This all seriously resonates. “Return of the King” ending has been my filmmaking collective’s shorthand for “didn’t know when to end it” for years — I’m relieved to see we aren’t alone.
As to the “why” and psychological underpinnings of fear of finishing things, this strikes a chord, as well. As a kid, I couldn’t finish food. Not a sandwich, banana, apple, anything. I still don’t like doing it. That last bite of anything only gets eaten off my plate if I’m trying to not offend the chef.
So it shouldn’t be a surprise the deciding factor in me once choosing to make a film was that the script had a beautiful bold fuck you non-ending. Another film I made has a “it was all a simulation” ending, which I actually re-wrote from something originally more grounded in the film’s reality.
In fact, I just got off the phone an hour ago with a director whose movie I’m producing currently, discussing possibly reshooting the ending of a film we are close to locking picture on, or throwing out the ending entirely! Just straight up cutting to black at the end of sequence 7. And to be honest, I find that idea incredibly thrilling.
Endings are hard! Painstakingly, brutally, teeth pullingly hard.
If I spent a decade or more of my life making the LOTR trilogy, I’d probably end it 9 times, too!
I will be sharing this with every filmmaker friend who is currently editing something — and will reference as I’m writing my next one. And even then, I’ll still change it in the edit. Isn’t that why we make films? To command the things on screen we can’t control in life? Like death, and other forced endings?
You're right that life doesn't have neat conclusions - everything bleeds into everything else. But that's exactly why we need stories that DO end. Films aren't trying to replicate the messiness of real existence; they're trying to give shape and meaning to it.
When a movie knows how to end properly, it's not pretending life works that way. It's offering us something life can't: the satisfaction of seeing cause and effect, of witnessing consequences, of feeling like events add up to something larger than just "and then more stuff happened."
The funeral comparison is valid - our hunger for narrative closure probably comes from the same place as our need for rituals around death - we're trying to impose meaning on experiences that would otherwise feel random and overwhelming. But I'd argue that a good ending doesn't deny life's continuity so much as it captures a moment where all the story's elements come together into something we can actually hold onto. Like, yes, the hobbits' lives continued after Return of the King, but we didn't need to see Pippin's midlife crisis to feel satisfied by their story.
The endless sequels and extended universes are what happen when we try to make movies more like life. And most of them are boring as hell because of it.
I would argue the most like life is the cut to black. No wrap up, no fading into something else. To me, life has endings all the time and they are usually much more abrupt than we want. We turn them into dissolves and add postscripts so that we can give ourselves a chance to process what has happened.
Further to Pippin's midlife crisis, maybe that reveals that all endings are inherently unsatisfying in some respects because they mean the transition from the adventure and magic back into normalcy and the mundane.
Pippin's midlife crisis could be a story on its own, but unfortunately for Pippin, it will always be underwhelming compared to the near-annihilation of the age of men that he fought against.
The "extra ending" always struck me as a sense of distrust. Particularly in films where there's a moral message, but one you'd have to decide for yourself. Something like "Flight" qualifies, where I figured Denzel would find the mini bar the night before his big hearing, and then you'd cut to black, wondering if he did the right thing in the end, or if you would have in his place. Then there's the whole bit where they find him the next morning, dress him up, and try to get him to the hearing. Again, there's the suspense -- is he going to get away with it, or is he going to do the right thing? And then that ending arrives in BIG CAPITAL LETTERS because Zemeckis just did not trust us to mentally make the right decision for this character, he didn't trust our morals as an audience at all.
Oh man, for me the real 'extra ending' in that movie was everything after the plane crash. But that has more to do with the film kind of falling apart than anything else. What happened to Zemeckis? He was so good once upon a time...
YES! This is such a perfect example of what I was getting at. Flight would have been so much stronger if Zemeckis had just trusted us to sit with that ambiguity. The mini bar moment is already doing all the heavy lifting - we know exactly what Denzel's wrestling with, and our own relationship with addiction/moral compromise would fill in the rest.
This happens SO much with "issue" films. Directors get so anxious about their message being misunderstood that they over-explain everything until there's no room left for us to actually feel anything. The moral complexity that made the story interesting in the first place gets flattened into a very special episode. It's condescending, in some ways Like, we sat through two hours of watching this guy destroy his life - do you really think we need a Keynote about why drinking is bad? Usually powerful moral reckonings happen when films respect our intelligence enough to let us wrestle with the questions ourselves.
great essay - tying this back to my ever-present attachment issues was the wake-up call i needed. thank you for that! the return of the king endings always worked for me since they had already sacrificed a significant portion of the epilogue from the book (which changed the underlying moral significantly, but that’s a discussion for another time), and i felt the hours (and hours) of build up deserved a send-off that large. i think the big mistake that ending makes are the multiple fade to black transitions, which are a bit jarring. nonetheless, i’m a huge fan of a brief conclusion that sparks more conversation that an over-explained metaphor. we get it already…
Thanks so much for this Keira! And you're absolutely spot on here - I don't necessarily think the ending of ROTK doesn't work - I just thought it was worth mentioning it as it was so explicit in its back to back false endings. I enjoyed it too (though as I reference the experience of watching its final sequences was quite... interesting haha)
What's fascinating to me about ROTK is that I saw the films before I read the books. So, when I got to all of the extra stuff in the shire at the end while reading... I was even more ready for it to be over. I can appreciate the themes Tokien was dealing with and wanting to give them closure, but I wonder if there was a way to do that that didn't involve the story continuing so far after the resolution of what had most definitely been the central focus of the trilogy.
I wonder if how we react to endings isn't another part of the ink-blot nature of art. One person's mead being another person's "eww, what is this shit?"
Great essay and timely, too, given that a lot of Hollywood movies nowadays refuse to give us any sense of an ending, even if a main character dies!
Regarding the ending of Promising Young Woman- the originally planned ending was much darker and more in line with the rest of the story. Emerald Fennell wanted to originally end it with the two guys burning the body and getting away with a crime again. It was the most realistic ending but the financiers had no intention of going with that. Fennell also thought it would be unrealistic for Carey Mulligan's character to kill everyone at the party, because an F-U revenge ending felt physically impossible. It was only after that she finally wrote the ending that was filmed. Had they gone with Fennell's originally planned ending, it would have hit differently, but I guess it would have affected the box office because most people want either a happily-ever-after ending or one that ties all the bows neatly. I suppose sometimes- or maybe a lot of times- the endings of a movie are dictated by money than by art (wouldn't be surprised if the Cast Away ending was stipulated by the financiers and studio than the writer and director).
I truly wish they had found a way to get that originally planned ending to the theaters. To me, it's the only thing that feels in line with how the story has gone that up to that point. It's interesting to contrast it to something like Once Upon A Time In Hollywood, where that wish-fulfillment happy ending is purposeful and clearly intended as a rewriting of history.
100% agreed. The OUATIH ending really packed a punch and that was the point. I suppose because Quentin Tarantino had built a track record, he was probably able to stick to his guns if the studio or producers balked. Perhaps Fennell will be able to get away with more shocking endings in future, one that doesn't compromise her vision.
Yessss, knowing about Fennell's original ending makes me even more frustrated with what we got. I'm torn though because I get why studios panic about dark endings. They're thinking about box office and audience scores, not artistic integrity. But it's exactly this kind of interference that turns sharp social commentary into crowd-pleasing revenge porn.
The physical impossibility angle you mention is interesting too. I do wonder if there's a middle ground between Fennell's original vision and the end result. Maybe something that felt more earned than the text-message-from-beyond resolution but still gave us some sense that Cassie's plan worked? Though honestly, the more I think about it, the more I like the idea of her just... losing. Sometimes the bad guys win, and pretending otherwise feels dishonest. Thanks for the behind-the-scenes context!!
When I first heard about the original ending, I wondered if it was the studio or producers that got panicked- considering that it was Margot Robbie and her LuckyChap Entertainment who bought the script. You're right about the crowd-pleasing revenge porn interpretation that we got with the ending they went with; though, like you, I also understand why the decision was made.
I love diving behind the stories of the scripts and the decisions taken on how they arrived at certain things. For instance, the script in PROMISING YOUNG WOMAN had a scene that was filmed then deleted where Cassie had a bruise from one of her encounters which showed just how dangerous her crusade was. I wish they'd kept it because it really grounds the danger of going on a vendetta. I don't know if there was a good middle ground for this story, though. Compare that with GET OUT- where Peele was able to have his cake and eat it too with the ending by hinting that the police have arrived by showing the flashing lights before revealing it's Rod come to rescue Chris; which was changed from the bleaker ending where Chris ends up arrested and in prison.
This is such a tough business and I'm sure Fennell did her best to figure out an ending that she could be happy with. Maybe she could remake it years down the road and use final cut privilege to do the original ending that she wanted. If Dean duBlois could remake his HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON movie as a live-action film, anything is possible!
This all seriously resonates. “Return of the King” ending has been my filmmaking collective’s shorthand for “didn’t know when to end it” for years — I’m relieved to see we aren’t alone.
As to the “why” and psychological underpinnings of fear of finishing things, this strikes a chord, as well. As a kid, I couldn’t finish food. Not a sandwich, banana, apple, anything. I still don’t like doing it. That last bite of anything only gets eaten off my plate if I’m trying to not offend the chef.
So it shouldn’t be a surprise the deciding factor in me once choosing to make a film was that the script had a beautiful bold fuck you non-ending. Another film I made has a “it was all a simulation” ending, which I actually re-wrote from something originally more grounded in the film’s reality.
In fact, I just got off the phone an hour ago with a director whose movie I’m producing currently, discussing possibly reshooting the ending of a film we are close to locking picture on, or throwing out the ending entirely! Just straight up cutting to black at the end of sequence 7. And to be honest, I find that idea incredibly thrilling.
Endings are hard! Painstakingly, brutally, teeth pullingly hard.
If I spent a decade or more of my life making the LOTR trilogy, I’d probably end it 9 times, too!
I will be sharing this with every filmmaker friend who is currently editing something — and will reference as I’m writing my next one. And even then, I’ll still change it in the edit. Isn’t that why we make films? To command the things on screen we can’t control in life? Like death, and other forced endings?
End it with sequence 7! It's almost always my favorite option!
Using your post Exhibit A as I present my case.
You have to let us know how it turns out.
For sure!
There aren't really any endings in real life. Endings just become new beginnings and everything is connected one to the other.
“They got married and lived happily ever after” -- well that happily ever after is a bigger sequence of events than the lead up to the wedding was.
Highschool fades into college fades into career fades into retirement. If you're ¿lucky?
Most individual humans die, cut to black, and drop out of the story - no sunset, no lacrimosa - and the greater story continues on.
This is probably why we have funerals, celebrations of life, etc. Humans need the satisfying narrative end.
You're right that life doesn't have neat conclusions - everything bleeds into everything else. But that's exactly why we need stories that DO end. Films aren't trying to replicate the messiness of real existence; they're trying to give shape and meaning to it.
When a movie knows how to end properly, it's not pretending life works that way. It's offering us something life can't: the satisfaction of seeing cause and effect, of witnessing consequences, of feeling like events add up to something larger than just "and then more stuff happened."
The funeral comparison is valid - our hunger for narrative closure probably comes from the same place as our need for rituals around death - we're trying to impose meaning on experiences that would otherwise feel random and overwhelming. But I'd argue that a good ending doesn't deny life's continuity so much as it captures a moment where all the story's elements come together into something we can actually hold onto. Like, yes, the hobbits' lives continued after Return of the King, but we didn't need to see Pippin's midlife crisis to feel satisfied by their story.
The endless sequels and extended universes are what happen when we try to make movies more like life. And most of them are boring as hell because of it.
I would argue the most like life is the cut to black. No wrap up, no fading into something else. To me, life has endings all the time and they are usually much more abrupt than we want. We turn them into dissolves and add postscripts so that we can give ourselves a chance to process what has happened.
I’ll be sure to credit you when I name my emo revival 2.0 band “Pippin’s Midlife Crisis”, because that phrase is incredible.
Further to Pippin's midlife crisis, maybe that reveals that all endings are inherently unsatisfying in some respects because they mean the transition from the adventure and magic back into normalcy and the mundane.
Pippin's midlife crisis could be a story on its own, but unfortunately for Pippin, it will always be underwhelming compared to the near-annihilation of the age of men that he fought against.
The "extra ending" always struck me as a sense of distrust. Particularly in films where there's a moral message, but one you'd have to decide for yourself. Something like "Flight" qualifies, where I figured Denzel would find the mini bar the night before his big hearing, and then you'd cut to black, wondering if he did the right thing in the end, or if you would have in his place. Then there's the whole bit where they find him the next morning, dress him up, and try to get him to the hearing. Again, there's the suspense -- is he going to get away with it, or is he going to do the right thing? And then that ending arrives in BIG CAPITAL LETTERS because Zemeckis just did not trust us to mentally make the right decision for this character, he didn't trust our morals as an audience at all.
Fromtheyardtothearthouse.substack.com
Oh man, for me the real 'extra ending' in that movie was everything after the plane crash. But that has more to do with the film kind of falling apart than anything else. What happened to Zemeckis? He was so good once upon a time...
YES! This is such a perfect example of what I was getting at. Flight would have been so much stronger if Zemeckis had just trusted us to sit with that ambiguity. The mini bar moment is already doing all the heavy lifting - we know exactly what Denzel's wrestling with, and our own relationship with addiction/moral compromise would fill in the rest.
This happens SO much with "issue" films. Directors get so anxious about their message being misunderstood that they over-explain everything until there's no room left for us to actually feel anything. The moral complexity that made the story interesting in the first place gets flattened into a very special episode. It's condescending, in some ways Like, we sat through two hours of watching this guy destroy his life - do you really think we need a Keynote about why drinking is bad? Usually powerful moral reckonings happen when films respect our intelligence enough to let us wrestle with the questions ourselves.
Thanks so much for your comment!
great essay - tying this back to my ever-present attachment issues was the wake-up call i needed. thank you for that! the return of the king endings always worked for me since they had already sacrificed a significant portion of the epilogue from the book (which changed the underlying moral significantly, but that’s a discussion for another time), and i felt the hours (and hours) of build up deserved a send-off that large. i think the big mistake that ending makes are the multiple fade to black transitions, which are a bit jarring. nonetheless, i’m a huge fan of a brief conclusion that sparks more conversation that an over-explained metaphor. we get it already…
Thanks so much for this Keira! And you're absolutely spot on here - I don't necessarily think the ending of ROTK doesn't work - I just thought it was worth mentioning it as it was so explicit in its back to back false endings. I enjoyed it too (though as I reference the experience of watching its final sequences was quite... interesting haha)
What's fascinating to me about ROTK is that I saw the films before I read the books. So, when I got to all of the extra stuff in the shire at the end while reading... I was even more ready for it to be over. I can appreciate the themes Tokien was dealing with and wanting to give them closure, but I wonder if there was a way to do that that didn't involve the story continuing so far after the resolution of what had most definitely been the central focus of the trilogy.
I wonder if how we react to endings isn't another part of the ink-blot nature of art. One person's mead being another person's "eww, what is this shit?"
Great essay and timely, too, given that a lot of Hollywood movies nowadays refuse to give us any sense of an ending, even if a main character dies!
Regarding the ending of Promising Young Woman- the originally planned ending was much darker and more in line with the rest of the story. Emerald Fennell wanted to originally end it with the two guys burning the body and getting away with a crime again. It was the most realistic ending but the financiers had no intention of going with that. Fennell also thought it would be unrealistic for Carey Mulligan's character to kill everyone at the party, because an F-U revenge ending felt physically impossible. It was only after that she finally wrote the ending that was filmed. Had they gone with Fennell's originally planned ending, it would have hit differently, but I guess it would have affected the box office because most people want either a happily-ever-after ending or one that ties all the bows neatly. I suppose sometimes- or maybe a lot of times- the endings of a movie are dictated by money than by art (wouldn't be surprised if the Cast Away ending was stipulated by the financiers and studio than the writer and director).
I truly wish they had found a way to get that originally planned ending to the theaters. To me, it's the only thing that feels in line with how the story has gone that up to that point. It's interesting to contrast it to something like Once Upon A Time In Hollywood, where that wish-fulfillment happy ending is purposeful and clearly intended as a rewriting of history.
100% agreed. The OUATIH ending really packed a punch and that was the point. I suppose because Quentin Tarantino had built a track record, he was probably able to stick to his guns if the studio or producers balked. Perhaps Fennell will be able to get away with more shocking endings in future, one that doesn't compromise her vision.
Yessss, knowing about Fennell's original ending makes me even more frustrated with what we got. I'm torn though because I get why studios panic about dark endings. They're thinking about box office and audience scores, not artistic integrity. But it's exactly this kind of interference that turns sharp social commentary into crowd-pleasing revenge porn.
The physical impossibility angle you mention is interesting too. I do wonder if there's a middle ground between Fennell's original vision and the end result. Maybe something that felt more earned than the text-message-from-beyond resolution but still gave us some sense that Cassie's plan worked? Though honestly, the more I think about it, the more I like the idea of her just... losing. Sometimes the bad guys win, and pretending otherwise feels dishonest. Thanks for the behind-the-scenes context!!
When I first heard about the original ending, I wondered if it was the studio or producers that got panicked- considering that it was Margot Robbie and her LuckyChap Entertainment who bought the script. You're right about the crowd-pleasing revenge porn interpretation that we got with the ending they went with; though, like you, I also understand why the decision was made.
I love diving behind the stories of the scripts and the decisions taken on how they arrived at certain things. For instance, the script in PROMISING YOUNG WOMAN had a scene that was filmed then deleted where Cassie had a bruise from one of her encounters which showed just how dangerous her crusade was. I wish they'd kept it because it really grounds the danger of going on a vendetta. I don't know if there was a good middle ground for this story, though. Compare that with GET OUT- where Peele was able to have his cake and eat it too with the ending by hinting that the police have arrived by showing the flashing lights before revealing it's Rod come to rescue Chris; which was changed from the bleaker ending where Chris ends up arrested and in prison.
This is such a tough business and I'm sure Fennell did her best to figure out an ending that she could be happy with. Maybe she could remake it years down the road and use final cut privilege to do the original ending that she wanted. If Dean duBlois could remake his HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON movie as a live-action film, anything is possible!