James Mason's "Philip" is an unusual choice for the movie sleuth the audience cheers on to the finish. On the one hand, he seems the smartest and perhaps kindliest of the players. (Maybe I'm just a sucker for that accent.) But by process of elimination, the audience is left with the uncomfortable choice that Lee and Philip are the "hit-and-run killer" and "little child molester," respectively. Lee confesses to the car accident, and we never get back to Philip's card.
Later, Philip and Tom are unraveling the "SHEILA" mystery, and Philip denounces the "little" in "little child molester" card as a contrived way for Clinton to achieve the acronym he wanted. Was Philip just referring to how Clinton went about setting up the game, or was he saying he wasn't, in fact, a child molester, that Clinton had introduced a false clue?
Even if Philip was an innocent in the game, he still confessed to turning on the boat motor that nearly drowned Christine. (He apparently was after Clinton.) I thought that didn't make any sense, unless he had caught on to the nature of the game already AND knew someone had the child molester card. Or he was sick of Clinton's has-been remarks? In any case, whether our "detective" was a child molester or not, he still tried to commit murder. The game's survivors, Philip included, still get a morally murky getaway.
9 comments:
Oh, I'm pretty sure he was a child molester, and that was why he wanted to kill Clinton.
And that's why it was so creepy to have him directing that commercial with all the little girls at the beginning of the movie. (Thanks to Erin for reminding me of that scene.)
I agree. What he said was, "Little child molester? What, as opposed to a big child molester?" He was just pointing out that the word "little" serves no purpose except to get the letter L in there. He never denied he was a child molester.
When it came down to those two cards, I was thinking, neither one of those are very good, but if I had to choose, I would much rather be a hit-and-run killer than a child molester.
Yes, and that sort of undermined the point that it was supposed to be a lighthearted game. Didn't someone say at the end that Clinton never would have put "hit-and-run killer" on a card because it was too serious? Well, the fact that he put "little child molester" completely shoots down that theory. How serious did the writers think child molesting was?
I like how they tried to throw suspicion on different characters for different things. While Lee slugging "ginger ale" at the film's start was telling, there was some ambivalence about whether Tom was the alcoholic.
Philip had that strange commercial set moment, but I couldn't decide what to make of Anthony and his hand puppets. (Why in the world did he have hand puppets?)
Erin, I went back and watched Philip and Tom's scene toward the end, and Philip never denied the molester claim. I think you're right.
And you two have a good point. Philip says alcoholic fits Clinton's game, but not hit-and-run killer, because it's "not too serious." What in the world does that make a child molester? Agreed, Erin. I'd much rather be guilty of a hit and run. The writers should have made Philip something else.
Yeah, do they have some other definition of child molester that's "not too serious"?!
And yeah, what were those hand puppets doing in the movie? So random.
Maybe the hand puppets were just there to make us think the other guy was the child molester.
Weren't those puppets creepy? It was kind of funny when Tom displayed them for Philip, right before he ran at them, but at the same time it scared the hell out of me.
Yeah, that was funny.
Tom: I couldn't find any gloves.
Philip: Oh.
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