@HAL 9010' said:

[SPOILERS]

The movie is really quite clear except for the final bacon scene which is clearly here to put doubt on who she is. A cheap shot by the director, but a clever cheap shot.

To figure out who "escaped", I think we need to look in to who these two girls really are, and what drives them through the whole movie. This is the smoking gun...

The problem is though that we don't really know S2 and what drives her. What was her ambition, her game and her goal?

She is in character through most of the movie and the little we see of her true personality seems quite bitchy and superficial. Even E2 did not dig her anymore. She seemed hell bent on destroying what was brewing between E2 and S1, and E1 and afterlife with him was not very much on her agenda, if at all.

She never really flirted or otherwise tried and lure E1 into her web. If anything, she was the reason it all went wrong.

So if we forget the ending and only see who S1 and S2 really are, then who would we guess would escape and live happily ever after with E1 in the end?

S1 wanted bliss and love and to rekindle what they once had, and she did love E – despite his infidelity and their relational problems. Indeed she fell hard for E2, but not who E2 actually was. She fell for a dream of who E1 could be. This is important to understand what drove S1.

As the culmination gets nearer, we all see a bit more of who E2 and S2 are. And once E2 says “fucx you all” and runs away from both his ladies, and after E1 delivered his heartfelt and breakthrough speech, to me it seem clear that the movie tells us how S1 got what she ultimately hoped for from the “therapy”. She got her E1 back at that very moment and she (and we) realized in those final moments that E2 was a fake dick.

So what did S1 want? She wanted E... not a fake E, but the real E like he once was. In the end of the movie this is what she got. And E2 had ironically become the fake and the untrustworthy.... he had become the one she was originally escaping from (and I think this is the brilliancy of the movie).

It is commonly misunderstood that she fell for E2. S1 never fell for who E2 actually was. He was constantly playing his part of a better and improved Ethan until the very end. S1 fell for E1 – or rather how she dreamed E1 would or could be. Even when she succumbs hard to E2’s charm it is when he tells her those longing words about how and why E1 was unfaithful back in the day. And S1 knew E2 was not E1 at this time and yet this is what really swept her feet. What finally won her was a story about and emotions connected entirely to E1. She made love with E2 two times and both times were because of E1: The first time she simply believed it was her old chubby and was none the wiser of the whole setup. The second time is when E2 gives her those longing beautiful words associated to E1. S1 was in fact all the time smitten by Ethan, perhaps not his latest ways, but always for the hope or dream she had of him... and never this other guy, whoever he was.

So what did S2 want? Well, the movie is not very clear on this except she seemed hell-bent on E2 despite all his crap. And S2 is the only one who knows who and what E2 really is. She specifically says that she does not want to leave E2 or see another take him away. All her actions until the very end supports this mission. Nothing in the movie showed us any interest or affection towards E1.

Ultimately her motivation was NEVER to take over S1’s life and be with E1 for the rest of her life living it out as a fake. Which the movie then would imply! It simply goes against the S2 we are presented for. She is a no-nonsense kind of gal.

... Okay, now let’s add the bacon ending... and this obviously confuses everything. Who is this loving S we experience in the epilogue?

IMO this movie only has one loving S and that was S1. A better ending to manifest that the “wrong S” had escaped would be to let her go down for breakfast and he would just hear the front door slamming....

So the way I see it is: The bacon scene tells us that S1 didn't want to change him anymore and that she accepted who he was or rather who he had become. They were now in sync, like a piano (the metaphor specifically used by Sam Malone).

Also, why would S2 at all be flirted by the story in the end like that...

• she was no longer needed to act.

• she was no longer required to be fake.

• she could be who she actually was.

... And yet she completely “acted" like S1 for no good reason – other than of course if she in fact was S1.

So when the ending supposedly reduces S2 to a blabbering fake shadow of someone else entirely, I think it actually doesn’t. Sophie wanted love from Ethan. Ethan wanted love from Sophie. S2 was not hoping to take over the life of Sophie and she was in love with whoever E2 actually was and did not want to loose him

IMO the essence of the movie is in E1’s heartfelt speech at the end. We should accept and even cherish our own flaws, warts and all, and those of our partners. In those imperfections we become the humans we are. In the end they both changed - he as well as her. It is most evident of his change at his speech and her at the final bacon scene.

The one S1 loves is E1. The one E1 loves is S1.

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And taken the opposite conclusion a wee bit further (If S2 left), then what is the film teaching us? Basically that all was in vain. His final speech is pointless. Their realizations during the film lost. That despite E2 being a selfish dick, S1 still wanted him. It shows us that E1 ends up with a girl he does not know. A girl that doesn't want him. A girl even we the viewers have no real idea about. The final sweet scene in the bed becomes even more sad, because it is then shrouded in deceit...perhaps all this was the intention of the movie, but I doubt it.

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PS: I also read that the fact that E2 could not leave was because they had not broken up the relationship in those final moments. If so, why could S2 then leave seconds after? She couldn't either, and she knew. The S standing next to E2 in the end was far from happy. She knows she is where she was in the beginning and had not progressed at all, however S1 is finally now where she hoped to be eventually; next to her loving husband.

PS 2: Someone else spotted another hint in the final bacon scene: E1 is now wearing the t-shirt E2 was wearing when S1 fell hard for him earlier. This T-shirt represents how E1 now is also changed - parallel to how the bacon thing shows us S1 had. Simply put, the T-shirt is the filmmakers way of subtly showing us that he too had changed.

PS 3: I have only ONE problem with my explanation. And that is the facial expression of Ethan when he hears the bacon thing. He does not seem loved, he seem bewildered. But of course he had not read my OP at that point in time... :-) Anyway, a contributory way to analyse this facial expression is to see it as sign that Ethan at that moment realized that the whole insane and awful retreat experience had worked and impacted them both in a positive way. Until then he considered the whole thing as plain wrong and borderline evil. Perhaps he sort of acknowledged that Sam Malone's wacky experiment had borne fruit and was in fact just what the "the doctor ordered".... such a realization should be expressed in a set of mixed emotions, and maybe this is what we see in his eyes in the end... at least, from that point of view it all fits nicely

Am I wrong?

This isn't how I personally understood the film.

To me, Ethan 1 did in fact leave with Sophie 2 (the wrong/fake Sophie). I thought the film directors made it pretty clear to me anyway. The biggest tell was just the shot of the two Sophie's when E1 looks at both of them and tries to figure out which one is his actual wife. You see the Sophie on the right looking really sad and out of it (as if someone she really cared about- E2, just died). And you see the Sophie on the left have a kind of realization- sneakily glances to the other Sophie and realizes that she can trick E1 to get herself out of that place. They even had a really extended and very overt shot of the Sophie on the left smiling in a kind of menacing/mischievous way right at the camera. Why would they shoot this- why would the original Sophie have these facial expressions- when leaving with E1? She wouldn't. She's wouldn't be trying to trick him or trick anyone.

Imo, the fake Sophie, S2, was probably in love with E2. But overtime, and in seeing E2 fall in love with S1, she slowly fell out of love with E2. imo her plan was to get out of there. But before achieving that she wanted a final confirmation of just how much E2 truly had fallen for the original Sophie (to allow her to move on and leave him behind- she already feel betrayed by him because E2 was planning on leaving with S1 so she's gonna do it to him instead). When E2 kisses who he thinks is S1, S2's heart finally completely breaks. Since she wanted this to happen this is why she intentionally puts on the same sweater as S1- to let E2 show her just how much hes betrayed her. I feel like you can already see these emotions- S2 falling out of love with E2- at play the scene where she drinks alcohol with S1 and spitefully insults S1 about what shes been doing with E2 and also in the poker (card game?) game interactions S2 had with E2. Also since shes now wearing the same outfit she can later on trick E1 into taking her with him instead of S1.

You may say, if S2 had fallen out of love with E2, why would she tell E1 that she wants to stay stuck there with E2 rather than see E2 run away with S1? Well, because she's lying. She wants E1 to think she doesnt want to leave, so that later on the original Ethan will be easily tricked into thinking the Sophie who wants to leave is definitely the original Sophie.

I don't really feel like Sophie deciding to cook bacon unprompted is something that the original Sophie could have done- even if you say that Sophie had some kind of character development where she chooses to change her attitude/cooking for Ethan's sake. Why? Because I don't believe Sophie was aware that Ethan didnt like that she doesnt like it when he eats bacon. Yes, Ethan did mention that the fake Sophie had made bacon, but he didnt mention what he thought about that or that it was weird that bacon was cooked because she doesnt usually ever make bacon. I think this small difference/conflict with cooking Ethan had with Sophie was mostly something Ethan kept to himself and is too little of a thing to mention to his wife. So Sophie wouldnt know to change her behaviour to show her new love for her husband after they got back.

You may say well maybe they had more conversations about what happened on their little weekend away that happened off screen. But I just dont think that if that was the case, that's the way the real Sophie would say "Im cooking eggs and bacon" as if there is nothing significant about it- like its nothing out of the blue- she said it like a throwaway comment. The way it was said was said by a Sophie oblivious to the situation- and by a Sophie that just always cooks bacon because shes the fake Sophie and never learnt that the real Sophie doesnt cook bacon. And even more so, if it that was the case, that's not how the real Ethan would react to it. His initial reaction was of shock, horror, and confusion- as he realises he left behind the wrong Sophie (a Sophie that was too shocked to see E2 die right in front of her and not realise shes being left behind stuck there). If they Ethan had had any conversation to his wife or whoever he thought was his wife about how he really wishes she would cook him bacon (or anything like that) his initial reaction wouldnt be shock and horror- maybe shock but not horror. It would be shock and joy- he would feel loved, then later would come the conflicting emotions about how this result was come to by a fucked up method. But the quiet sad and brutal ending the film gives is after the initial shock and horror dissipates, Ethan settles and accepts the fake Sophie as his new wife- in the same similar way that S1 basically was willing to live her new life with the idealised fake Ethan. The ending the movie gives is brutal because despite that heartfelt speech in the bedroom he also falls for the idealised version of his wife just like the original Sophie.

I could be misremembering some details in the film but I hope not and I believe my interpretation is the correct one.