- 10 months ago
Don't expect any help figuring these movie endings out.
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00:00While films that refuse to commit to a hard ending can absolutely come off as cowardly or
00:05unimaginative, when it works, it really works. And so we come to these 10 films, each of which
00:11eschewed a more conventional, defined ending in favour of one you were left to figure out for
00:16yourself. So I am Gareth here from WhatCulture.com and here are 10 movie endings you can only work
00:22out for yourself. 10. Martha Marcy May Marlene
00:26Martha Marcy May Marlene stars Elizabeth Olsen in her stellar film debut as Martha. A young woman
00:33who has been living with a cult for two years, and upon deciding to leave, struggles to pull herself
00:39away entirely. Even when exiting the cult and living with her sister Lucy, Martha has PTSD-induced
00:45delusions that the cult members are pursuing her, leading to a climax where Martha finally agrees to
00:50be taken to a mental hospital. As Lucy and her husband Ted drive Martha there, however,
00:55Martha notices a man she spotted earlier in the day get into his car and seemingly follow them.
01:01Martha looks out the back window of the car and then the film just ends. The whole point of Martha
01:06Marcy May Marlene is its ambiguity, namely that Martha is an unreliable narrator, and we as the
01:12audience have no idea if her perspective is correct or delusional. Whether you believe she's reacting to
01:18a fantasy or is indeed being followed by the cult, they're both completely valid reading,
01:23sufficiently backed up by everything leading up to that point.
01:279. The Gift
01:28In Joel Edgerton's outstanding debut, married couple Simon and Robin Callum run into Simon's old high
01:35school classmate Gordo, an eccentric but seemingly well-meaning man who begins intruding on their
01:40personal life. Simon quickly grows uncomfortable with Gordo's presence, while Robin is more accommodating,
01:46and eventually Robin becomes pregnant. It's later revealed that in high school,
01:50Simon made a false report that Gordo had been molested by an older boy, resulting in him being
01:55bullied and almost murdered by his own father, who believed he was gay. This revelation drives a wedge
02:01between Simon and Robin, who, after giving birth to their son, decides to separate from him. But at
02:06film's end, Simon finds a gift box left for him by Gordo, containing a video which implies he may have
02:12drugged and raped Robin, and may therefore be the father of her child. The movie concludes without
02:17Gordo confirming the agonizing truth to Simon one way or another, in revenge for Simon refusing to own
02:23up to his own horrific act years prior. The gift of the title ultimately is the doubt that Gordo
02:29plants in the mind of both Simon and the audience, and if both outcomes weren't equally plausible,
02:34the ending wouldn't really work. 8. Shame
02:37Steve McQueen's Shame is a terrifically crafted depiction of sexual addiction,
02:42as executive Brandon struggles to quell his overpowering urges. The film opens with Brandon
02:48travelling to work on the New York City subway, when he makes flirtatious contact with an engaged
02:53woman, who eventually grows uncomfortable and disappears into the crowd. Throughout the film,
02:57Brandon is forced to confront the self-destructive nature of his addiction, and at the end,
03:01he once again crosses paths with the engaged woman on the subway, who this time appears far more
03:07interested in him. As the train pulls to a stop, McQueen cuts to black, leaving the audience to
03:12decide whether or not Brandon succumbs to his urges and follows the woman. The film gives you
03:16basically nothing one way or another to decisively determine what Brandon does. Him successfully turning
03:22the implied invitation down or giving in to his addiction are both 100% believable outcomes,
03:28and it's really down to individual viewers whether they perceive the scene optimistically or not.
03:337. Horse Girl
03:34Netflix's Horse Girl stars Alison Brie as Sarah, a shy, awkward young woman who begins to have
03:41strange dreams and unaccounted for lapses of time in her memory. Those around Sarah believe her to be
03:47going through a mental health crisis, given her own mother's recent suicide. But Sarah becomes convinced
03:52she was abducted by aliens and may in fact be a clone. Sarah's beliefs only become more rigid as
03:58the story progresses, even after a stay in a psychiatric hospital. The film ends with Sarah
04:02being discharged, laying down on the ground, and suddenly being levitated into the air and seemingly
04:08abducted by a UFO. This is one of those endings you're free to take literally or not. It's entirely
04:13possible Sarah was indeed seeing reality the entire time and was abducted at the end, but it's also
04:19entirely probable she's in the midst of a delusional episode, and the abduction could even represent her
04:24suicide. The film makes no attempt at all to come down on one side or the other, and as such, it's
04:29left viewers baffled and divided ever since.
04:326. Crash
04:331996
04:34David Cronenberg's Crash is a fascinatingly twisted erotic thriller about a group of individuals who are
04:41sexually aroused by car crashes. Following a brutal car accident, protagonist James Ballard enters
04:47this strange subculture, where those who partake in fetishizing car crashes often end up killing
04:53themselves in accidents. At the end, James and his wife Catherine embark on a consensual vehicular
04:58chase with one another on the freeway, with Catherine unbuckling her seatbelt and being rammed
05:02violently off the road by her husband. However, James finds that Catherine is largely unharmed,
05:08and as the pair begin having sex on the ground, he tells her, maybe the next one. There are certainly
05:13conclusions which can be drawn from this ending, most notably that James may be referring to death
05:18being the only realistic outcome of their fetish, a fate which befalls several other car crash
05:23fetishes in the film, and that it just may come to fruition next time. It's worth mentioning,
05:28however, that Catherine utters this same lie near the start of the film, when James openly discusses
05:33an unsatisfying extramarital sexual encounter he had. It's certainly possible that Cronenberg's film
05:38is simply speaking more broadly about the unending pursuit of an unattainable, ultimate pleasure which
05:43continues to elude the pair. It's possible Cronenberg intended audience to pick up on all
05:48of this, and yet he leaves it ambiguous enough for viewers to decide for themselves.
05:535. Doubt
05:54John Patrick Shanley's Doubt, adapted from his own Tony Award-winning play, is centred around the
06:00possible guilt of Father Flynn, a priest who may or may not be abusing a young altar boy.
06:05On one hand, there's sister James, who is more willing to believe Flynn's innocence,
06:09and on the other, sister Aloysius, who is convinced of his guilt.
06:13Aloysius eventually convinces Flynn to move to another church under the threat of blackmail,
06:18before it's revealed that the blackmail was entirely fabricated. Yet Aloysius reasons that
06:23it wouldn't have worked unless Flynn were guilty. At film's end, Aloysius sees Flynn's
06:27resignation as proof of his guilt, while James maintains his innocence. In the final scene,
06:32Aloysius declares to her, I have doubts, I have such doubts, as she breaks down in tears.
06:38There's a lot for the audience to consider for themselves here. First and foremost,
06:42whether Flynn truly was guilty, and then precisely what Aloysius has doubts about.
06:46Is she doubting her accusations against Flynn, her faith, the presence of God around her,
06:51or all of the above? Exactly what that final scene means has sparked fierce debate among
06:56audiences ever since the original play made its debut.
06:594. Burning
07:00Lee Changdong's mesmerizing thriller Burning follows a young man, Zhong Su, who runs into a
07:07childhood friend, He Mi, with whom he becomes infatuated. He Mi soon enough heads off on a trip
07:12and returns with Ben, a man she met on her journey, an initially affable yet mysterious man who may or
07:18may not harbor a dark secret. Ben eventually confides in Zhong Su that he periodically burns down
07:24abandoned greenhouses in order to feel alive, with the implication being that Ben may or may not be
07:29using burning greenhouses as a euphemism for murdering young, lonely women. Thereafter,
07:35He Mi goes missing and Zhong Su comes to believe that Ben is the culprit, resulting in him murdering
07:40Ben at the very end of the movie. And yet, Changdong never commits to Ben's potential guilt one way or
07:45another, leaving the matter teetering so brilliantly on a razor's edge. Audiences are free to read into Ben's
07:51apparent euphemism and his possible sociopathic tells, or not.
07:553. Being There
07:56Being There stars Peter Sellers as Chance, the simple-minded gardener of a wealthy old man who
08:03hasn't ever set foot outside of the man's lush Washington, D.C. townhouse. When the man dies,
08:08Chance is sent out into the wide world, where through a series of improbable incidents, he ends up being
08:13considered to become president of the United States. In the film's famous final scene, Chance is shown
08:19walking across a lake, seemingly defying the natural laws of physics, before dipping his umbrella in
08:25the water, into which it disappears before he pulls it back out. In the closing seconds, we then hear the
08:30current president say, life is a state of mind. There's a lot to unpack here. There's very obviously
08:35a biblical connotation to Chance walking on water, which might suggest he's implied to be a savior of
08:41humanity. On the other hand, in referring to that final line, it may be saying that the blissfully
08:46ignorant Chance is able to walk on water, precisely because he didn't know he couldn't do it. Either way,
08:52it makes for one hell of an ending.
08:542. The Lobster
08:56Yorgos Lanthimos' deliriously twisted black comedy, The Lobster, takes place in a bizarre dystopia where
09:02single people are given just 45 days to find a partner, or be transformed into an animal of their choosing.
09:09Singletons are encouraged to seek out potential partners with characteristics similar to themselves,
09:13and so protagonist David eventually settles on a woman who, like him, is short-sighted.
09:18However, the woman ends up being blinded by the leader of the loners, single people who live in
09:23the forest. And so, at film's end, David is forced to decide whether to blind himself in order to
09:28remain compatible with her. At a restaurant, David goes to the bathroom and prepares to stab himself
09:33in the eyes with a steak knife, yet the movie ends before he actually does. It's absolutely
09:38believable that David blinds himself in order to be with the woman, but at the same time,
09:42it's completely plausible he bails on her and flees. Hell, perhaps David simply pretends to
09:47have blinded himself. Lanthimos sets all three of these endings up without giving preference to any
09:52of them.
09:531. Picnic at Hanging Rock
09:55Peter Weir's brilliant mystery drama Picnic at Hanging Rock depicts, or rather doesn't,
10:01the disappearance of two schoolgirls and their teacher at Australia's Hanging Rock on Valentine's
10:06Day in 1900. The film ends without the trio's vanishing act ever being solved, while the death of
10:11the school's headmistress, Miss Appleyard, can either be interpreted as an accident or suicide.
10:17Though the movie makes it abundantly clear that something incredibly strange is going on at Hanging
10:21Rock, with the eerie presence of invisible, seemingly supernatural forces, like its source
10:26novel, it's stopped short of granting the viewer any concrete resolution. A cut final chapter from the
10:32novel would have revealed that the girls disappeared into another dimension, a revelation which was quite
10:36sensibly excised in lieu of a more provocative, ambiguous ending. Yet audiences are of course
10:42free to consider that non-ending as a possibility, or equally that there was no supernatural explanation
10:47for the girls' disappearance at all. It's down to you to decide.
10:51And that's our list, know of any other movie endings you can only work out for yourself?
10:56Let us know all about them in the comments section right down below, and don't forget
10:59to like, share and click on that subscribe button while you're down there. Also if you like this
11:03sort of stuff then please head on over to whatculture.com and find some more fantastic
11:06articles just like the one this video you're watching right now is based on. I've been Gareth
11:10from whatculture.com, thank you for checking out this video that you can work out for yourself
11:14afterwards. Now go and check out some more WhatCulture goodness and have an epic day
11:18wherever you are. See you later!
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