For those who approach cinema as a form of escapism, a happy ending is paramount. How often do things come to a neat, pleasant conclusion in real life? Stories are the only place where we can rely on satisfaction, resolution, and peace. Of course, escapism is only one way to approach filmmaking. Many movies aim for more, for something real and true, even if it means recreating the ambiguity and pain we’re often confronted with in life. When people talk about films that are antithetical to the Hollywood Model, often all they mean is that there is no happy ending.
Some filmmakers play a nasty trick on their audiences: they’ll present something that almost feels like a happy ending, a best case scenario for the characters we’ve been following. Their desires are realized; their conflicts end, they get to ride off into the sunset … or so it seems. A closer look reveals that things are more complicated than that fluttery feeling in our chests made them seem. By creating these complicated, happy/unhappy endings, filmmakers make us question the catharsis we look for in the movies. Do we really want what we want? Is this desire for resolution healthy, or is it a form of delusion?
Below we take a look at five films that ride this line between happy and unhappy. In sharp contrast to the tell-me-what-to-think model of mainstream filmmaking, these conclusions remind us of an uncomfortable ambiguity: there is no happy or unhappy. It’s really about how you look at it. Delusion reigns.
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5 Taxi Driver (1976)
Columbia Pictures
Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver (1976) is the story of Travis Bickle, a lonely, unstable cabbie fed up with the corruption, decadence, and “filth” he sees around him. Travis decides to take radical, violent action against the poisons of society, with two separate plots: to assassinate a politician, and to return Iris - an underaged prostitute - to her parents. He aborts the first plan when the security surrounding a rally notices him - but he goes through with the second plan, executing the pimp and his associates in a bloody gunfight that leaves him in a coma. By the time Travis recovers, Iris has been returned to grateful parents and Travis has been praised by the public as a hero.
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There are a few ironies to this “happy” ending. The first is that, had Travis succeeded in his first plan, he would have been demonized as a terrorist. Because he killed villainized criminals instead of a valorized politician, his fascistic fantasy of cleaning up the streets is validated by a public that might be as sick as him. Things probably don’t work out for Iris, either, who previously alluded to a tumultuous home life she was running from. The notion of returning a little girl to the protection of her parents is comforting - but we have no idea what is waiting for Iris at home, except that she chose living on the streets over it.
4 The Graduate (1967)
Embassy Pictures
The Graduate (1967) (along with Bonnie and Clyde) kicked off the New Hollywood movement with its depiction of generations in conflict. The film follows Benjamin, a college graduate who discovers quite abruptly that he has no idea what he wants to do with his life - only that he wants it to be different from the elite materialism he was raised into. He spends the summer drifting around his parents’ house and begins an affair with Mrs. Robinson, the wife of his father’s business partner. Things get more complicated when Benjamin falls for Mrs. Robinson’s daughter, Elaine. When Elaine is pushed into a marriage by her mother, Benjamin crashes the wedding and the two run away on a bus. The feeling is triumphant - until they find themselves sitting in silence, trying desperately to keep fading smiles on their faces, while The Sound of Silence plays ominously on the soundtrack.
The Graduate is about a young man drowning in a world of stuff: fancy houses, nice cars, and plastics. This world is seductive, but Benjamin wants something real. The problem is, he doesn’t know what that “real” is - he is a character more sure of what he doesn’t want than what he wants. When he chases something, he’s really running away - which is what happens when he and Elaine leave the alter. This grand display of romance is an exciting deviation from the world Benjamin and Elaine are pressured into by their parents - but it isn’t a viable alternative. The two don’t know each other very well, and when the excitement dies down, they don’t have anything to talk about. The likelihood that these two will stay together or that this romance will fill the void Benjamin feels is pretty slim - but at least Elaine got out of the marriage!
3 Midsommar (2019)
A24
If we were to simply describe the ending of Ari Aster’s Midsommar (2019), it’s unlikely that it would sound happy: a young woman joins a eugenics cult and murders her boyfriend for an infidelity - but it feels so good! The folk horror follows an American couple - Dani and Christian - who travel with friends to a Swedish commune. Things are not good between the two: Dani is mourning the sudden loss of her family, and Christian is sticking around out of a sense of obligation - not that he’s giving her any emotional support. The two speak in passive-aggressive clichés, a pseudo-communicative millennial jargon that fails to broach the unmet needs beneath the surface.
At first terrified by the practices of the cult, Dani finds herself enchanted by their attitudes toward community, empathy, and the circle of life. After being crowned May Queen, Dani gets to choose whether her boyfriend lives or dies - and she lets him burn. The feeling is cathartic and euphoric. In interviews, Aster has compared it to burning a box of an ex’s belongings - but of course, the punishment greatly outweighs the crime. Christian was a bad boyfriend and a bit of a wet towel, but the audience’s elation at seeing him burned alive is a testament to how powerfully Aster puts us in Dani’s headspace.
2 A New Leaf (1971)
Paramount Pictures
A New Leaf (1971) is a breezily dark comedy about Henry, a rich man who loses his money and plots to find a rich woman who he can marry and murder for her inheritance. The woman in question is the clumsy and good-natured botanist Henrietta, who makes minimal use of the massive estate she inherited. Henry gets her estate in order and takes Henrietta out into the woods to kill her - but as she nearly drowns, he has a change of heart and saves her from the water. He resigns himself to living with her for the rest of his life.
This is as close to a happy ending this story could have, just as what Henry feels for Henrietta is as close to love as he is capable of - but it’s still plenty dark. For one thing, Henry’s change of heart comes when he sees a fern on the bank of the river. It reminds him of the fern species Henrietta discovered and named after him, giving him a kind of immortality. In other words, his affection for her is a sole product of what she has done for him. Poor, sweet Henrietta will spend the rest of her life with an insufferable man who loathes - but cannot kill - her. Add to this the fact that the ending used to be much darker. In writer/director Elaine May’s original cut, Henry murdered two men who were blackmailing Henrietta. In this version, Henry is not merely a sociopathic snob who entertained the fantasy of murder - he’s the real deal, and the worst punishment he gets is spending the rest of his life with an awkward but lovely woman who adores him.
1 Hereditary (2018)
The ending minutes of Ari Aster’s directorial debut do something very strange: its conclusion is so nihilistic, so totally devoid of hope, redemption, or humanity, that it comes as a relief. Hereditary (2018) is a family melodrama about trauma, loss, guilt, and blame, which eventually curdles into a nightmare: the central family’s bad luck turns out to be a literal curse placed on them by the grandmother and cult leader who dies before the film begins. The movie ends with the demonic cult victorious and the family devastated. It is the worst possible outcome … for the family. For the cult, it’s a resounding success. Everything went exactly as it should!
Aster captures his twisted conclusion with soft, warm light and a soothing score that contrasts with the screeching drones we’d been subjected to for the last hour and a half. Like the conclusion to his follow-up, Hereditary ends with a strange catharsis. Aster has mentioned in interviews his trepidation with the way most movies about familial grief end: things get hairy, but ultimately the family comes out the other side stronger. This is a hopeful take on suffering - but it can ring false to those trapped in a web of grief and trauma that has no apparent end. The idea of pushing through until things get better is exhausting. Hereditary speaks to the fact that people don’t always make it through trauma – sometimes they are destroyed, with no room for recovery. It’s a hopeless conclusion, but it offers an outlet to a fear that we don’t let people express: that things are ruined, and will never get better. There is an odd peace in this hopelessness; a restful resignation, that almost feels happy. Almost.
