I came to this site looking for some ideas of what some parts of the movie meant (I just saw it tonight), but I think you guys REALLY overdid it with the "hidden meaning" party.
I think the movie is pretty clear (in my opinion) in that it is about the addiction people have to video games. Anyone who is, or has been, deeply addicted to a video game (such as myself) will see this movie and understand it quickly (at least the way I understood it).
I'm not totally clear on a few things in the movie, but I'll just summarize my ideas below:
- Gary/Gavin/Gabriel (let's just call him Gary) is Melissa's Avatar in the "game". I personally always choose hot female characters for my video game characters, so it is no surprise that Melissa chose a hot guy for hers, and is living out a fantasy of being the publicist of someone that looks like Ryan Reynolds, then his best friend, and then his wife. It is clearly a case of the "SIMS" (the game).
- The reason why Gary (who is controlled by Melissa in real life) is a "9", and God (the real-life God) is a "10", is that WE control everything about the video game we design, whereas God controls us in real-life. I think maybe 7s are NPCs (non-player characters, or in other words "computer characters"). Telepathic Koalas might be a jab at NPCs. Im not sure. I make fun of how stupid NPCs are designed all the time, so I can see how a Telepathic Koala would be higher up the food chain than stupid NPCs.
- It seems that Sara is another real-life player (I can't tie this in with the ending of the movie though...), but it seems that she is, conceptually at least, another real-life player that is seeing someone playing endlessly (like if I saw someone in my World of Warcraft guild always online everytime I came on, I might become a bit concerned for him/her), and she tries to get through to him (or her, since we are talking about Melissa here) to stop playing the game. Clearly, Melissa is so addicted and deep into the game that she forgot that she is really a woman.
(let's call the Real-Life Melissa "MelissaRL", and In-Game Melissa "MelissaIG" for easy reference)
This would explain why MelissaIG calls Sara a "9" (she is afraid that another real-life human will succeed at getting MelissaRL to stop playing). MelissaIG is a "7" because she is not the real Melissa...she is just an NPC (a computer character).
Heck, MelissaIG could also be the director's symbolic sum manifestation of all MelissaRL's desires to live in a fantasy world (in other words, the desires that lead to our addiction to games), which is why Sara needed to get Gary away from MelissaIG at least for a short while in order to try to reason with him/her.
- The bracelet seems like nothing more than a symbolic "log-in" or username/password.
- The 3 "Garys" in the movie, to me, are just like making 3 characters in an online game (such as World of Warcraft, Lord of the Rings Online, Everquest, etc). They are just three different characters that Melissa plays. It seems that these three characters are used by the director to depict stages a real-life video game addict goes through.
- In Part One, Gary burning the children's clothing is probably symbolic of MelissaRL missing out on her daughter's childhood. Many parents who are addicted to video games often miss their children's growing years, playing the game endlessly. It might also be an expression of how stupid the addiction is...like buying dirty crack off the street, hanging out with a dirty street hooker, and being a complete idiot.
- Part Two seems to be the "climax" of the gaming years. Playing a SIM, getting all excited about the big contract, and so on. Im pretty sure that things falling apart for him was not symbolic, but nothing more than Sara sabotaging him to get him to come back to the real-world.
- Part Three seems to be the "burnout" stage (which happens after many many months of endless gaming). He has a beard, his car burns out, the colors are faded. Seems pretty clear to me.
A thought: Maybe the water was a virus...same virus Sara gave her gamer ex-boyfriend?
The one thing I don't understand, and the reason why I came to this forum in the first place, is how she "connected" to the game when she came out of it. Did the director simply not want to put her in front of a computer so that the movie doesn't become "obvious"? Or maybe the director wanted to create a parallel between computer gaming and one's imagination (since what is a video game but a dots on a screen that let you visualize an imaginary world more easily)? Or maybe she was literally just stuck in her imagination (weak idea, but maybe)?
But her family, her husband specifically, did not seem "relieved" to see her "back".
I just don't get the ending.
Either way, great movie and I can relate to it in many ways. Let me know your thoughts.