Irony aside, it was a very good movie and very worthy of the awards and nominations it received. I liked it particularly because it did not try to force a happy ending. I've seen good movies ruined (and bad movies made even worse) through forced happy endings. The three forced-happy-ending movies that come to my mind immediately are:
- Artificial Intelligence: The movie should have ended when the robot boy discovers that he is not unique when he meets a duplicate of himself (or when he sees the storage room full of copies of himself). Instead, the movie ends when the robot boy is salvaged by aliens from the future, who artificially re-construct the robot boy's dreams and desires.
- The Little Mermaid: The original story has a sad ending where the mermaid dies. Instead, Disney gives the story a happy ending. After killing Bambi's mother, I think Disney has stayed away from unhappy endings for fear of exposing children to the harsh realities of the real world.
- Made of Honour: (Royal Pinguo picked it out of the video store to watch for her birthday, so don't give me any snarky remarks about watching this movie.) I spent most of this movie waiting for Patrick Dempsey's character to grow up and realize that he didn't deserve the bride and is an ass for trying to run her wedding. (This is what happened in the slightly more reasonable plot of My Best Friend's Wedding.) Instead, Patrick Dempsey gets the girl after a ridiculous horse chase to the chapel.
6 comments:
If you don't want a typical happy endings try "The Wrestler".
"No Country for Old Men" doesn't really have an ending. Happy or otherwise.
"Atonement", not a happy ending at all.
There are quite a few movies that don't have a typical happy ending, but they are mostly smaller/indie films.
As for bigger budget films with unhappy endings or no endings there's "Se7en".
You should definitely see Old Boy before Hollywood does the remake, which will probably have a forced happy ending. I guess you could say Old Boy has a happy ending but only in the most twisted way.
By the way, Bambi didn't die in the movie; his mother was killed by a hunter. Old Yeller did die though when he was shot by his boy owner. Disney was probably more focused on turning boys to men, rather than coddling them with forced happy endings.
Corrected the Bambi error. It seems to me that a lot of Oscar worthy movies have sad endings. (Or no ending? What does that mean, Joe?) The need for a forced happy ending apparently comes from statistics that say movies with happy endings make more money at the box office, than if it had a sad ending.
Re: having no ending -- watch the movie. If you're as obsessed with closure as I am, the movie will haunt you for ages.
Even The Neverending Story had an ending, which makes it a misnomer. Perhaps they should rename "No Country for Old Men" to "The Neverending Story". I'm sure that will traumatize a lot of unsuspecting children.
"House of Sand and Fog" is also very unhappy... although it's mostly due to the main character's stupidity... which may very well be an accurate reflection of the real world.
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