Yesterday, my friend Roz and I went to the cinema (as we do every Wednesday because I have an Unlimited cinema card and she has orange Wednesdays) and saw - for lack of alternatives - Me and Orson Welles. Yes, shamefully, that is the Zac Efron one.
Now to be honest, the film itself wasn't too bad. The guy playing Orson Welles was truly awesome, Claire Danes was funny and Zac Efron was.....well, the guy playing Orson Welles was truly awesome. But on the whole the film had a lot going for it.....until the ending. It wasn't sad, it wasn't irritating, it just sort of...petered out. There was a definite conclusion, but it was a bit of a wet fart. This led, naturally, to a debate between myself and Roz on the different kinds of endings. We came up with five definitive categories, which are.....
1. Happy endings: e.g. Pretty Woman. The best. There's a solid conclusion, the threads are tied off and you watch the credits rolling up with a great big smile on your face. Almost every rom-com in the world has this ending, and anyone who doesn't like it is lying. And the best kind of happy endings, well, it's sealed with a kiss (bit of an in-joke there, sorry :P).
2. Profound/sad endings: e.g. The Green Mile. Now generally speaking I don't approve of endings that make me cry, but to be honest it's easily done, and the brutal truth is that some films just wouldn't work without a sad ending. I know it's depressing, but wouldn't it feel like a cop-out if Satine miraculously recovered, John Coffey was proven innocent and Juliet woke up in time to stop Romeo? So at the end you cry like a little baby, but you're not really surprised and you know that it had to happen. Sad, but true.
3. The nonexistent endings: e.g. The Golden Compass. I'm sorry, but it doesn't end, it just STOPS! They're so infuriating because there is no proper conclusion; you think that you're just reaching the middle of a very long film, and then the credits roll! I mean WHAT THE HELL?!?!?!
4. The writer-changed-his-mind-at-the-last-minute endings: e.g. (this one was added by Roz and I forgot the example she gave me :S.....they really irritate her though....). Basically, these are the ones wherein you were expecting a happy, cheerful, satisfying ending. But, at the last minute, everything suddenly changes, and before you have time to get your head around it the credits roll. With these you leave the cinema feeling just confused!
5. The wet fart endings: e.g. Me and Orson Welles. Pretty much described above. There's a conclusion and an ending, but you still leave the cinema feeling kind of unsatisfied...
So my (completely unqualified) advice to all future scriptwriters/authors is this: pick 1 or 2. Please, for the sake of anyone and everyone reading/watching, actually give your story and ending. Cheers muchly. :P
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