Was anyone confused by the ending of Meet Joe Black?

I just watched Meet Joe Black and I thought it was a wonderful movie. However, the ending really bothered me.

The main female character falls in love with Brad Pitt's character at the begging of the movie. Later, Brad Pitt's character dies and comes back as Death. The leading lady of the movie notices some changes in Brad Pitt's demeanor, but falls in love with him. At the end of the movie, Death reveals his true identity to the lady and she is shocked. Brad Pitt is taking away her father in the last few moments of the movie and she decides to chase after Brad Pitt. When she reaches Brad Pitt's character she sees that Death has left, and the original personality that Brad Pitt had is back. Then, like NOTHING HAPPENED, she decides to go dancing with Brad Pitt. Is anyone else bothered this? Did she not love Death? She fell in love with death, and not Brad's original personality!!!! What are your thoughts? Sorry I didn't include the actual character names.. I'm kinda lazy :P

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Forever bitter because my friend wouldn't help me with the dunk tank! So hurt.

Yeah, I was totally confused by the ending. Specifically, about why it didn't come much sooner.

Zing!

Love the flick (surprise!) and no, the ending doesn't confuse me at all and I think you pretty much have it.

Also: Best PG-13 love scene. Ever.

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We are both the source of the problem and the solution, yet we do not see ourselves in this light...

Haven't seen the flick, but this seems like something that would be a serious problem for me also.

Side not: not to highjack the thread, but seems loosely related. Can anyone think of an onscreen relationship they were properly invested in? I can't off-hand, but maybe I've watched too many romantic comedies.

I enjoyed Meet Joe Black somewhat, mainly for Anthony Hopkins and Claire Forlani (the love eyes are for Claire...sorry, Sir Anthony!). But the movie has one of my favorite all-time scenes in it, that being the double-clipping of Brad at the first of the movie. If you've seen it, you know what I mean. Say what you will about Brad, but you'd never see Tom Cruise allowing one of his on-screen characters to go through that!

Oh yeah, BrightBlue, as Powdered Water said, you've got it fairly spot-on there. Maybe his being supernatural, then human...perhaps she was just confused by the whole thing...like the rest of us.

Good one, Yoda! Bazinga!

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"Miss Jean Louise, Mr. Arthur Radley."

She is obv one of those all about the looks kinda gals.

I also remember a horrible Jamaican accent byBrad Pitt in the hospital scene.

I too found Claire Forlani enchanting!

I'm just puzzled by the fact that she could love two people at the same time. It's so unusual. She seemed completely fine when the man she loved was replaced with another guy... She was just kinda "meh, this guy is just as good looking"... I don't know, I guess the movie was going so well that I thought the ending should have been better.

I sure as heck thought I understood the whole movie, including the ending, but maybe I missed something since it was three hours long. Of course, I've always preferred the original, Death Takes a Holiday, which is 100 minutes shorter! Oh wow! I just noticed that it's completely on YouTube, so after Brenda and Sarah come back from the airport and we watch my Andy Griffith Memorial, we're watching Death Takes a Holiday because I've seen it several times, but I don't think anybody else has here, except maybe Brenda, a long time ago.

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It's what you learn after you know it all that counts. - John Wooden
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So, I saw this thread being viewed by a guest, and I came in here to make a joke, and I found that I'd already made it two years earlier:

Good to know I'm still exactly as funny as I was in 2012. High-five.

I've done that a couple of times, came into an old thread to make a comment exactly like I made years earlier. Getting old and senile I guess.

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Old thread I just came across. I just watched movie again for the umpteenth time and have different take.
Death was going to take her with him because he loved her. However, when he last met her all she talked about was the first meeting in diner. She finally began to realize who he really was but death also realized she was in love with the person she met in diner. That's when the "lightning" struck. She didn't fall in love with death she was already in love. Once death realizes this he not only does not take her but sends the soul back to the guys body for her to be with. Demonstrating that death finally understood love. He is crying when he knows it's time to leave.
I actually watched movie with English subtitles due to background noise and picked up a lot more than I did previously

I think death wasn't going to take her, but he wasn't going to return the guy's body either. But he did once in eternity exception and returned that guy back to life.

I was confused by that entire movie...not to mention bored to death.

I wasn`t confused, I just was glad that the authors decided to use a kind of frame structure and made 'Meet Joe Black' a simple but interesting and fascinating movie

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it's been a few years since i've seen it but i think i remember pretty well.

i was always under the impression that death returned Brad Pitt to his original self at the end because he was the one responsible for his death. i distinctly remember a scene in the beginning when Anthony Hopkins asks Joe, "so what happened to the man whose body you're in?" and he says, "I needed a body, Bill." so, i think he returned the guy to his body because it wasn't "his time" or whatever, and also, i think he wanted Claire to be happy because he loved her, and he knew that Claire had hit it off quite nicely with that guy in the diner. plus he was taking her father away.

it's kind of weird and you have to suspend your disbelief a bit, but i thought it was all around a charming way to end the movie. i think you're supposed to think that Claire accepted it all and understood after she found out who Joe really was/who he wasn't.

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letterboxd

There are many moments like that. That's why I like the movie.

I watch Meet Joe Black as often as I can because it helps when my heart is hurting and reminds me of what love is. After losing Glenn Frey, this was my cure.

The ending is my champagne. Joe realizes what it is to love AND to love life. He sees it thru Bill's eyes and finally his own. Thus his tears. I think the depth of the scene with Susan never truly is evident because you have to decide each of their view. I nearly catch the true meaning but it's like Jello and slips thru my fingers. Is Susan truly seeing that Joe is Death OR so in love she kinda flies over the truth? If she sees Death and Joe as 2 persons, is that why she speaks of her Dad in past tense "I wish you COULD have known my father" and thus, realizes somehow that he has left with Death and gifted her "Joe from the coffee shop"?

Regardless of your interpretation, it is a remarkable film and my heart and soul fill up with it often.

from old mythology ....... the yin and yan ......the high and the low .....the pure and the impure...... the holy and the unholy and life and death the two opposites or polarities. even god and the devil or heaven and hell are the two opposites and so are men and women so its like death is a man and life is a woman on the idea of mother earth and mother nature as a she and God and angels as HE's. life and death fall in love and the result is not death to both but eternal life. death as man is introduced to earth for the first time where life as woman is creator and knows all there is to know ...... both brad pitts are the same where the death character is the introduction and the living character comes second as death learns about life he becomes human and death dies to live... if i confuse you then im way ahead of u hhahahahhah

The movie is a psychological allegory; most of what appears to be happening externally is actually taking place within the psyche of the female lead character, Susan. The beginning sequence, when Joe is struck by the car and "killed," is a metaphor for his being "thrown head over heals" (this is what physically happens in the movie) -- in other words, Joe is knocked off his feet in his love for Susan. And Susan is in love with Joe. From this point on, Joe has "moved into" Susan's psyche, and through the intensity of their connection, he begins to replace Susan's father as the primary object/provider of love and affection. This is the meaning of Joe being presented as Death to Susan's father -- the father is being dethroned, removed from his position of predominance, in her inner world. The rest of the movie details the inner process and progress of this removal and replacement. In the end, when Joe, supposedly as Death, walks Susan's father over the hill and comes back alone, the transition has been completed -- Joe has now fully replaced her father in Susan's inner world. This is why fireworks go off: to express a sense of triumph in the completion of the process of Susan's reaching psychological maturity and no longer being Daddy's little girl, but a mature lover.