The Attraction of Ambiguity

When it comes to films, I’ve never really been one for happy endings. It’s just too satisfying when you know that everything works out in the end and you can just forget about it, safe in the knowledge that the guy got the girl; the bad guy lost; they all lived happily ever after. I love a film that leaves you guessing, wondering long after you’ve left the cinema and brushed the popcorn off your clothes. I love a film with an ambiguous ending that’s open to endless interpretations, where there’s no definite answer and it’s all left to the viewer to decide what happens and how they want to story to end. Or perhaps not how they’d like it to end, but how they think it ends. A film like that will open discussion and linger on your mind even when you’ve forgotten the predictable finale of Endless Love.

My Own Private Idaho: "This road will never end.
It probably goes all around the world."

An unclear film ending differs from a plot twist. Sure, unexpected twists are great: how could you ever forget Fight Club (1999), The Usual Suspects (1995) or Shutter Island (2010)? Or maybe you prefer a more classic twist as in Hitchcock’s Psycho (1960) or one which collapses into the utterly ridiculous like in From Dusk till Dawn (1996). Among the most famous are The Sixth Sense’s (1999) “I see dead people”, the undeniably creepy turn of events in 2009’s Orphan and the absolutely brilliant The Crying Game (1992). To a lesser extent, Sam Mendes’s American Beauty (1999), along with Donnie Darko (2001) have shock value in ending not at all how you would expect.

At the same time, there is an element of satisfaction in a plot twist – although unanticipated, you still know what happens and/or what was happening all along. What makes an ambiguous ending different, and what I like about them so much, is that you don’t get that satisfaction. Everything’s up in the air, totally up to the viewer. No one knows the answers for sure (often not even the director).
    

Jack Nicholson as Jack Torrance in Stanley Kubrick's
1980 adaption of Stephen King's novel
(Source: faqtheshining.blogspot.com)

One of my favourite films is Gus Van Sant’s 1991 B-movie My Own Private Idaho, starring River Phoenix and Keanu Reeves and loosely based on Shakespeare’s Henry IV, Part 1, Henry IV, Part 2, and Henry V. Mike is a gay street hustler who suffers from narcolepsy who embarks on a journey to find his mother from his hometown in Idaho to Italy, along with fellow hustler Scott. At the end of the film, Mike is back on the anonymous road in Idaho where he began the film when he takes a narcoleptic fit and soon after some truckers steal his backpack and shoes, an unidentified figure pulls up and takes him away in the car. Was it Scott, coming back for the man he knew loved him? Was it his Dad, feeling regretful for deceit and time lost with his son? Or perhaps just a twisted opportunist? “I cut that end bit,” Gus Van Sant says, “for a couple of reasons. First, it really tied everything up in a nice little bow. I think it works much better with the ambiguity. Second, I realized in editing that the movie was about making your own families, not being tied to the one you’re born with. And Mike's brother had been portrayed as kind of a dick, so maybe ending up with his family isn't for the best. Who knows who's in that car? It could be the love of his life who takes him to Italy. I don't know.” The director has said that’s it up to the viewer to decide who picks up Mike; however, he later said that in his version, it is him who picks Mike up.

"Hang on, lads; I've got a great idea."
(Source: theguardian.com)

Countless movies feature vague endings. I’m sure the final scenes of American Psycho (2000) left more than a few people scratching their heads, and whether Rose dies or is dreaming at the end of Titanic (1997) is equally unclear (I cry like a baby either way). As Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining (1980) fades out in its final moments, we see Jack Nicholson as Jack Torrance in a photo from a party at the hotel in 1921, after we’ve just seen him die out in the snow. Had Jack Torrance been at The Overlook Hotel before then – perhaps forever? Similar questions are posed at the end of The Grey (2011): does Liam Neeson defeat the pack of wolves that have been perusing him and killing his friends? We never hear what Michael Caine’s “great idea” is in the tense final scene of The Italian Job (1969). A wonderful film based on the novel by Yann Martel, 2012’s Life of Pi has got to be one of the best ambiguous endings of recent years. When the ship sank, did Pi really spend months and months at sea in a lifeboat with a Bengal tiger or was it all an elaborate metaphor to fool the authorities? I guess we’ll never know for sure (though I reckon it’s true).

Marsellus Wallace's soul?
(Source: neatorama.com)

One of the most famous motifs in cinema is the elusive briefcase in Pulp Fiction (1994) with its 666 lock code. What was the source of that faint golden glow that so startled Tim Roth and that Samuel L. Jackson carried around with him? There are several theories that have surfaced about the briefcase’s contents: gold or diamonds, drugs, Michael Jackson’s other glove, the Oscar that Tarantino hoped to win, the Holy Grail, the ear from Reservoir Dogs or, as I like to believe, the soul of Marsellus Wallace. Quentin Tarantino revealed that the contents of the briefcase simply acted as a plot device containing tin foil and an orange lightbulb, and so it’s likely that there was nothing in it at all… but hey, I can dream, can’t I?