Casino Royale

March 20, 2007 11:21 AM

I have a question about the ending of Casino Royale, the most recent James Bond flick. Spoiler inside!

My question is this: why did Vesper kill herself? I get the whole 'old love was kidnapped' thing, and I get that she was probably going to be killed by Mr. White's associates. I also get that she was ashamed of deceiving Bond and leading him into a trap. But why kill herself once she could see that he followed her and was killing the bad guys?

I saw the movie when it came out and watched it again on DVD this weekend, and I still don't get it. Any ideas beyond the obvious (JB has to have his heart broken for sequel reasons)?

posted by widdershins to media & arts (16 comments total)

But why kill herself once she could see that he followed her and was killing the bad guys?

I read it as because she never actually loved Bond—though she may have liked him—and as such, once it was clear that he had eliminated the people she cared about—the bad guys—she had no interested in living further. Looking to Wikipedia, MI6 didn’t quite agree with this perspective, which is not to say it was wrong.
posted by Aidan Kehoe at 11:34 AM on March 20, 2007

I would imagine she killed herself because she knew that, being a double agent, she would have been tried as a traitor if she was rescued. Not having a cyanide pill handy, she allowed herself to drown. Just my speculations, though.
posted by sephira at 11:36 AM on March 20, 2007

She was an exposed double agent and would have been convicted of treason. She also knew that she was a threat to Bond's career inasmuch as he would have to choose between her and British intelligence - perhaps a choice that she did not want to force him to make (if he chooses her, he becomes a fugitive, if he doesn't, well...). And she had isolated herself from both good guys and bad guys, and felt overwhelming remorse and loneliness brought on by her own actions.

Also, this was a Bond movie.
posted by taliaferro at 11:39 AM on March 20, 2007

Guilt. It'll get you every time.
posted by blue_beetle at 11:45 AM on March 20, 2007

From alt.fan.james-bond:

In the book Vesper explains in her suicide note that she had become a double agent because of her Polish lover who was with the RAF. He was captured and tortured by the Russians who then learned about her through him and "persuaded" her into spying for them to spare her lover's life. This was when Le Chiffre entered the picture and she learned of Bond's involvement in the mission, which she disclosed to the Russians. After what happened - Vesper falling for Bond, Bond getting tortured himself - Vesper found herself at an impasse. She knew she would lose Bond by telling him that she was a double agent and also that her life was at risk from SMERSH after becoming too close to Bond, but she also didn't want him to die because of her as a result, so she felt no choice but to kill herself.

posted by russilwvong at 11:46 AM on March 20, 2007 [1 favorite]

She recognized his need to have a tortured past.

Or maybe she was just screwing with him to show that no matter how great he was, he couldn't save everyone and solve every problem.

Or maybe she wanted to deny him herself as another prize in his ascendant career.

Possibly that whole ending is a figment of Bond's imagination so that he can comfort himself with the thought that she died nobly in the old English tradition of doing the right thing, when in actuality she never drowned but instead took a round through the head when he shot her down to avenge himself for her betrayal.
posted by Midnight Creeper at 11:46 AM on March 20, 2007

taliaferro,

She also knew that she was a threat to Bond's career inasmuch as he would have to choose between her and British intelligence …

He had already quit British intelligence at that point. If she hadn’t run off with the money, she could have easily confessed that she was working for someone else to him and they could have discreetly dropped off everyone’s radar with the funds available to them.
posted by Aidan Kehoe at 11:48 AM on March 20, 2007

All of the above. And then there's the more romantic perspective:

scene
"Alas... I have been caught in this horrible web of deceit, I have shamed myself & as a traitor I will no doubt be killed by one side or another no matter what I do. I have found a way to spare your life & you have killed off the bad guys, but nonetheless I do not deserve to live or to be loved by you, James Bond. I know at first it seemed that we hated eachother, but of course that was all just cinematic foreplay. And I digress... you will be better off without me, and you will get over me eventually... probably by the time the sequel to this movie is finished. So as I quickly and beautifully drown in this disgusting Venice canal water just be assured that I shall head into the afterlife with many fond memories of those things that you do with your little finger. Glub. Glub."
/scene
posted by miss lynnster at 12:01 PM on March 20, 2007 [2 favorites]

If she hadn’t run off with the money, she could have easily confessed that she was working for someone else to him and they could have discreetly dropped off everyone’s radar with the funds available to them.

See, even if she had run off with the money, it doesn't hold... ahem... water.

Vesper and Bond went to Italy, they were on the gondola, she got the signal. She had to go to the bank and then meet Mr. White at the end, or risk both their lives. I get that. But that didn't mean she had to kill herself.

She left her phone in the hotel for Bond to find so he could come after -- ostensibly, to either save her or the money for MI6 or both. With that gesture, and also bargaining for his life when they were captured, she righted the original betrayal.

So with the information the story gives us -- he's already quit SIS and they really do love each other -- there's just no reason to drown herself.

Unless I'm supposed to buy the notion that this hardened double agent who'd run with the baddest of the baddies just suddenly got so sentimental in the last scene that she was compelled to commit a hara-kiri-by-canal. But that's weak too.

If they'd set Bond up throughout as a staunch loyalist to country, or someone who just can't brook any betrayal from a woman... or had they not pointed out that she left her phone for him to follow and set things right (so that Bond and we finish the film thinking she's just a damned dirty double-crossing hoor), I might feel differently. As is, I just feel like the writers* took an easy way out.

* screenwriters, not Fleming
posted by pineapple at 1:07 PM on March 20, 2007

Aidan Kehoe - good point, I forgot that he had already quit the service.
posted by taliaferro at 1:27 PM on March 20, 2007

pineapple,

She left her phone in the hotel for Bond to find so he could come after -- ostensibly, to either save her or the money for MI6 or both. With that gesture, and also bargaining for his life when they were captured, she righted the original betrayal.

See, I don’t see that as a gesture at all. I see it as imperfect tradecraft that wouldn’t have been relevant had everything gone right.

I also don’t think the novel’s story is particularly relevant to the 2006 film; World War II was eight years ago at its publishing, it’s 52 years ago now, and the Poles and the Russians are in a distinctly different relative relationship today.
posted by Aidan Kehoe at 1:50 PM on March 20, 2007

miss lynnster has it, I think.

Overwhelming shame. A very proper and Victorian way to go out.
posted by cowbellemoo at 1:53 PM on March 20, 2007 [1 favorite]

*Spoiler alert for sequel -- so scroll down & ignore this post if you don't want to know*



Found this article which says Vesper will apparently be in the sequel, possibly on some kind of prerecorded thing he discovers. Here's what it said in the article:

In an interview with the BBC, longtime Bond screenwriters Neal Purvis and Robert Wade spoke about what fans might expect from the sequel. "In the next film the emphasis has to be on the unfinished emotional business at the end of Casino Royale," Wade said. "It has to be dealt with in such a way that his character continues to have an arc."

He continued, "It can't just be he's tough and he's tempered steel and totally impervious. There are things he still has to resolve. So that's the legacy of Casino Royale and it's important to have it so the actor has something to play."

In a more SPOILERISH interview, actress Eva Green, who portrays Bond's love interest in Casino Royale, revealed who she understands will be the villain in Bond 22.

"I think it's too confusing," Green told Entertainment Weekly about Vesper's motivations in Royale. "But they're going to do a second [movie] where you'll understand what's going on in her mind. It was really hard, and Barbara Broccoli helped me understand. You would think, wait a minute, she had an Algerian boyfriend, and she's been sent on this mission, and then she begins to feel guilty. She's in love with Bond. It's a deep love. The Algerian boyfriend was something light, an affair. So there's an internal conflict."

Green then revealed, "The plan is, the Algerian boyfriend is going to be the baddie in the second Bond, and we'll understand [better]. But you don't have to think about it too much."

So, there you go. Vesper had to die so that people would buy tickets to see her evil ex-boyfriend and Bond try to kill eachother in a giant testosterone-fueled battle over their dead mutual-girlfriend.
posted by miss lynnster at 1:56 PM on March 20, 2007 [1 favorite]

aidan: re

See, I don’t see that as a gesture at all. I see it as imperfect tradecraft that wouldn’t have been relevant had everything gone right.

I might be remembering incorrectly? I thought that at the end of the film, Bond and M were having a conversation where it was specifically pointed out that Vesper left her phone as a gesture/signal.

If not, then, yes, I buy the idea that she had to kill herself for double-crossing him.
posted by pineapple at 2:26 PM on March 20, 2007

Although one of the real reasons is that heroes of this type cannot be civilized. Essentially, they are lawless killers (no matter how much they may purport to follow a moral code or fight for the cause of good) who stand outside society and who can never rely on anyone but themselves. Women are deadly to this type because they make them soft and vulnerable and they tie them down and give them hope and make them think of the future. But these heroes are ultimately nihilistic and can never come in from the cold. Hence, one way or another Vesper had to die in order for Bond to remain pure to his destiny as a living weapon.
posted by Midnight Creeper at 3:24 PM on March 20, 2007

Thanks all - I think miss lynnster's answer makes sense - in that the ending really doesn't make sense!
posted by widdershins at 7:01 PM on March 20, 2007