How did Susen figure out that Joe was death, and that Bill would die?
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Archived from the IMDb Discussion Forums — Meet Joe Black
oklar17 — 14 years ago(July 02, 2011 08:32 PM)
Joe didn't specificly reveal the truth to her, and I don't know any human being who could have just understood from that last brief conversation that they had, that the man they loved was actually death. Susan made the drastic (and correct) conclusion that Joe was someone else, and not the guy from the coffee shop. How did she figure this out? And more importantly, how did she know her father was going to die?
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Mucx — 14 years ago(July 23, 2011 02:23 PM)
I think, in that moment Joe let her have a 'glimpse' be it a feeling, intuition or something metaphysical of who he was and what his purpose was. It was similar to the old Jamaican lady who was also granted or could sense beyond his physical form.
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anousleshommes — 14 years ago(July 26, 2011 04:34 PM)
When he asks her to tell him who he really is, he is testing her resolve to see if she is really willing to come with him. I believe at that time, Susan fully knows who exactly he is, and she's so scared she refuses to face the truth. He sees that and realises she 's not ready, and promises to give her back the guy from the coffee shop. Also, John Parish said his goodbyes to his daughter, so when she sees them heading to the other side of the bridge, she knows he's going to die.
It must have been frieghtening for her to make all those connections even if until the end she doesnt quite accept/understand it. It's only when the real joe mentions the coffee shop at the ends that she dots the "i"'s and goes "I wish you could have known my father".
Incidentally, it wasnt until you mention this little fact that I dotted the i's myself. I had never realised that she does figure out the truth after 7 or 8 watching sessions. But now following the dialogue line by line, it is implicitely clear that yea, she has an inkling as to what exactly happened, and fully accepts it now. -
akroagate — 14 years ago(August 24, 2011 05:30 AM)
You have summed it up perfectly. I was never confused by the ending and I agree that's exactly what the film is portraying.
The nice thing is that Claire can have her life with the coffee shop guy, and when she dies she can be with Death.
Time of your life, huh, kid? -
Val-El — 13 years ago(June 18, 2012 07:07 PM)
The nice thing is that Claire can have her life with the coffee shop guy, and when she dies she can be with Death.
I don't believe Claire EVER wanted to be with Death! She thought she was with a variation (so to speak) with coffee-shop-guy. Death scared the crap out of her. -
darren-oconnor — 10 years ago(July 01, 2015 06:16 AM)
Really? And
that's
a happy ending? "Thanks honey, we had a nice life and all while we were on earth, but I'm with Death now. You go off and spend eternity by yourself."
I don't see it that way. I think Death realized that love like human's have for each other isn't something that he can really have. And Susan, after spending her life with the guy from the coffee shop, and growing old with him, will be a different person by then. Her love for Death will be a distant, albeit golden, memory by that point, but she'll have moved on, and her desire then will be to remain with the husband she loved and grew old with (assuming of course that they do stay together). -
candacbap-88-377616 — 10 years ago(July 18, 2015 09:17 PM)
It was a bittersweet ending. Joe did send back the guy from the coffee shop so Susan could be happy. Joe was indeed feeling love for Susan and that's why he pondered staying with her, but the lady from the Caribbean brought him back to reality.
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svetiev_b — 10 years ago(May 08, 2015 04:49 PM)
A wonderful summary of what goes through Susan's consciousness. It is exactly how I feel about and understand this movie and I've expressed this view in these boards quite some time ago but the thread has since been scraped by IMDB. Albeit you've put it here much more eloquently than I did at the time and I'm happy that this interpretation still persists and is shared by others. Wonderfully put together.
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saramacg09 — 14 years ago(October 05, 2011 11:43 PM)
She didn't figure it completely out until she was talking to the coffee shop guy again. He made a comment like "after you turned the corner I never thought I'd see you again" alluding to the scene at the beginning of the movie just after they met. He has no recollection that he (well Death in his body) and Susan have fallen in love and been spending so much time together. Couple that with Joe's cryptic goodbye near the end, she made an intuitive leap.
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carol1729 — 14 years ago(October 11, 2011 08:11 PM)
I think that Death is able to give people some inkling of the truth when he does that direct look into them. He does it with Bill early in the movie and then does it again with Susan. The fact that Death let Bill see him as who he really is, becomes a foreshadowing of Death letting Susan understand it.
She knows who she has fallen in love with and when the coffee shop Joe comes back down the hill, she knows it isn't Death. She realizes that she's left with the coffee shop guy, who she did connect with originally, but also realizes that she's lost death.
She makes a choice to let go of Death and live her life, possibly with coffee-shop guy. It's all in just a few looks and thoughts all there on the screen, with no words really spoken about it at all but the few noted in this thread. -
mark11111 — 14 years ago(November 13, 2011 04:09 AM)
Great catch, I was confused also and re-watched the scene of her saying goodbye a the end on my DVR with Subtitles turned on to see exactly what he said, but he never said anything revealing in dialog at least. I felt the same way that she somehow got it, but would have liked it to be a bit more obvious. What would have been nice is if the guy in the coffee shop actually was named Bill or something (I still can't believe she never got his name), then at the end after he came back, he could have said, I am Bill, to make it very clear to the audience that she knows.
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artistathome — 14 years ago(March 22, 2012 01:46 PM)
The ONLY way this makes sense is if Joe Black is able to let Susan get a glimpse of himself as Death. That has to be what has happened because virtually NO ONE would make that leap, that Joe is Death.
That is so stupid.
So Death must be a spirit who can do the impossible.
I loved it when Joe came back and was sort of clueless. I assumed that much of what went on he didn't know about, but some of it was a combinatiion of the two Joe's personalities.
Otherwise this movie makes little sense. -
Silverandwhite — 13 years ago(June 11, 2012 09:07 AM)
" .but some of it was a combinatiion of the two Joe's personalities. ".
I agree with this, I think so because when Susan asks the boy :" What do we do now ?", he answers " It will come to us ": this is the reply Susan gave to Joes question "What do we do now?" after making love, so I really think that, in a way, Death still is in the mind and body of the boy, and the boy consequently remembers.
I really love this film, every time I watch it I feel something special related to life, love between father and daughter, or between a man and a woman .There are great lines in the film. -
ArthurDental — 12 years ago(February 21, 2014 11:41 PM)
They did say it. She said she got a chill when asked who he is, and things other people have mentioned.
I think a lot of people missed many of the nuances in the film, based on what I'm reading here. Part of what made it less appealing than it should've been. -
SexyBrazilian_Muse — 13 years ago(July 08, 2012 04:14 PM)
She didn't figure it out until he returned alone without her father and he spoke on the day they met at the coffee shop. You could see the look she gave after that and her conversation changed as well.
Insert something profound hereand try not to fight about it..