Titanic is told through the perspective of older Rose, which has led to theories about her being an unreliable narrator and changing her story according to her intentions at the moment, and one suggests she embellished her story about Jack to give Brock Lovett a valuable life lesson. Although James Cameron is now mostly associated with the sci-fi genre, one of his biggest projects is far from that world: Titanic, a disaster drama movie that was the most expensive movie ever at the time and Cameron’s most ambitious project.
Based on the real-life tragedy of the RMS Titanic in 1912, Titanic tells the story of Rose DeWitt Bukater (Kate Winslet) and Jack Dawson (Leonardo DiCaprio), two passengers from opposite social classes who fall in love aboard the infamous ship during its ill-fated maiden voyage. The tragic story of Jack and Rose is told by older Rose (played by Gloria Stuart) after she recognizes the drawing Jack made of her as it was recovered from the wreck by Brock Lovett (Bill Paxton) and his team. Lovett was on a mission to find the Heart of the Ocean, the diamond necklace Rose was wearing when Jack drew her, and he hoped Rose knew where it was.
The Heart of the Ocean was a gift from Rose’s fiancé, Cal Hockley (Billy Zane), but she only wore it once (not counting when he gave it to her), when Jack drew her only wearing the necklace. Given its high value, Lovett and his crew had been looking for it in the wreck of the Titanic for years, and when Rose claimed to be the woman in the drawing, Lovett thought he had found the diamond when he met her. Before he could even know where the Heart of the Ocean could have ended at, Rose told him, his crew, and her granddaughter the story of her romance with Jack, which could have been embellished in order to give Lovett a big life lesson about the important things in life and how shallow his quest for the diamond was.
A theory, shared on Reddit, suggests Rose embellished her story to purposely leave the diamond out of it and through that show Lovett that true wealth is found in love, not diamonds. Rose could have changed her own story to make it more dramatic and impactful, and for it to have the desired effect on Lovett, she embellished the character of Jack, the young, handsome, but poor artist who saved a young woman from marriage for money and a meaningless life, and who died in the ocean so she could live a long life and do all these things they planned to do together. The author of the theory explains that Rose wanted Lovett to understand that life is priceless and his quest to find the Heart of the Ocean was “foolish”, and once she saw him sufficiently ashamed of his materialistic quest, Rose threw the diamond into the sea, without Lovett ever knowing she had it all this time.
Rose’s credibility has been questioned for years for multiple reasons – how could she know how some moments happened if she wasn’t there, the lack of proof of Jack’s existence, etc – and it’s not unlikely that old Rose changed and embellished some details for the sake of telling a good story. Rose doing so to give Lovett a lesson, however, enhances the main message of Titanic about love and living (and loving) life, and ultimately, even though the Heart of the Ocean is what led to Lovett and company listening to Rose’s story, the diamond wasn’t that important.