Joe removed his tooth because of his injury, not because it had a tracking system in it.

Yeah it was really really good. I’m with you there.

If you can elaborate on the “beacon” theory that would be fantastic.

– J

Dude.
This comment was like a fullon emotional journey in and of itself. Starts out strong – declaratively. And then really grapples with the inner workings of the film – the chaos of the subject and then circles back to the question all over again.

It’s a statement! … or maybe it’s a question. Yeah. That’s exactly how I feel about this movie as well. 100%.

Well done.

A good director’s and script writer’s choices are never arbitrary, sometimes blantant but often subtle. There are a multitude of references but the most essential being christian iconography and the ideology of sin, guilt and resurrection.

I think it was Nina who was the “you” in the title. The diner scene shows 3 milkshakes, only two were empty, the third was placed where Nina was sitting and was untouched. Did Joe drink both vanilla and strawberry and ordered the chocolate for a hallucinatory Nina? Or did Nina drink one of the 3 them and was in fact real. And does it really matter?

I think she was real but Joe probably found her dead at the mansion and killed the governor himself, his final act of vengeance for the people he was powerless to or was too late save. He may have come to the realization that she was lost even before finding her as shown in his vision of her sinking in the lake-funeral of his mother but continued his almost hopeless search regardless of the odds of finding her.

The rest of the film portrayed his search for salvation. The only grace-saving resolution as to why all the people in his life were killed or harmed had to be in finding Nina alive. If he hadn’t found her alive, death and suffering meant nothing.. like the girls found dead in the van/truck, like the validity of the war, like his father’s abuse .. the tragedies would be all for nothing.

If he hadn’t found Nina alive it would be impossible for him to overcome his PSTD and end his obsession with suicidality, perhaps related to the psychology of survivor’s guilt. Note that he never followed through with these attempts. There may have been an attachment to a tiny hope that he held to through all the incomprehensible experiences, leading to his senseless life and the survival of senseless deaths.

Nina represented his desperation for salvation. When he arrived at the mansion, the windows shone unrealistically bright white forming crosses, validating his righteous mission. Her symbolically martyred death would be the chance to forgive himself in his failed attempts to save others.

He finally succeeded suicide when he “shot” himself in the diner (not coincidentally, suicide is the only one unforgivable Christian sin) when Nina left/abandoned him to use the bathroom. Only once she returned did he come to the revelation that it “was a beautiful day”. She (or he) saved him/himself, providing the faith to let it all go and the possible resurrection of a new life.

To take this notion further, Nina may have been Joe’s own self-protective alter ego. Nina was the victim of child/sexual abuse, possibly by her own father. Nina counted backwards to escape her reality. Nina was an innocent, needing to be saved. Nina offered comfort and rescue to Joe in the midst of her own pain. Nina suffered in silence, traumatized by her experiences. Nina was invisible to others at the diner. Nina killed in vengeance.

The diner/Nina scene was the manifestation of his salvation. The possible hope, albeit tentative, in the possibility of what could be and probably would be a long and difficult journey that lay ahead in his return to humanity.

The true question in this film was not if Joe, or even Nina, was ever really here. The true query was “Where do we go?” and very grounded, very human response of “I don’t know”..

In retrospect, the title may actually have be a question and not a statement, one of the attainability of forgiveness, redemption and salvation – the holy trinity, the pagan belief of 3 as a magic number, the three milkshakes.

probably not.