I feel like I’m not able to watch a lot of movies anymore.
I’m always so busy with schoolwork and trekking to go so a movie or even taking
time out of the day to watch Netflix just doesn’t fit into my life. However,
when I used to watch movies I always found myself drawn to the cheesy endings.
It didn’t have to always be the happiest or most satisfying of endings, but if
there was a good montage at the end I always walked out of the theatre with a
smile on my face.
Movies:
The “Titanic” still has one of the best endings in my
opinion… You don’t exactly know what happens to Rose, but you do know that the
ending is hopeful. She is at peace. The music montage where we see what she did
with her life, what Jack allowed her to do by letting her live is actually very
satisfying.
Another one of my favorite endings is for the movie,
“Remember the Titans” because the viewers are able to find out what happens to
the character and even though the end may not be perfect for many (spoiler, one
of them dies) it is still a very hopeful ending.
The end of the “Patriot” is still one of my favorites. The
entire movie is just one depressing event after another, yet at the end when
they rebuild their house and their family, you feel a sense of hope for them.
Books:
Some of my favorite books have very abstract endings where
the reader is left wondering where the story will go. One of my favorite books that I read in middle
school was “Speak” by Laurie Halse Anderson. The book tells the story of a
teenage rape victim and her subsequent fall afterwards. While in the end she
has gotten justice for the crime, we are still unsure what direction her life
will take.
I had to read the play A
Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams for my English class senior
year and while I thought the ending was very depressing (the character Blanche
is raped by her sister Stella’s husband Stanley and subsequently shipped off to
a mental facility when she chooses not to believe her) I still found it very
intriguing because both Blanche and Stella are more similar than they
originally thought. They are both delusional in some ways.
Another one of my favorite literary endings is the end of “Middlesex”
by Jeffrey Eugenides. Cal, the main character, makes peace with who he is even though his relationship ends and his family has fallen apart in many ways.
Favorite Endings from Short Stories in Class:
One of the endings that stuck out the most to me was in “A
Good Man is Hard to Find” by Flannery O’Connor. It was a twist ending because
throughout the story, although there is some foreshadowing, the reader is not
expecting the entire family to be massacred.
Another great ending would probably be in the “Purple
Hibiscus.” While it may be a sad ending, I think that there is still hope for
the characters at the end.
My favorite ending was for the story “A Temporary Matter.” I
really thought that the couple might work things out and stay together so it
was a bit of a shock for me.
Sometimes, I like to imagine that my life is a movie and
place various songs with different moments in my head. This is definitely
happening to me as I write my story. I can visualize it like I could a movie. I
don’t think that this story will have an ending where the character is
satisfied, but it will be hopeful (since it’s based off of my life I should
hope it would be).