In My Opinion: Good Films Should End Badly
Star! Expert opines on noble tragedies
Blog by Star!Expert, Friday, February 10, 2006
In my opinion the best films end badly. Not Forrest Gump-badly where a CGI feather floats away while Haley Joel Osment channels Tom Hanks channeling Rain Man… that’s just bad. I mean badly like where a main character tragically dies or things don’t work out perfectly. Think about it – Leonardo goes all ice-cube at the end of Titanic and girls the world over melted (the movie really should have ended there instead of having Ol’ Rose wandering around in her housecoat and chucking huge diamonds into the sea, but I digress).
That was a complete downer but still managed to make close to 2 billion dollars worldwide. And it’s not just me that likes the unhappy endings – look at any list of the best films of all time and you’ll find Casablanca (boy loses girl), Sunset Boulevard (girl shoots boy), Chinatown (father shoots daughter), Nashville (crazy man shoots presidential candidate), Taxi Driver (crazy man tries to shoot presidential candidate but kills pimp instead), Citizen Kane (man dies at beginning of film and then has his sled burned)…
