10 Movie Endings You Can Only Work Out For Yourself
Don't expect any help figuring these movie endings out.
Transcript
00:00 While films that refuse to commit to a hard ending can absolutely come off as cowardly or unimaginative,
00:06 when it works, it really works.
00:08 And so we come to these 10 films, each of which eschewed a more conventional, defined ending,
00:14 in favor of one you were left to figure out for yourself.
00:17 So I am Gareth here from WhatCulture.com, and here are 10 movie endings you can only work out for yourself.
00:27 Martha Marcy May Marlene stars Elizabeth Olsen in her stellar film debut as Martha,
00:33 a young woman who has been living with a cult for two years, and upon deciding to leave,
00:38 struggles to pull herself away entirely.
00:40 Even when exiting the cult and living with her sister Lucy,
00:43 Martha has PTSD-induced delusions that the cult members are pursuing her,
00:48 leading to a climax where Martha finally agrees to be taken to a mental hospital.
00:52 As Lucy and her husband Ted drive Martha there, however,
00:55 Martha notices a man she spotted earlier in the day get into his car and seemingly follow them.
01:01 Martha looks out the back window of the car, and then the film just ends.
01:05 The whole point of Martha Marcy May Marlene is its ambiguity,
01:09 namely that Martha is an unreliable narrator,
01:12 and we as the audience have no idea if her perspective is correct or delusional.
01:16 Whether you believe she's reacting to a fantasy or is indeed being followed by the cult,
01:21 they're both completely valid readings sufficiently backed up by everything leading up to that point.
01:27 In Joel Edgerton's outstanding debut,
01:32 married couple Simon and Robin Callum run into Simon's old high school classmate Gordo,
01:37 an eccentric but seemingly well-meaning man who begins intruding on their personal life.
01:41 Simon quickly grows uncomfortable with Gordo's presence,
01:44 while Robin is more accommodating, and eventually Robin becomes pregnant.
01:48 It's later revealed that in high school, Simon made a false report that Gordo had been molested by an older boy,
01:54 resulting in him being bullied and almost murdered by his own father, who believed he was gay.
01:59 This revelation drives a wedge between Simon and Robin,
02:02 who, after giving birth to their son, decides to separate from him.
02:06 But at film's end, Simon finds a gift box left for him by Gordo,
02:10 containing a video which implies he may have drugged and raped Robin,
02:14 and may therefore be the father of her child.
02:16 The movie concludes without Gordo confirming the agonizing truth to Simon one way or another,
02:21 in revenge for Simon refusing to own up to his own horrific act years prior.
02:26 The gift of the title ultimately is the doubt that Gordo plants in the mind of both Simon and the audience,
02:32 and if both outcomes weren't equally plausible, the ending wouldn't really work.
02:36 Steve McQueen's "Shame" is a terrifically crafted depiction of sexual addiction,
02:42 as executive Brandon struggles to quell his overpowering urges.
02:46 The film opens with Brandon travelling to work on the New York City subway,
02:50 when he makes flirtatious contact with an engaged woman,
02:53 who eventually grows uncomfortable and disappears into the crowd.
02:56 Throughout the film, Brandon is forced to confront the self-destructive nature of his addiction,
03:01 and at the end, he once again crosses paths with the engaged woman on the subway,
03:05 who this time appears far more interested in him.
03:08 As the train pulls to a stop, McQueen cuts to black,
03:11 leaving the audience to decide whether or not Brandon succumbs to his urges and follows the woman.
03:16 The film gives you basically nothing one way or another to decisively determine what Brandon does.
03:21 Him successfully turning the implied invitation down, or giving in to his addiction,
03:25 are both 100% believable outcomes,
03:28 and it's really down to individual viewers whether they perceive the scene optimistically or not.
03:33 Netflix's "Horse Girl" stars Alison Brie as Sarah,
03:39 a shy, awkward young woman who begins to have strange dreams and unaccounted for lapses of time in her memory.
03:45 Those around Sarah believe her to be going through a mental health crisis,
03:49 given her own mother's recent suicide,
03:51 but Sarah becomes convinced she was abducted by aliens and may in fact be a clone.
03:55 Sarah's beliefs only become more rigid as the story progresses,
03:59 even after a stay in a psychiatric hospital.
04:01 The film ends with Sarah being discharged, laying down on the ground,
04:05 and suddenly being levitated into the air and seemingly abducted by a UFO.
04:10 This is one of those endings you're free to take literally or not.
04:13 It's entirely possible Sarah was indeed seeing reality the entire time and was abducted at the end,
04:18 but it's also entirely probable she's in the midst of a delusional episode,
04:22 and the abduction could even represent her suicide.
04:25 The film makes no attempt at all to come down on one side or the other,
04:28 and as such, it's left viewers baffled and divided ever since.
04:32 Number 6 - Crash, 1996
04:35 David Cronenberg's Crash is a fascinatingly twisted erotic thriller
04:39 about a group of individuals who are sexually aroused by car crashes.
04:43 Following a brutal car accident, protagonist James Ballard enters this strange subculture,
04:49 where those who partake in fetishizing car crashes often end up killing themselves in accidents.
04:54 At the end, James and his wife Catherine embark on a consensual vehicular chase with one another on the freeway,
05:00 with Catherine unbuckling her seatbelt and being rammed violently off the road by her husband.
05:05 However, James finds that Catherine is largely unharmed,
05:08 and as the pair begin having sex on the ground, he tells her, "Maybe the next one."
05:12 There are certainly conclusions which can be drawn from this ending,
05:15 most notably that James may be referring to death being the only realistic outcome of their fetish,
05:20 a fate which befalls several other car crash fetishists in the film,
05:24 and that it just may come to fruition next time.
05:27 It's worth mentioning, however, that Catherine utters this same line near the start of the film,
05:31 when James openly discusses an unsatisfying extramarital sexual encounter he had.
05:36 It's certainly possible that Cronenberg's film is simply speaking more broadly about the unending pursuit
05:41 of an unattainable, ultimate pleasure which continues to elude the pair.
05:45 It's possible Cronenberg intended audience to pick up on all of this,
05:49 and yet he leaves it ambiguous enough for viewers to decide for themselves.
05:55 John Patrick Shanley's doubt, adapted from his own Tony Award-winning play,
05:59 is centred around the possible guilt of Father Flynn,
06:02 a priest who may or may not be abusing a young altar boy.
06:05 On one hand, there's Sister James, who is more willing to believe Flynn's innocence,
06:09 and on the other, Sister Aloysius, who is convinced of his guilt.
06:13 Aloysius eventually convinces Flynn to move to another church under the threat of blackmail,
06:18 before it's revealed that the blackmail was entirely fabricated.
06:21 Yet Aloysius reasons that it wouldn't have worked unless Flynn were guilty.
06:25 At film's end, Aloysius sees Flynn's resignation as proof of his guilt,
06:29 while James maintains his innocence.
06:31 In the final scene, Aloysius declares to her, "I have doubts, I have such doubts,"
06:36 as she breaks down in tears.
06:38 There's a lot for the audience to consider for themselves here.
06:41 First and foremost, whether Flynn truly was guilty,
06:43 and then precisely what Aloysius has doubts about.
06:46 Is she doubting her accusations against Flynn, her faith,
06:49 the presence of God around her, or all of the above?
06:52 Exactly what that final scene means has sparked fierce debate among audiences
06:56 ever since the original play made its debut.
06:59 Lee Chang-dong's mesmerizing thriller, Burning, follows a young man, Jong-soo,
07:06 who runs into a childhood friend, Hae-mi, with whom he becomes infatuated.
07:10 Hae-mi soon enough heads off on a trip and returns with Ben, a man she met on her journey.
07:15 An initially affable, yet mysterious man who may or may not harbor a dark secret.
07:20 Ben eventually confides in Jong-soo that he periodically burns down abandoned greenhouses
07:25 in order to feel alive, with the implication being that Ben may or may not be using
07:30 "burning greenhouses" as a euphemism for murdering young, lonely women.
07:34 Thereafter, Hae-mi goes missing and Jong-soo comes to believe that Ben is the culprit,
07:39 resulting in him murdering Ben at the very end of the movie.
07:41 And yet Chang-dong never commits to Ben's potential guilt one way or another,
07:45 leaving the matter teetering so brilliantly on a razor's edge.
07:49 Audiences are free to read into Ben's apparent euphemism and his possible sociopathic tells, or not.
07:55 Being There stars Peter Sellers as Chance, the simple-minded gardener of a wealthy old man
08:02 who hasn't ever set foot outside of the man's lush Washington, D.C. townhouse.
08:07 When the man dies, Chance is sent out into the wide world,
08:10 where through a series of improbable incidents, he ends up being considered to become President of the United States.
08:16 In the film's famous final scene, Chance is shown walking across a lake,
08:20 seemingly defying the natural laws of physics,
08:23 before dipping his umbrella in the water, into which it disappears before he pulls it back out.
08:28 In the closing seconds, we then hear the current president say, "Life is a state of mind."
08:33 There's a lot to unpack here.
08:35 There's very obviously a biblical connotation to Chance walking on water,
08:38 which might suggest he's implied to be a savior of humanity.
08:42 On the other hand, in referring to that final line,
08:45 it may be saying that the blissfully ignorant Chance is able to walk on water,
08:48 precisely because he didn't know he couldn't do it.
08:52 Either way, it makes for one hell of an ending.
08:54 Yorgos Lanthimos' deliriously twisted black comedy, "The Lobster,"
09:00 takes place in a bizarre dystopia where single people are given just 45 days to find a partner,
09:06 or be transformed into an animal of their choosing.
09:08 Singletons are encouraged to seek out potential partners with characteristics similar to themselves,
09:13 and so protagonist David eventually settles on a woman who, like him, is short-sighted.
09:18 However, the woman ends up being blinded by the leader of the loners, single people who live in the forest.
09:24 And so, at film's end, David is forced to decide whether to blind himself in order to remain compatible with her.
09:30 At a restaurant, David goes to the bathroom and prepares to stab himself in the eyes with a steak knife.
09:35 Yet the movie ends before he actually does.
09:37 It's absolutely believable that David blinds himself in order to be with the woman,
09:41 but at the same time, it's completely plausible he bails on her and flees.
09:45 Hell, perhaps David simply pretends to have blinded himself.
09:48 Lanthimos sets all three of these endings up without giving preference to any of them.
09:52 Peter Weir's brilliant mystery drama, "Picnic at Hanging Rock," depicts, or rather doesn't,
10:01 the disappearance of two schoolgirls and their teacher at Australia's Hanging Rock on Valentine's Day in 1900.
10:07 The film ends without the trio's vanishing act ever being solved,
10:11 while the death of the school's headmistress, Miss Appleyard, can either be interpreted as an accident or suicide.
10:17 Though the movie makes it abundantly clear that something incredibly strange is going on at Hanging Rock,
10:22 with the eerie presence of invisible, seemingly supernatural forces,
10:25 like its source novel, it stops short of granting the viewer any concrete resolution.
10:30 A cut final chapter from the novel would have revealed that the girls disappeared into another dimension,
10:35 a revelation which was quite sensibly excised in lieu of a more provocative, ambiguous ending.
10:40 Yet audiences are of course free to consider that non-ending as a possibility,
10:45 or equally that there was no supernatural explanation for the girls' disappearance at all.
10:49 It's down to you to decide.
10:52 And that's our list! Know of any other movie endings you can only work out for yourself?
10:56 Let us know all about them in the comment section right down below,
10:58 and don't forget to like, share, and click on that subscribe button while you're down there!
11:02 Also, if you like this sort of stuff, then please head on over to WhatCulture.com
11:05 and find some more fantastic articles, just like the one this video you're watching right now is based on.
11:10 I've been Gareth from WhatCulture.com,
11:11 thank you for checking out this video that you can work out for yourself afterwards.
11:15 Now go and check out some more WhatCulture goodness and have an epic day wherever you are!
11:19 See you later!
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