The picture's significance has been the subject of broad speculation. "The Washington Post" reviewer Desson Howe said that despite its emotional impact, the final scene "feels more like a punchline for punchline's sake, a trumped-up coda". In her book-length analysis of the Coen brothers' films, Rowell suggests that Barton's fixation on the picture is ironic, considering its low culture status and his own pretensions toward high culture (speeches to the contrary notwithstanding). She further notes that the camera focuses on Barton himself as much as the picture while he gazes at it. At one point, the camera moves past Barton to fill the frame with the woman on the beach. This tension between objective and subjective points of view appears again at the end of the film, when Barton finds himself – in a sense – inside the picture.