While I grant to you that your understanding of the story is very astute, I have to question your basic powers of observation. Watch the ending scene again. He didn’t shoot the girl.

1. The lightning is a trick for the audience to make you think he shot, but he didn’t.
2. The man’s expression clearly shows a kind of relief.
3. Her eyes are still clearly moving as he tells her it will be alright
4. Her right arm is still turning the crank on the musical toy
5. Her hands are clearly moving just before they move to the car – and these last three are not just poor child acting. Even a kid knows how to play dead, and considering the acting job that girl did throughout the rest of the movie, it’s inconceivable that she would botch this.
6. The expression on Paul’s wife’s face and the man clearly indicate that he didn’t shoot, although the situation is very serious, they did not just witness him shoot a defenseless child.

Had he shot her I might agree with your assessment of the plot. Given that he didn’t, I would say that he simply took pity on her and recognized that nothing more should be done.

But what do I know. I’m just a brainwashed American plugged into The Machine feeding the New World Order run by European bankers…

I hated the film basically, the women really annoyed me, and
Paddy Considine who is considered a great actor really was
such a wimp…there was a lot of unhappiness and moaning and
groaning. Gary Oldman as usual was wonderful, but his character
was annoying as well, so arrogant. The rape scene was really
well done, scary Peckinpah style, the film reminded me a lot
of Deliverance, with a bunch of middle class men out in the
woods with the loony locals.

This film, while flawed, is a refreshing escape from formulaic Hollywood pap that is so stiflingly pervasive these days. But the fact that none of you film buffs could figure it out is just a testament as to why Hollywood does not take chances. American audiences are simply not very sophisticated because very few people actually bother to read good literature, plays, or screen plays anymore. It’s a sad state of affairs and Hollywood is partly to blame, along with the other mass media dumbed-down news outlets, etc. Americans are not genetically stupid. We are just being systematically dumbed down by our environment in a country that denigrates intellectualism and scorns what it does not understand. Bush is the epitomy of this trend. We elected a dunce to rule us because we were conditioned to be cash cows by corporate interests and the ruling elite that want to use our prowess and economic muscle to start a New World Order. Ironically, most of these “master mind” bankers in power are Europeans, themselves. They tried their bid for power and failed under the NAZIs and now they have nearly achieved success with us (courtesy of our Federal Reserve, which they own and use to control Washington DC). Unfortunately, we are the future of the planetary population as a whole: dull, self-absorbed, and addicted to immediate pay-offs and pleasures. In short: tuned out to life’s true pleasures–such as good conversation for the sake of conversation, philosophy, literature, a religious belief system that is founded on a higher form of love or selfless nonjudgmental devotion to a higher source of Universal Intelligence, etc.–and instead we find ourselves plugged in to what Pink Floyd so aptly calls, “The Machine.” I am no exception. Last night I watched Gladiators and completely enjoyed watching buff Amazonian women launch themselves at each other 40 feet in the air with their spandexed crotches pointed at the camera.

And that was hard to confess. Ugh.

Question…what did Paddy say at the very end of the movie to his wife as he walked toward the car?

That’s a great point. I also felt that there was a bigger secret with the girl’s feral nature. The werewolf angle would’ve been a surprise within this type of story.

Phil

The man at the end was her Uncle, I believe. Earlier in the film he says that his sister is the child’s mother or something to that effect. The music box was what Gary Oldman heard when he was in the old barn the first time and found the hiding spot. It must be her toy. As to why they kept her hidden away, I can only guess that it was because she was born with the hand deformity and perhaps mental defects that would be considered threatening in this backwoods community. I can only guess because the movie was so vague about everything and not always in a good way as I pointed out in the review. It creates a disturbing bad dream quality but is also annoying as simple questions are ignored. Hope that helps a bit.