I understand why people dislike this movie. Most people don't like to be an active participant in what we've been trained to think of as a passive medium-and that's okay, but don't judge an "active" movie as poorly made just because you prefer "passive" ones.
If you are willing to actively watch and interpret what's going on with openness, you may reach the same conclusions as I have. I think this movie does make sense once you realize whose story it is.
Jake is the janitor. Jake has either dementia or Alzheimer's, which can be genetic and was perhaps passed down from his father. This entire film is the attempted reconstruction of the past by someone with a confused mind, one that misremembers names, timelines, and details, but distinctly remembers movie monologues and musical numbers. The final scene, of course, never happens: it's a word-for-word (and nearly shot-for-shot remake) of the final scene of A Beautiful Mind followed by a musical number from Oklahoma. This is the ending he wanted. But that's not what really happened to him.
What really happened, then? Jake cleaned the school during the blizzard, ate his lunch and watched a sappy comedy, then went off the mental deep end in his truck, where he sadly froze to death, only to be (presumably) found by the oncoming snow plow we hear in the end credits. During all of this, he's remembering a girl he met briefly at a bar, one who he's loved all his life but never spent it with. He never even learned her name. There were other women, like Lucy and Yvonne, but none of them matched how he felt about this unnamed girl. She's the one he hopes he could bring home to Mom and Dad, but he ends up piecing together experiences with other women to inform his vision of this girl with his family.
Once I put all of this together, I realized just how devastating this movie is. It really got to me. Kauffman is a genius. It's okay if you didn't like it, but know that real thought and heart went into this.
If you are willing to actively watch and interpret what's going on with openness, you may reach the same conclusions as I have. I think this movie does make sense once you realize whose story it is.
Jake is the janitor. Jake has either dementia or Alzheimer's, which can be genetic and was perhaps passed down from his father. This entire film is the attempted reconstruction of the past by someone with a confused mind, one that misremembers names, timelines, and details, but distinctly remembers movie monologues and musical numbers. The final scene, of course, never happens: it's a word-for-word (and nearly shot-for-shot remake) of the final scene of A Beautiful Mind followed by a musical number from Oklahoma. This is the ending he wanted. But that's not what really happened to him.
What really happened, then? Jake cleaned the school during the blizzard, ate his lunch and watched a sappy comedy, then went off the mental deep end in his truck, where he sadly froze to death, only to be (presumably) found by the oncoming snow plow we hear in the end credits. During all of this, he's remembering a girl he met briefly at a bar, one who he's loved all his life but never spent it with. He never even learned her name. There were other women, like Lucy and Yvonne, but none of them matched how he felt about this unnamed girl. She's the one he hopes he could bring home to Mom and Dad, but he ends up piecing together experiences with other women to inform his vision of this girl with his family.
Once I put all of this together, I realized just how devastating this movie is. It really got to me. Kauffman is a genius. It's okay if you didn't like it, but know that real thought and heart went into this.