The Fake Life - Love movies? We do too!

Thursday, August 09, 2007

Riding A Unicorn Over The Lolipop Rainbow: The Bestest HAPPY Endings!

Everybody loves a happy ending, right? The 80's are known for a glut of feel good films. The geeks of my generation, raised on the nihilistic shit of the 70's, came to reject these artificially manufactured happy endings. The geek audience now has a knee-jerk reaction against any kind of happy ending, it seems. We reject a joyous conclusion as less valid than a tragic one. Our version of a happy ending is smothered in moral ambiguity. Fight Club, for all it's damn-the-man posturing, ends on the most old fashioned of happy endings as the boy kisses the girl... to a backdrop of mass urban destruction. It's hard to find a thoroughly unironic happy ending these days. I would dare say it's always been hard to find a legitimately good happy ending. And that's because a good happy ending - one that is heartfelt and, most importantly, one that is earned - is the hardest thing to pull off.

Eternal Sunshine of The Spotless Mind/Annie Hall - I guess the greatest romantic stories, from Romeo & Juliet to Casablanca, end on a sad note of thwarted love. A romantic comedy, however, is preordained to deliver a happy ending. It's the predictability that sinks most romantic comedies. What makes Sunshine and Annie Hall so unique and beautiful is that they both present doomed relationships and yet send us home feeling elated about the very notion of love itself. There are no outside forces conspiring against Alvy and Annie. No wacky misunderstandings sabotaging Joel and Clementine's relationship. Both couples dive head first into the tempest but fail to maintain due only to their own shortcomings. And yet, at the end, Alvy says it's all worth it. The good times will always outweigh the bad and he will always "need the eggs". When Clementine warns Joel that they will inevitably crash and burn if they attempt to reboot, his simple response - "Okay." - celebrates the beauty of love better than any extravagant Baz Luhrmann set piece ever could. Ironically, these two closing scenes demonstrate that love and happiness aren't defined by how the relationship ends.

Maximum Overdrive - A shining example of the triumphant FUCK YEAH happy ending. I would have said Jaws, but that one's way too obvious. Our heroes have been chased, imprisoned, run over and generally hassled by a slew of asshole trucks. The lead truck wears a giant Green Goblin face that mocks Emilio's every attempt at escape. But eventually the crew finds it's way out and hoofs it to the docks and precious freedom. The Goblin truck races down the road in hot pursuit, intent on slaughtering our ragtag gang of southern white folks. As the climax swells, the Goblin truck, having just run down another faceless extra, barrels towards our heroes. Emilio runs right in front of the 18 wheeled killer, spits out an "Adios, motherfucker!",and fires a missile straight into it's grill. The AC/DC music swells as the truck explodes gloriously and our heroes cheer. Roll credits! FUCK YEAH!

Breaking The Waves - I swear I didn't even see this ending coming. I thought this was a beautifully poignant story about tragedy and friendship. Up until the final scene, it's basically a take on The Monkey's Paw. An eccentric woman, who could only be played by Emma Watson, terrified of being without her husband, prays to God to bring him home from his job at an offshore oil rig. God delivers, but as we all know, God loves irony more than Generation X and the internet combined. The victim of a tragic accident, the husband is sent home a cripple from the neck down. What follows is a thoroughly depressing exploration of grief and guilt. Now we all know Watson really didn't cause this, right? And yet she is convinced this was God answering her prayer. And when she prays that God takes her in exchange for restoring her husbands health we all know that nothing can- HOLY SHIT HE'S WALKING AGAIN! WTF! And still I'm a cynic. Still there's some sort of explanation for this. Until the final scene, that is, when I am given no other choice but to believe that the clear, loud music of church bells emanating from the clouds for her husband to hear is unmistakably her soul singing the power of faith and conviction.

Planes, Trains & Automobiles - It's no surprise such a crowd pleaser from John Hughes would have a happy ending. By the time this came out we fully expected it from the man who had Ferris win the day and Molly win the weird looking guy with furry eyebrows. No, not Judd Nelson, the other one. But what elevates this ending, what makes it more than perfunctory, is the work of Mr. John Candy. This movie is a magic trick. We think we are following Steve Martin as he attempts get home. He's saddled with your average obnoxious American who's good for a few laughs, but you wouldn't want to spend three days with him. Candy, as the traveling shower curtain ring salesman, strikes the perfect balance of gut-bustingly funny and annoying. He pulls it off enough so you can accept the fact that Martin wouldn't have run screaming from the guy within a few hours. But Hughes performs some kind of brilliant misdirection here. While we're busy enjoying the story of Martin's journey, what we're really watching is Candy's story unfold. We're watching him attempt to cobble together a friendship. By the end of the film, we realize it was never about Martin. Of course he would eventually make it home with or without Candy's help. It's all about the traveling salesman looking for some kind of home of his own. It's at the end, when Martin takes Candy home and introduces him to his wife and family ("This is my friend."), that the trick is revealed. Candy's wacky bravado falls away and his look of bittersweet joy closes the film. Makes me cry like a girl every time.