CP3S said:

doubleofive said:

xhonzi said:
I think the movie and the book were both written to be intentionally ambiguous. While I lean to your interpretation, I think the movie supports your cousin's as a valid interpretation as well.
What? I don't see how it could support anything but the explanation the movie itself gave. Vanilla Sky was like that, no one understood it, even though they spend the last 10 minutes of the movie explaining what was going on.

I agree. The movie spelled out the explanation quite clearly and definitively, I don't think there was the least bit of ambiguity about it.

I loved that movie while watching it, thought it was shaping up to be a great little mystery thriller, especially when he met the woman in the cave. It was getting really exciting with all the conspiracy stuff. Then all the twists kicked in... and I was pretty disappointed. Feels like everything goes for the "WHAT A TWIST!!!" shock reaction these days. Comes off as a lame gimmick to me. Tired of it. Very disappointed by Shutter Island in the end, felt it could have been so much more.

Well! First Portal and now this...

I want to say that the director commentary addresses the "ambiguity" of the piece.

If not, then I guess you both are just wrong. :)

In other words, watch it again and try to see it as "all a lie" to convince him. I think you'll find that it plays that way to the degree that there is no really conclusive evidence against it.

But you can go debate it on the imdb forums too, if you'd like. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1130884/board/