Not all filmmakers like their movies to have simple endings. Some leave their last scenes
ambiguous to keep audiences thinking. But sometimes that plan backfires, resulting in
endings that are just plain confusing. Beware of spoilers...
Inception
Christopher Nolan's 2010 film left audiences' minds spinning as much as the top in the final
shot. Just when it looks like the top is about to spin out and tumble, the screen cuts to
black. The final shot shows Dom Cobb reuniting with his kids. But we never know if it's really
happening or if it's a dream. Fans debated the scene endlessly for years after Inception
came out...but according to Nolan, the non-ending is actually kind of the whole point.
In 2015, the director gave the commencement speech at Princeton University, and told the
grads to "chase their reality." He used the ending of Inception as an example, saying:
"[Cobb] was off with his kids, he was in his own subjective reality. He didn't really care
anymore, and that makes a statement: perhaps, all levels of reality are valid. The camera
moves over the spinning top just before it appears to be wobbling, it was cut to black."
In short, the ending of the movie is up to us — and we're right either way.
The Dark Knight Rises
The ending to Nolan's Dark Knight trilogy isn't quite as vague as Inception, but it
still left viewers debating after the credits started rolling. After flying a nuclear bomb
out of Gotham City, Batman escapes the blast...off-screen. We know this because, later, while Alfred
is in Florence, he sees Bruce Wayne sitting at a table, enjoying a meal with ex-Catwoman
Selina Kyle. Some fans have theorized that this is all a dream — that Batman actually
died in the explosion, and that Alfred simply imagined seeing his friend taking in the Italian
sunshine.
But that's bat-baloney. Before the movie's end, we learn along with Lucius Fox that Wayne
fixed the Bat-plane's autopilot six months before the final showdown in Gotham. That's
all the exposition necessary for viewers to know that Batman jumped out while the plane
flies the bomb toward the bay.
And sure, when Alfred sees Wayne in Florence, it's exactly how Alfred describes it earlier
in the film. But that's not a dream — it's just the best way for Wayne to show Alfred
he's alive. Moreover, Selina Kyle is there, wearing Wayne's mother's necklace, which she
steals at the beginning of the movie. Alfred doesn't know she and Wayne have become an
item, and he'd already quit working for Bruce before Batman and Catwoman teamed up to save
Gotham City.
As if all that isn't enough, Christian Bale himself thinks that Bruce is alive by the
end of the movie. He explained during an interview while promoting Exodus: Gods and Kings:
"He was just content with me being alive and left because that was always the life that
he wanted for him. And I find it very interesting and with most films, I tend to say ‘It’s
what the audience thinks it is.’ My personal opinion? No, it was not a dream. That was
for real and he was just delighted that finally he had freed himself from the privilege, but
ultimately the burden of being Bruce Wayne."
None of this matters anyway. Batfleck is the wave of the future! But let's shift our gaze
toward the ghost of Batman's past...
Birdman
Alejandro G. Iñárritu's film about a washed-up actor trying to make a comeback on Broadway
has the kind of weird ending that puts Inception to shame. Throughout the film, Riggan Thomas
Thomson is shown as having superpowers, only to have them later be explained as being all
in his head. In the final scene, Riggan's daughter Sam enters his hospital room to find
his bed empty and the window open. Sirens and voices can be heard coming from the street
below. Initially, Sam looks down, but she slowly turns her head up to the sky and she
smiles. Some might think this means Riggan actually does have powers, and has flown away.
But...probably not. What really seems to have happened is that Riggan has successfully committed
suicide, which he failed to do on the previous day. Sam, for her part, seems to start hallucinating
just like her dad. The fact that she has bird tattoos on her arm and that her father played
a superhero with bird-based powers suggests the strong connection between the two. Sam
seems to leave the real world to enter a fantasy where her father is still alive, soaring above
the clouds. The film is subtitled The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance, after all. Here, Sam
chooses to ignore reality.
One of Birdman's four screenwriters, Alexander Dinelaris Jr., hinted during an interview
with HuffPost Live that the key to their understanding of the ending lies within Sam's relationship
with her father:
"I think when we found the relationship with the daughter, we started to understand what
Riggan’s story was. Once she got down, Emma’s big monologue, in the basement, we started
to understand the relationship and what it was. We’re not going to sit around and explain
the ending."
Vanilla Sky
Instead of a feelgood romance or a fun coming-of-age story, viewers of Vanilla Sky got a moody,
elliptical remake of a hit Spanish film. A feckless playboy suffers near-death and disfigurement
after a relationship with his new girlfriend plunges his ex into homicidal obsession. But
once his face is surgically restored, his life really starts to go haywire.
Viewers are told that much of what they've seen is a lucid dream in Cruise's brain, which
has been held in a cryogenic stasis for more than 100 years. The more troubling elements
of the narrative are apparently the result of a glitch. He's given the choice to either
reboot the dream or exit it once and for all by jumping off a building and being brought
back to life. He jumps — and the last shot is of the protagonist opening his eyes, starting
his life over again.
Director Cameron Crowe said that the correct answer to understanding the movie might just
be accepting what you see onscreen as the actual events of the story, according to his
comments on the DVD's commentary track. Crowe seemed to lean in that direction while talking
with Film School Rejects about the film's unused alternate ending as well, saying:
"You want people to understand what you're going for, so the question is, looking at
both endings: Did the pendulum swing too much in the direction of us explaining stuff? I
think it did. The original ending was more open-ended, a little less explained."
Barton Fink
At the end of this Coen Brothers flick, tortured writer Barton Fink wanders onto a beach, where
he meets a woman resembling the picture decorating his sparse, depressing hotel room. Shortly
after they meet, the movie abruptly ends, potentially leaving some viewers scratching
their heads. What's it mean? Here's one way to look at it.
The picture represents the idea of Hollywood. It's a place of fantasy, beaches, and beautiful
women. Meanwhile, throughout the entire film, Fink is subjected to the reality of Hollywood.
He's had his script torn apart by an executive. He found out his hero, writer W. P. Mayhew
is a washed-up alcoholic, and that Mayhew's wife writes his novels for him. And he's fled
from both a burning hotel and a shotgun-wielding maniac.
“Ahhhh! Ahhhh!”
You'd think that finally finding the woman on the beach would mean that Fink is at the
end of his trials, having reached his reward and a place where he feels safe. But in fact,
he's learned the truth about the dangerous world in which he now exists.
Joel Coen explained in a 1991 interview:
"Some people have suggested that the whole second part of the film is nothing but a nightmare.
But it was never our intention to, in any literal sense, depict some bad dream, and
yet it is true that we were aiming for a logic of the irrational. We wanted the film's atmosphere
to reflect the psychological state of the protagonist."
That wouldn't be the last time the ending of a Coen brothers movie left audiences debating
after leaving the theater...
No Country For Old Men
At the end of this blood-soaked neo-Western, Sheriff Ed Tom Bell tells his wife about two
dreams he has about his father. In the first dream, he loses some money his father gave
him. In the second dream, Bell sees his father holding a torch, riding ahead into the darkness
of a snowy mountain pass.
Shortly before Bell tells the stories of his dreams, he tells his wife that his father
died young. That, in a sense, his father will always be a younger man. More importantly,
throughout the movie, Bell ponders the violence in the area where he's sheriff. And since
he's close to retirement, he wonders whether he's too old for the world. The title of the
movie is No Country For Old Men, and Bell is one of them. It's become too violent too
quickly for someone of his age, and he can no longer cope. The world needs someone younger,
like his father, to light the way in the ever-growing darkness around it — exactly like the second
dream Bell describes.
As for the first dream? Maybe Bell just needs a new wallet.
Mulholland Drive
David Lynch fans don't watch his work for straightforward narratives. But even in the
context of his endearingly weird filmography, 2001's Mulholland Drive is tough to figure
out. Lynch himself has steadfastly refused to help untangle the movie, which moves in
jittery circles around an actress, a mysterious woman, and a film director…all of whom are
mixed up in a dreamlike and frequently nonsensical series of events.
Ultimately, the film's ending is every bit as open to interpretation as the rest of the
film — and although viewers are welcome to delve into the many theories attempting
to explain what Lynch might have meant, the best explanation was arguably posed by the
late film critic Roger Ebert. According to him,
"The movie is hypnotic; we're drawn along as if one thing leads to another but nothing
leads anywhere, and that's even before the characters start to fracture and recombine
like flesh caught in a kaleidoscope. There is no explanation. There may not even be a
mystery."
So what's the explanation here? Uh...pretty much whatever you want.
“You’re welcome!”
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