If you’re looking for a nice family film you can actually show every demographic in your household, I would point you to August Rush. I saw it Friday with my actual family (not one I appear with on TV) and we never had to look away once in fear something untoward would pop up. It was a very sweet little movie with a nice message and you’ll recognize the singers who appear in the church scene of it from the Oscar awards this year.
What August Rush has too is a big finish. It’s one of those endings that we lead up to throughout the film with everything coming together in the final emotional climax. It feels like the writers pinned a lot of hope on this culminating moment, and it may not be entirely successful. Oddly, nothing really happens in August Rush, no one changes, really, and it may have been in service of trying to make the ending powerful.
Not to give too much away, but the movie centers on a musically-gifted child separated from his parents who hopes to bring them together — and does (and no I’m not giving anything away by telling you that!) The whole script is geared to the last moment, that one last look in the eyes of the principals, that one last explanation for why we came, and then we pretty much go to black.
It peaks in the final scene, and then it ends.
I don’t know if it was written this way, if the writers found the ending as they went, or started out thinking “wouldn’t it be cool to have it all conclude in the last minute!” from the very beginning. But it’s an interesting movie convention that I love to see attempted and don’t see often enough.
And it got me thinking that this story capper almost belongs in its own category because it offers such unique challenges.
The big finish, the one we’ve been waiting for throughout the film, and go out on once seen, is an art, and one of the great pleasures of being a movie watcher. As a screenwriter, I have never tried this, probably because it is usually more geared to dramas and thrillers.
Of the great endings like this, I can think of a couple that truly took my breath away.
#1 on my hit parade for the most shocking, abrupt — and yet still satisfying — ending ever is Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo. The final moment in which Jimmy Stewart, and we, realize what’s happened and the fact this mystery really is over, literally stunned me. I saw this movie on VHS when the re-issue first came out and I could have sworn they cut out a part. But no. It’s just one of the great endings of all time.
Another would have to be the original Shop Around the Corner, also a Jimmy Stewart starrer, this one a romantic comedy and one Nora Ephron based You’ve Got Mail on. The original ends with the reveal that Margaret Sullavan now knows who her pen pal lover is, and that he’s staring her right in the face with the telltale flower in his lapel signifying his secret admirer status. We’ve been waiting the whole movie for this moment, to see the lovers reveal themselves to each other. And as I recall, it’s the last thing we see. Fade out.
The art of running up to and executing the big finish is one I would like to try in future scripts, and in fact the challenge of figuring out the best, most shocking, most spectacular Boom!… then Fade Out, might be a great starting point for a screenplay you write.
Meantime, what are your all-time, great final scenes that immediately go to THE END?
There’s always this one that I use to end many a phone machine message:
“Oh, and by the way, I hid the gold in the…”
But that’s really meant to make you call me back!
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The ending of Say Anything with the main characters holding each other during take off on a plane to London is perfect in this way. “Ding!”
When William Hurt finally, deeply smiles, in Accidental Tourist!
“There Will Be Blood” ends fairly abruptly. “I’m finished!”
“Blood Simple”, with that little drop of water.
“The Graduate” after Dustin yanks Katherine Ross out of the church.
“Thelma and Louise” and the ride off the cliff.
And I also remember still reeling from the end of “The Usual Suspects” when you realize it’s Kevin Spacey. You can barely catch your breath before he says “And just like that he’s gone”.
Black.
Wow.
what about the ending of “No Way Out”? Very Cool.
End of “Being Thereâ€
As we hear in voice over, “Life is a state of mind.â€
We see Peter Sellers as the character Chance walk on water.
Then fade out.
Oh, and by the way, there’s a golden story about how the ending came to be, but…
This is not *quite* the same thing, but I’ve always loved the ending of the otherwise mediocre Patriot Games for similar reasons. Harrison Ford’s wife has been pregnant during the whole movie and after the main plot about IRA terrorists is resolved, there is a final scene with the family having a peaceful breakfast at their home.
The wife is on the phone with her doctor who asks her if she wants to know the sex of her baby. She relays the question to her family who answer a big Yes. She hears the answer (we don’t) and she hangs up.
Her family look at her, and Harrison Ford says, “Tell us.”
Cut to black. End credits.
Hard to beat the beauty and power of the last line of the Academy Award-winning 2006 Foreign Film: “The Lives of Others.”
And for comedy: the last line of “Some Like It Hot”
Does the Karate Kid qualify? I remember it having a very abrupt ending though satisfying–at least for me.
Best
I concur with the ending of Patriot Games and for similar reasons, Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow. “Lenscap!” I may be one of the few people who loved endings that many people considered very unsatisfying, like No Country for Old Men and even Back to the Future II.
Those aren’t big punch endings though. Two of my favorite big punches were the final scenes of No Way Out and Primal Fear.
The Sixth Sense: you quickly played back all the Bruce Willis scenes and realized he didn’t have to be there for those conversations to take place. He was not there physically, but as a ghost; all the while helping the boy deal with the other ghosts. It then made sense why the boy was afraid of him at first… the list goes on!
Of the movies I have seen recently, I remember There Will Be Blood having a great ending sequence, and just love all of Daniel Day-Lewis’ lines at the end of that film, especially the milkshake bit and “DRAAAAAAAAAIIINNNNAGE!”
The Departed had a great ending too, with the duplicitious Matt Damon finally getting his in the end.
I’m also going to agree with the above that the ending to The Usual Suspects is probably one of the best twist endings in all film.
We haven’t yet mentioned the classic endings to “Citizen Kane” and “Casablanca.” Sure, no-brainers but I gotta get them in. Anthony Quinn in that great pullback crane shot on the beach at the end of “La Strada” always gets to me.
The big pull-the-rug-out-from-under-ya surprise endings that have been popular since “The Sixth Sense” were fun at the beginning but to me have gotten a little gimmicky recently. I’m just saying. I go for emotional impact. Mozart’s giggling on the fade to black at the ending of “Amadeus” can’t be topped.
“The Full Monty” – Perfect ending. Title paid off. Even kind of a family film…kind of.