YMMV / Rope

• Alternative Character Interpretation:
  • Does Philip deserve sympathy? Is he just weak willed and manipulated by Brandon's persuasion? Or was he perfectly willing to go along with David's murder and is his remorse merely fear of getting caught?
  • The nature of the two men's relationship as well. In the play the film is based on, they're clearly gay. In the film it's relegated to subtext (as mandated by the Moral Guardians at the time). The apartment has two rooms (Mrs. Wilson makes mention of "the first bedroom") and none of their friends seem to find anything odd in their behaviour. There is the possibility that Philip is gay and Brandon isn't (since he mentions a past relationship with Janet — though that could be Janet as The Beard), adding to the possibility that Philip went along with everything out of a one-way crush.
  • How much sympathy does Rupert deserve? He's spent his whole career lecturing people on his ideas, so is his reaction to discovering the murder either Even Evil Has Standards or Never My Fault?
    • For that matter, does Rupert actually truly believe the ideas he preaches, or is it all just an act intended for shock value? Or does he believe it but only as an interesting philosophical theory and not as an actual basis of morality? Despite his repeated insistence that he does believe murder to be an art reserved for a few elites during the discussion on the matter at the party and the subsequent argument with Mr Kentley, he noticeably treats the discussion a lot with a lot more humour and generally has a more light-hearted attitude towards the idea than Brandon does, and his general attitude towards the others during the party suggests that he's the kind of person who enjoys intentionally shocking people simply for the heck of it. Even his "The Reason You Suck" Speech where he renounces the idea is written just ambiguously enough that it could go either way.
• Award Snub: Fans these days are shocked that John Dall was never nominated for an Academy Award for his chilling yet Faux Affably Evil portrayal of Brandon.
• Crosses the Line Twice:
  • Invoked by Rupert where he suggests murdering other diners in order to get Mrs Atwater a better seat in a fancy restaurant, among other things.
  • Brandon gets a bit of very Black Comedy in by wrapping the books for Mr. Kentley in the very rope he strangled his son with. It's so shocking it's bound to incite chuckles.
  • Kenneth snarkily asks Brandon if he'd have David walk in on him and Janet in the bedroom. Brandon's response? "That'd be too much of a shock". Well he's not wrong.
• Dancing Bear: Alfred Hitchcock regarded Rope as a failed experiment in stretching the limits of making a film as few cuts as possible. Film critics and historians would agree that the technical execution left much to be desired, but the writing and performances are still well regarded.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: Mrs. Atwater for being wonderfully pompous.
• Funny Moments:
  • Janet might claim she's never funny but her one-liners beg to differ.
    Brandon: You look lovely.
    Janet: I won't by the time it's all paid for.
  • And when she spots Kenneth in the room, her Genki Girl tendencies vanish. She even remarks "I seem to have run down."
  • Brandon gets a good one in on Mrs. Atwater.
    Mrs. Atwater: When I was younger, I used to read quite a bit.
    Brandon: Well, we all do strange things in our childhood.
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • It's pretty much written into the film. Janet gives Kenneth a speech about how David became her Second Love — and she's looking forward to marrying him. But she won't get to marry him at all because he's been killed.
  • Since 1999, the initials DK could be also linked to the infamous murder at Columbine.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • Mrs. Atwater being a fan of James Mason, who Hitchcock would later work with in North By Northwest.
  • Rupert suggesting that there should be a time of the year when murder is allowed in order to improve society would decades later go on to be the premise of the film The Purge.
  • It's darkly hilarious that the actor who played David — Dick Hogan — did not appear in another film after this.
  • Rupert's final piece of evidence is David’s monogrammed hat. These days, the initials DK bring something quite different to mind.
• Ho Yay: Plenty between Brandon and Philip, especially at the start. This was as much as American censors would allow — the British play it was based on made the homosexual relationship much more obvious.
  You, perhaps. You frighten me. You always have, from that very first day in prep school, part of your charm, I suppose.
• Jerks Are Worse Than Villains: Rupert is a philosophy professor who taught all his students that there were a class of natural elites who had the right to murder the commoners, then insisted his words had been "twisted" when one of his students acted on his suggestions. He often gets more hate from viewers for his hypocrisy than Brandon does for actually committing the murder.
• Love to Hate: Brandon is a shit-tier human being, but John Dall's charismatic performance makes him a very compelling Villain Protagonist.
• Moment of Awesome: After watching Brandon so arrogantly treat David's untimely death like an experiment and have dinner served literally over his dead body, it's very satisfying to watch Rupert dress him down. He recognizes that although it was his fault that his ideas prompted Brandon and Phillip to commit murder, it doesn't make either of the two any less accountable for killing a man who had family, friends, and a history.
  • Generally, Rupert calling out Brandon on murdering David (and even acknowledging it was his own rhetoric that inspired this) begs the question: who has the right to decide who should live or die by their hands?
• Moral Event Horizon: Brandon and Phillip cross it by murdering David Kentley just to feel superior to everyone else. Brandon even has several cruel Kick the Dog moments where he wraps Mr Kentley's books in the rope he strangled his son with or makes them have dinner on the chest David's body is in.
• Questionable Casting: James Stewart as an Ambiguously Gay Straw Nihilist? Stewart himself viewed this as one of his weakest performances.
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic: As noted here, Rupert falls headlong into this. His discovery of David's corpse is meant to be a wake-up call that his philosophy is horrifying. And yet the film ignores the fact that Rupert influenced Brandon for years on it — only to refuse to take any responsibility towards the end. Especially with the Word of God confirming that Rupert slept with one of his students.
• Values Dissonance: Of course, the reason for the two men to be Ambiguously Gay is because The Hays Code would not allow for such a thing to be shown in a film.
• Vindicated by History: The film was banned in several cities and Hitchcock never thought too highly of it. These days, while not to the extent of Vertigo, it's held up as one of his most underrated films.
• The Woobie: David's mother Alice is a big offscreen one. While his father and aunt are distracted by the party, Alice is at home in bed worried sick about why her son hasn't stopped by or at least phoned her. Every time she phones the house to check if David is at the party, the others describe her as even more worried. And the last time, there's mention of her ringing loads of other places multiple times in a panic.

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