and runs out but then is stopped by the fence/gate thingy....yea anyways haha, wat does that part mean?

[HERMIT]

Haha, sorry - I saw this movie way back when, when it came out in the theaters. So I'm pretty bad at recollecting the specific details on the movie. All I remember is the general theme of what the story was about. Personally, I thought the film was a little too surreal and abstract in its storytelling for my tastes. As you watch the movie, however, you do slowly get clued in that what is happening with the characters is not rooted in reality but in the subconscious imagination of Gosling's character as he teeters between life and death. But if there's one thing that 'anchors' his subconscious alternate reality, it is that elements of his real life permeates that reality - although hidden symbolically with the characters (the accident onlookers) and the surroundings that he's created in his mind.

If you have the opportunity to watch the movie again, my suggestion is to view it in the context that it's just his imagination/dream and incorporate what you now know of his real life and how it applies to that alternate reality that he subconsciously dreams up. When that particular scene that you are talking about comes up, maybe it will make more sense as to what the painting represents about his life and so on so on so forth.

(You might also want to search this movie on Imdb.com and check out the forum topics created for this particular film.)

[talula]

thanks!!! yea, it's true, movies like this needs to be watched more than once.