>As >well as a commentary on integrity versus the gain of >capital...
The first thing I look for in a movie! lol. (It really is).
But seriously. . . the story arc of NJ is the most interesting thing to me. His unhappiness in the corporate world. Really, he's the new version of the corporate "everyman". . . but played very differently from the ones Jack Lemmon used to do.
And so, NJ turns to the past--the time when he was most happy--to try to fix that and return to that kind of joy, but as we see that doesn't really work out either. So the movie leaves us with the question ALL movies should leave us with: what now?
I like movies that shift the responsibility for change onto the audience.
Sometimes (and I'm no longer talking about Yi Yi really) an unhappy ending can be very effective. If a film shows us something real, and then shows us an end that is JUST as real (and not a cheat/cheap happy ending) then I believe it can influence us in the "real world" to do something about our own problems.
That's why, for instance, I consider the ending of The Bicycle Thief to be one of the best ever.