Annnnnnddddd I was wrong. Not that good actually. It seems like the writer/director had a good idea of where to go with it but almost no real material. The cinematography was good, the sound design was fantastic and also the acting. Joaquin Phoenix is a great actor of course. But the pacing was off and so was the editing. Its like the editor didnt have enough to work with so they had to stretch it out with B roll basically. They hinted at things but it never really went anywhere. A 5/10 for me unfortunately. I was expecting alot more.

@OddRob said:

Annnnnnddddd I was wrong. Not that good actually. It seems like the writer/director had a good idea of where to go with it but almost no real material. The cinematography was good, the sound design was fantastic and also the acting. Joaquin Phoenix is a great actor of course. But the pacing was off and so was the editing. Its like the editor didnt have enough to work with so they had to stretch it out with B roll basically. They hinted at things but it never really went anywhere. A 5/10 for me unfortunately. I was expecting alot more.

Omg i literally just finished and im so confused i don't understand!!!

@jingles173 said:

@OddRob said:

Annnnnnddddd I was wrong. Not that good actually. It seems like the writer/director had a good idea of where to go with it but almost no real material. The cinematography was good, the sound design was fantastic and also the acting. Joaquin Phoenix is a great actor of course. But the pacing was off and so was the editing. Its like the editor didnt have enough to work with so they had to stretch it out with B roll basically. They hinted at things but it never really went anywhere. A 5/10 for me unfortunately. I was expecting alot more.

Omg i literally just finished and im so confused i don't understand!!!

What dont you understand? Feel free to use spoilers since not to many people are going to see this anyway.

It didnt explain much of anything. Was he never there was the girl never really there?

I can give it a shot. I personally always look in symbolic explanations of the movies, trying to find out more abstract meanings. So I guess we have something similar here as well.

The way I caught it from my first viewing, Joe represents a result of collective trauma of the past, sort of embodiment of the violence, repression, result of unhealthy development and psychological pain and distortion. This can be seen in his flashback to his childhood, in which he suffered abuse from his violent father. Furthermore, I think he father, although unseen, was exactly the same as he is. Joe continues his father's behavior same as all problems of society transfer from generation to generation. But Joe is aware of his issues, and being unable to correct himself because it's too late for him, he is trying to improve the future and prevent this pain to pass into future generations. Starting from himself by not having kids in order to cut his sick line. By not having children he is trying not to pass all the unhealthy behavior to them, therefore he willfully removes himself from reproduction and contamination of the future generation. This is also his reason to stop working with Angel, because in conversation with him Joe says that Angel's son "saw him". I think that Joe doesn't want young generation to witness any violent behavior, even a little, in order to to become infected with the disease of the violence and psychological distortion. In addition Joe uses violence to remove evil and corrupted elements from society, for example sexual abuse of underage girls and political corruption. These are his other flashbacks, in which he sees Asian young girls dead in some sort of container, maybe symbolizing a human trafficking. And speaking of the flashbacks there is another repeating one in the desert, which I think symbolizing wars in the middle East.

So Joe is the embodiment of various problems, his consciousness suffers from all that is evil and bad, ranging from inner issues in society and outside export of wars and suffering to others. And being self aware he is trying to fix and improve the future, but then he encounters Nina. And Nina is a symbol of already damaged youth and new generation, but while she is just a victim Joe is ok with that, because he can save her and she can heal. Nina's father, the senator, is part of the corruption and part of the disease, but once it happens to his own daughter he is being unable to face her and his consciousness forces him to commit suicide as after meeting with Joe he also understands that he is sick and better not to pass his disease over to next generation.

Once Nina was taken from hotel, Joe starts his mission of destroying the political and moral corruption of the governor Williams. And once he gets to his home in order to kill him, he finds him already dead. He immediately understands that Nina killed him and that breaks him, as he knows right away that she is now beyond healing and now exactly like him. He fails to cure the future generation and watches how the pain and sickness of his generation moves forward and infecting next one.

Frankly his symbolic mission was kind of pointless anyway, he was fighting the windmills he cannot defeat, as all human problems are part of human nature and cannot be healed, they will always exist and pass further and further, from generation to generation. When they sit in the restaurant and they don't know where to go, I think Joe realizes it in some way. He even suspects that maybe it's his presence and his actions that are part of the problem, so maybe it's better for him to disappear and by that he will remove some portion of evil in the world.

The ending is a bit too enigmatic and can be interpreted in few ways. My first theory is more depressing, that Joe realizes that his effort to fix the future is pointless, therefore he accepts the indifference toward the world by killing himself and just disappearing in it, leaving the reality non-affected as if he was never really there. The world will continue as he always was, no individual actions can affect it. Other theory is more optimistic, that after he kills himself Nina returns and revives him by expressing her need in his guidance. He realizes that while he can't fix the future in his time he can still give some wisdom to Nina who can be a bit better than him in a way he is better than his father. And this way each generation can be a bit better than previous, so eventually it is possible to reach a better world. Nina says that it's a beautiful day and they should go out there, which means that future just got a bit better, one day at a time.

I agree with most of what you said, except this part:

Nina's father, the senator, is part of the corruption and part of the disease, but once it happens to his own daughter he is being unable to face her and his consciousness forces him to commit suicide as after meeting with Joe he also understands that he is sick and better not to pass his disease over to next generation.

I think he was killed by Williams men because he exposed them. If so many powerful men were in the sex club they would never allow this to get out. Hence the real cops that tried to kill Joe. Williams daughter was accidentally caught up in it since she ran away from home frequently and was accidentally picked up by the sex group. Williams found out about because he ran in the same circles, dont know if he was part of the group but I dont think so since Im sure he would have been able to get his daughter back by himself if he was.

I understand why you may think he was killed by Williams men, but let me just quote lines from the movie when this was reported on TV:

• MAN ON TV: 27-year-old passer-by Rebecca Couran saw the body fall in front of the hotel.
• WOMAN ON TV: He just stood there for a second and then he stepped off.

So it appears that there was a witness that saw him jump, at least it's what the movie is telling us. Now, you can argue that this is a cover-up and he was actually pushed, but the movie is not indicating that. Why would these lines appear in the script? There are better ways to hint on possible murder staged like a suicide, I don't think the writer of this script intended to hint that. It was clear to me that it was meant to state that he did jumped himself. There is no way he didn't know about Williams, he maybe didn't know that his daughter was one of his victims, and once he did he decided to jump.

Could be possible that he decided to jump. But seems kind of odd that they find out about the suicide and than the cops show up right after that to clean up. And people on TV could be plants, happens all the time IRL. It just seems strange to hire someone to get your daughter back from a sex ring and than after that you decide to take your own life knowing full well that the sex ring would get her back. Dosent really make sense to me anyway.

Maybe it's just me, but I expected this to be one of those movies where there is a big "twist" or reveal in the end that manages to tie and explain everything that happened in the movie somehow together. In this case I expected him to wake up in a padded room or something and realize he was just imagining it all. Not the case, however. As you said the movie hints at a lot of different things, but doesn't really explain or explore them further, and what you are left with,in my opinion, is a befuddled mess of a movie.

The more I think about things, It's obvious that Joe and Nina became lovers at the end. Nina was trying to put the moves on Joe in the car, right after he rescued her the first time. Yes, Joe encouraged her to stop but the sexual tension was hanging thick and heavy in the air. Then she goes missing again. Instead of giving up, Joe's love for Nina takes over and her well-being becomes his number one passion in life. They also had a lot in common with each other, like traumatic childhoods and counting backwards. Then the last scene shows an empty booth at the diner, which indicated to me that they left to enjoy the beautiful day together as a couple.

@OddRob said:

Annnnnnddddd I was wrong. Not that good actually. It seems like the writer/director had a good idea of where to go with it but almost no real material. The cinematography was good, the sound design was fantastic and also the acting. Joaquin Phoenix is a great actor of course. But the pacing was off and so was the editing. Its like the editor didnt have enough to work with so they had to stretch it out with B roll basically. They hinted at things but it never really went anywhere. A 5/10 for me unfortunately. I was expecting alot more.

Agree with you almost entirely. Altho I too was irked by the editing, it was at least interesting and technically very good.