Mommy : Did he *possible spoiler* at the end?

Did he kill himself at the end? Did he start running at the window to jump from it?

CG GORE IS THE WORST THING THAT HAS EVER HAPPENED TO THE HORROR GENRE!

Yes, of course

I didn't catch that. I thought he was just running for the door

It looked like a window to me, but I'm not sure.

Great avatar, btw.

CG GORE IS THE WORST THING THAT HAS EVER HAPPENED TO THE HORROR GENRE!

Definitely a window. It clearly didn't go all the way to the ground, so unless it was a door with a step It was a window.


He says the sun came out last night. He says it sang to him.

I didn't interpret it that way I don't think he dies at the end. I think it just symbolizes that even in the institution they can't break his soul. He still has life in him.

I agree with you on the first part. I don't think he dies either.

I think the last shot connects to Steve calling his mother, just two scenes earlier. On the phone he says that he's sorry and he will try to get his life together. And then right after, he's trying to run again.

Earlier in the film the lady at the first institution says to Diane that "The kids get better, until they don't." And while we may have hope as an audience before the last scene with Steve running, as Diane did when things were going well with Steve and Kyla, it just goes to show that no, he is not better. This is a sad reality with Steve in that he won't ever be a perfectly functioning person in society.

It's a "choose your own adventure" type of ending. You get to pick! There have been a lot of movies where the screenwriter leaves it up to the audience to decide how the movie ends. Which I've just realized is great for me, because I have been trying for years to write a screenplay on an idea I have, but I think I haven't worked on it because I'm not sure how to end it. Now I've just realized that not having an ending to my movie is no reason not to work on it. My story will just conclude when I can't figure out where to go with it. Maybe people will see my work as "high art" because I'm not spoon-feeding my audience and leaving it up to them to decide what really happens to everyone.

I just had another look. It is hard to tell lol. It did look like a window,
but it could have easily of just been a door. I guess we will never know 100%.

And thanks/right back at ya ;-)

For me the ending was very hopeful. His running away seemed more like he was symbolically running back to his mother rather than a suicide attempt. Even though she was not physically present in the scene, I thought it was interesting that the last conversation we hear is of a woman who has foolishly taken back her lover. The orderlies mention this woman who is back with a man who doesn't treat her well, but that because she's happy with him and believes she can save him, she's taken him back. One of the orderlies calls it "human nature" right before Steve breaks away. I thought it was a nice parallel to Steve and Die's relationship: it doesn't make any sense, but they'll always find a way back to each other.

To me, he jumped through the window and most likely died. I think that they were trying to emphasize that, this way, he felt that he would be "free" (as opposed to being institutionalized). Remember when he was riding the grocery cart in the road? Wasn't he yelling, "I'm free! I'm free!" And is last call to his Mom was actually quite tragic to me, given that he was in a straightjacket and, afterward, he asked the staff member, "Was that all right? Was it good?" So who was he trying to please there?

Thinking about it. I think he killed himself too.
It was a VERY bleak and depressing film (although great)
So him committing suicide would be in tone with the rest of the film.
Plus, all the things you said lol.

It is definitely a window. I interpreted the ending as Steve running to the window, through it and dying but I also felt a strange mix of utter desolation and hope in this as at the same time, Steve is running towards freedom, the only way he can.

It reminded me of the end of One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest. I don't think he would have died because it didn't seem that high up.

I don't agree at all that it was obvious he killed himself. Throughout the whole movie you can see that he has a very active bulls**t detector. He knows when his mother is being phony, he knows when someone has an ulterior motive, he even knows how to play the game at the end when he' straitjacketed in the hospital. To me the run for it says that with all his problems, he is not going to succumb to all the B.S., and even if he escapes and they recapture him, he's still free.

that's what it looked like.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
act like a bitch, get slapped like a bitch.

Given that the title (and chorus) of the Lana Del Rey song played during the scene is "Born to Die," and that it was clearly an elevated window he was running toward, I think suicide was the intent. Whether it was accomplished or not, who knows?

I interpreted the ending scene to mean that the punk would never change no matter what treatment he had. He'll be in there forever and rightly so.

To me it seems like suicide is sugested through the sunset illuminating his face that represents the sunset of his life. He then choses to embrace it, and break free from everything he ever was. And the song that starts playing is called "Born To Die".

I am sure it was suicide. His mother Break up with him and did not answer his calls. It was definitly a window and the song "Born to die" proves it too. There is no hope for anybody in that movie.

Whether or not the director knows it, psychiatric hospitals typically have enforced windows and/or security bars behind the window, exactly for the reason that there tend to be suicidal people living in those places, so obviously they want to stop people from jumping out of the windows.

But this movie, like so many others, falls for the clich that psychiatric hospitals are bleak, hopeless hellholes, instead of places where people go because they need help and treatment, and where they more often than not get such help. I was a bit disappointed by this, because the movie was otherwise so moving and original, and yet it decided to take this clichd, contrafactual view that psychiatric wards are places where the only hope is in escaping, whether through death or by other means.

I actually thought that the entire "escape" (whether to death or not) was a fantasy, the equivalent of Die's fantasy of his future.

It's just not that easy to get loose in that sort of facility, is it? And as someone pointed out, the windows in such facilities have unbreakable glass and/or bars.

If this is Steve's fantasy, I think it would be consistent with his character to dream of jumping though a window without regard for whether he lives or dies, knowing that the latter is a possibility. It's the escape that's the point.

---

Prepare your minds for a new scale of physical, scientific values, gentlemen.

---

I understood this as a metaphoric image: Even if he escapes through the window, he'll never have the commonplace grounding to fall back to, where society is.

i also think he dies. what stimulates this reasoning is the fact that kyla wanted to leave the neighborhood. she knew the kid wasn't going to be better, and would most likely have a terrible accident, knowing how violent he is.
so he left a final message for his mom, promising her that he'll be better (well better off not there causing her pain and trouble at least).
sadly the phone was on vibrate and she missed the call, which encouraged him even more to take the chance when he got it.

He was "born to die".

I think the song in the end credits was significant in terms of Steve's fate.

---

In the midst of winter I found there was, within me, an invincible summer

---

I wondered the exact same thing.

I looked close, it wasn't a door to exit.

Definitely a window, but would they have breakable glass in such an institution?!

He had cut his wrist at least twice before, but he was also real forlorn when they showed him after cutting his wrist in the store, whereas while running towards the window he looked elated.

So I'm not sure his intent/mental status.

it was a window and to me it was him escaping.

Certainly gives that impression.

The way I see it, is that the ending is a reflection of the audience. Whatever you think was the intention of him running towards the window/door, is actually a reflection of your own mindset. Whether you believe it was just another dream sequence, or a suicide attempt, or an attempt at escape, it doesn't matter. There is perhaps one intention that Xavier Dolan had in mind, but I wouldn't want to know it. Mommy was full of suggestions, but we know almost nothing for sure. How did Kyla get her stutter? Why was she on sabbatical? How did Steve's father die? There are lots of suggestions, and we unconsciously try to put together the puzzle all in our own ways. Mommy is partly constructed by Xavier, and partly constructed by our own imagination.

Well said!