• Warning: Spoilers
    If you've had enough gasoline explosions, car chases, and bang-yer-head obvious plots, here is something Completely Different.

    I'm assuming you've seen the movie so if you haven't, please read no further.

    Anyone who has written a fiction book all the way through (I've finished several) will recognize the writing process as embodied masterfully in this film. That is, being inspired by the oddest and most nondescript objects. Or writing entire chapters and realizing they're crap and don't fit in. Or just the opposite: finishing your story and realizing at the "end" you forgot something critical and need to go rewrite part of it...sometimes a BIG part of it. AND the tremendous satisfaction when you realize you've created something that a) was inside you that just had to come out and b) is the best work you can do and c) others will enjoy reading.

    This film is complex enough that there are undoubtedly many interpretations possible. The one I find personally fulfilling, and that fits perfectly with the final twist, is a wonderfully-executed attempt to bring the abstract, weird, and sometimes outright bizarre process of fiction writing to the screen. From INSIDE the author's mind. I've only seen the movie once, but I can't remember a single scene without Sarah in it. This film was about her exclusively, from her POV, about what was going on in her mind...ultimately the creative process of writing. There were other characters, but with very few exceptions they existed as HER characters, walking the stage she created.

    A simple example. Franck started as a minor character, a waiter at an outdoor café. As often happens during the writing process, his importance changes. In fact, it was the pool scene with him standing over Julie that first convinced me I was watching a depiction of the writing process. You see, the concept of Franck becoming involved with Julie was a plot possibility, a concept, an idea that became stillborn. AT THAT TIME Sarah discarded it, not wanting to take that plot path. Later, when Sarah had visited the café several times and become more familiar with Franck (real or not, it doesn't matter) she realized he could become a more important character in her story by having Julie bring him into the plot via a more fully-developed twist. And so on.

    To those who thought this movie was one strange and convoluted puppy, I'll say that fiction writing is one strange and convoluted process! It's captured as well as I can imagine in this effort.

    A previous reviewer perfectly interpreted the smile on Sarah's face in the last scene at John's office -- one of an author's satisfaction and pride on a job well done.

    At the very end, Sarah waves to her two creations, not goodbye, but in thanks. Authors are always grateful to their characters wherever they may come from, since without them there can be no story.