Titanic gave the audience the ending they were looking for by reuniting Rose and Jack after her death, but by doing so, it also disrespected another character and nobody seemed to care about it. James Cameron had already made a name for himself in the film industry in the 1990s thanks to movies like The Terminator, Terminator 2: Judgement Day, and True Lies, but his biggest project at the time came in 1997 with Titanic, a romance-disaster film based on the accounts of the sinking of the RMS Titanic in 1912.
Titanic followed Rose DeWitt Bukater (Kate Winslet) and Jack Dawson (Leonardo DiCaprio), two passengers from different social classes who fell in love aboard the famous ship during its ill-fated maiden voyage. The movie was a big success, both with critics and viewers, becoming the highest-grossing movie ever at the time (later surpassed by Cameron’s Avatar in 2010). Titanic was praised for its visuals and performances, and while some were captivated by the love story amidst the disaster, this was also a criticized point, as many found it to be weak. What many seem to forget, however, is one minor character in Rose’s life who the movie completely screwed.
When viewers met Rose, she was introduced as “Rose Calvert”, as she married a man with that last name at some point. When the audience was taken back to 1912 to meet young Rose, her fiancé Cal Hockley (Billy Zane) was introduced, but even though their names sound similar, as the story progressed it was revealed that he never married Rose. By the end of Titanic, Rose explained that Cal killed himself after losing his fortune in the Wall Street Crash of 1929, and after the death of Jack, she had a fresh start under a different name. Rose did what Jack made her promise she would do and got married, had kids, and died many, many years later. Rose married a man named “Calvert”, who she never told about Jack and who didn’t have a place in her memories, as when the camera panned over all the photos she brought with her, Mr. Calvert was nowhere to be seen.
The final scene in Titanic saw Rose – in what some still debate if it’s her arrival to the afterlife or just a dream – reuniting with Jack at the Titanic’s Grand Staircase, surrounded by those who died on the ship. Whether the afterlife or a dream, Rose went back to Jack, showing she never got to love someone else as much as she loved Jack. Rose never found the comfort she had with Jack with anyone else, and though she said she loved the mysterious Mr. Calvert, he was left aside the whole time. Mr. Calvert was only there to fill the gap of what happened to Rose after the Titanic sank and Jack died, showing that she managed to move on (to an extent), and even though it was the longest, most stable relationship she had, it will never be more important than her two-day romance with Jack Dawson.
Of course, this can be justified in different ways, such as the afterlife Rose ended up at being one for those linked to the Titanic in a deeper way (certainly, Cal wouldn’t be there), described by some as the “Titanic Club”, or, simply, by the movie being all about Rose and Jack’s story, with Mr. Calvert being just a character added to explain Rose’s post-Titanic life, and thus didn’t deserve much attention. Still, and because his existence was acknowledged (although briefly), Titanic’s ending did Mr. Calvert wrong, and everything about him remains a mystery.
