The Irishman is based on the "true" story of Frank Sheeran, and it makes for interesting
viewing.
But what was going on at the end of the movie?
If your attention span was flagging after three-and-a-half hours, we've got you.
This is the ending of The Irishman explained.
A good part of the film is setting up how close Frank Sheeran and Jimmy Hoffa become
— not just themselves, but their families as well.
Sheeran's daughter, Peggy, gets along particularly well with the Teamster boss, and it's Peggy
who seems to magically know that her father was the one who pulled the trigger.
After the dust settles and the world moves on from Jimmy Hoffa's mysterious disappearance,
we see Sheeran's life continue.
While Sheeran the narrator holds onto his wise-guy attitude, Sheeran the character is
very, very different.
We see him meeting with his daughters — and, in Peggy's case, trying unsuccessfully to
talk to her.
He apologizes, without truly seeming to know what he's apologizing for, or wanting to say
what needs to be said.
"I just wanna say I'm sorry, that's all."
"For?"
It's clear he wants forgiveness and he's still trying to come to terms with what he did even
years later, but he's not entirely sure how to go about it.
Doubtful?
Take the scene where Sheeran and Russell Bufalino are sitting in jail together.
Bufalino says he chose them over Hoffa, and it's what they're doing that's important.
Sheeran breaks a loaf of bread and they share it, but not before dipping it in grape juice.
That's partially to soften it for the elderly Bufalino, and partially a very intimate sort
of Communion.
A big controversy over The Irishman is the distinct lack of lines Frank Sheeran's daughter
Peggy actually speaks.
Anna Paquin's Peggy has just a single speaking scene, where she asks her father why he hasn't
called Hoffa's wife.
"Why?"
"Why what?"
"Why haven't you called Joe?"
She's mostly reduced to just giving seething, angry glares, and Scorsese has been widely
criticized for under-using her.
It was Robert De Niro who spoke with USA Today, saying of Paquin and her character:
"She was very powerful and that's what it was.
Maybe in other scenes there could've been some interaction between Frank and her possibly,
but that's how it was done.
She's terrific and it resonates."
Scorsese himself spoke about it at the DGA Theater, and revealed that he had asked writer
Steve Zaillian to, quote, "layer her in the story."
"I decided that she doesn't have to say anything."
Despite the lack of dialogue, the director commended Paquin's performance, and asserted
that it wasn't necessary for her to speak much to have an impact on the story.
According to Scorsese,
"There's something you can't talk about.
She knows it.
She knows who he is."
Perhaps, think of it this way: Peggy Sheeran is the conscience and morality in the tale,
present but largely silent, save for a few words that tug at those around her.
After Hoffa's death, the split is final.
It's the last straw, and Frank Sheeran is never able to reconcile with his conscience
or his daughter.
Frank Sheeran, both young and old, talks about the people he's killed as though they're just
another fact of life.
It's no wonder his daughter is suspicious of him, but there's a blink-and-you'll-miss-it
line that suggests there's one kill he does regret, even if he's not entirely aware of
it himself.
That one is Jimmy Hoffa, and how do we know?
As an elderly Sheeran sits with his priest, the priest tries to get him to admit remorse,
to say that he's sorry in some way.
Sheeran seems oblivious.
He's not, and when the priest asks him if he even feels sorry for the families he's
broken, he replies that he doesn't.
He didn't know the families, after all, how could he feel bad for them?
Except... he pauses and corrects himself.
"I didn't know them except one, I knew."
He did know one of the families, and that stood out to him — suggesting that of all
the killing, Hoffa's is the only one that haunts him.
At the very end, we see Sheeran with the priest again.
The camera floats down the hallway and into his room, and it's hard to hear what they're
saying.
It's little more than a whisper, but it's important.
The priest is giving him absolution from his sins.
And that's a big deal.
Priests only give absolution, which reconciles a person with both the Church and God, when
the confession and the regret is sincere.
That means not only has Frank Sheeran shown true regret for what he's done, but he's confessed
his sins to the priest and the priest believed he was truly sorry.
Near the end — both of the film and of Frank Sheeran's life — he's talking to a young
nurse.
He asks her if she knows who Jimmy Hoffa is, and she says that she doesn't.
"You don't know who that is?"
"No."
"Jimmy Hoffa?"
It's a small moment, but there's terrifying implications for anyone who fancies they might
want to make a long-lasting impact on the world.
Through the previous hours we see Sheeran and Hoffa moving pieces into place, and taking
others off the board.
They put presidents in power, and — according to one brief aside — they took them out
again.
They killed countless men, set the stage for world events, and just a few years on, people
don't remember their names.
"You don't know who he is."
"Okay, I don't."
You could argue that the message here is a pretty heartbreaking one: everything fades.
Early on, Hoffa tells Sheeran that they're going to change the world — and they did.
But they still weren't remembered, so what does that mean for the ordinary person?
It's a dark and dismal thought.
In that final scene, Frank Sheeran asks the priest to leave the door open as he leaves,
after a promise to come visit again after Christmas.
There's no signs of the holiday in Sheeran's plain, undecorated room, but as the priest
leaves, he does leave the door ajar.
That detail has proven surprisingly divisive, with a number of theories being bounced around
about just what that open door means.
For some, it hearkened back to earlier scenes where Jimmy Hoffa and Frank Sheeran shared
a hotel room, and Hoffa left the door open just a bit.
Sheeran leaving his door open in the same way is something of a callback to his friend.
It's also perhaps an invitation for someone to just come in and talk to him — to acknowledge
the fact that he's still there, that he has stories to tell, and confessions to make.
If Hoffa left his door open so he didn't feel trapped, maybe Sheeran did, too.
And Sheeran?
He's trapped by his own past, his own memories, his own mistakes, and his own regret, knowing
that it's not going to be long before it's his own death that walks through that door.
The first two-thirds of The Irishman are filled with gunshots and dynamite, and everything
else you'd expect from a Scorsese gangster flick.
But the end?
It drags on and on, and there's nothing in it that's especially exciting.
It is uncomfortable, though, and it makes the viewer consider things like their own
mortality and their own legacy, even as we watch this once-powerful player grow old,
grow frail, and even fall in the hallway of his own home.
But that boring part of the movie is something that happens to all of our favorite characters.
It's usually just not brought to the screen.
The plodding nature of the ending is deliberate: even as a lonely Frank Sheeran watches the
days go by and counts down to his inevitable death, looming ever closer, the viewer feels
it, too.
Seeing it large on screen is uncomfortable, but so is the ever-present specter of death,
frailty, and old age.
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