Headscratchers / The Willoughbys

• Mr. and Mrs. Willoughby are shown to be neglectful to extremes. How are any of the Willoughby kids still alive or functioning as well as they are?
  • They probably feed them and gave them clothes to shut them up.
  • Same as any neglectful parent; they give the children the absolute bare minimum to survive up until a certain age, at which point the eldest child is given the brunt of the responsibility to care for the younger ones while the parents do whatever.

• Why did Mr and Mrs Willoughby have children and never use protection?
  • They didn't know about Internet in the 21st Century. The kids couldn't understand how a TV works. It's clear that their knowledge about the world and their creations got stuck on a far away century.
  • They're also not very smart, so they probably never put two and two together.

• How does Jane have glasses if her parents are so neglectful that they forget her name? Are they fake?
  • Children bumping into things because they can't see make a lot of noise.

• If the children have never been outside, can't use the internet, and clearly haven't been homeschooled, why haven't they been taken by child services for not attending school by now?
  • They were born at home and the parents refused to acknowledge them. It’s likely that the system didn’t even know they existed.
  • the Willoughbys are extremely isolated in general; none of them ever leave the house and don't seem to have any friends or acquaintances (Mr and Mrs Willoughby seem far too wrapped up in each other to care about other people, and the kids can't make friends since they don't get out much). Therefore, no one would really report them for child neglect because there are probably few people who even know the kids exist, and the ones who do know don't see them being actively abused and may not think it's bad enough to report. Linda only realizes how neglected the kids are once she spends the day with them.

• Why have the children never been outside? It seems to me that letting them spend all day outside is a perfect way to keep the house nice and quiet.
  • They’ve probably been outdoors at least (Tim mentions Jane harboring a raccoon previously), but hadn’t gone any further than the front yard prior to the events of the movie.

• If the family never goes outside and are shown to know very little about the modern world, how do they get food?
  • They use food delivery.
  • Maybe they do go out on occasion, but only in short instances that are very spread out between weeks. The Willoughby parents may buy enough food to last them awhile so they can go back and fawn over each other as often as possible without starving to death.

• Why do the kids pronounce Switzerland "Sveetzerlund", the German way? They're Scottish, not German.
  • The GPS on Nanny's phone pronounces it the same way, so presumably it's just a quirk of this world.
  • The country they go to is not Switzerland, it's Sveetzerlünd. That's how it's spelled on the phone, and on the map. It's just a joke (and technically speaking, Switzerland is called "Die Schweiz" in German.)

• Why in the right minds would the parents want to hire a nanny while they're gone? Didn't they just kick the children out like not even a minute ago? Aren't they too oblivious to the fact that they've snuck back in?

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