Captain Fantastic (2016)

I’m leaning towards the idea that he didn't actually take his own life, either. I mean, maybe those last 15 minutes were just some sort of fever dream—like a defeated man just drifting through the dark, alone on a Greyhound bus.

The movie starts with a genuinely compelling concept, but ultimately falls victim to that typically shallow, mainstream American execution.

What most Americans—and frankly, anyone raised in a modern, advanced society living in an urban environment—fail to grasp is how completely unrealistic it is to depict the lives of seven people living in a tent or a cabin deep in the woods. The lifestyle they lead, specifically their level of cleanliness, organization, and the dedicated time they carve out for education and learning foreign languages, would be impossible without a constant influx of outside capital. Yet, the film tries to tell us they’re struggling, making ends meet just by selling birdhouses...

Hunting deer with nothing but a knife? Give me a break. Sitting peacefully around a campfire at night reading books while ignoring the endless swarm of mosquitoes? Please.

But let's just gloss over those "minor" logical fallacies for a moment...

The final 15 minutes were entirely unnecessary. Why on earth are we digging up a corpse from a grave that, after all this time, looks like it's in perfect condition?
I would have preferred an ending where the kids stay with their grandparents, and the father returns to the forest alone to live out his days by the fire with a glass of wine, remembering his wife. It’s always interesting how these kinds of movies rely on wealthy grandparents stepping in to save the day.