From “Saving Private Ryan” to “It’s a Wonderful Life,” Hollywood screenwriters are infamous for crafting either shockingly depressive or ridiculously optimistic endings, oscillating from one extreme to the other. One example of the latter is “Slumdog Millionaire,” nominated this year for the best picture Oscar. “Slumdog” is the quintessential rags-to-riches, overcome all difficulties film, with the main character rising from an orphaned child in India to a man with a gorgeous girl in his arms. The implausible, impossible escapist plots of movies like this can easily be delightfully heartwarming or laughably cliché.
Unfortunately, moviemakers have attempted to reverse the trend of repetitive, unoriginal, feel-good stories by instead creating “unexpected” conclusions that leave the audience with a feeling of hopeless emptiness. In last year’s best picture winner, “No Country for Old Men,” the protagonist is unexpectedly murdered, the brutally vicious villain gets away unpunished, and the anticlimactic conclusion resolves absolutely nothing. In fact, several of the films that received the premier Academy Award in recent years have ended with the death of the cherished hero — including “The Departed” and “Million Dollar Baby.” Hollywood is trying to send the message that life is tragic, does not have a happy ending, and is realistically miserable.
These upper echelon award-winners, however, do not make up the majority of mainstream movies. Rather, they are drowned out by happily-ever-after romances and triumphant underdog stories. According to Christopher Latham from the Chicago Tribune, these uplifting movies are actually at a popularity peak because Americans are “looking to escape the reality of these trying times through the fantasy of Hollywood.” But while “High School Musical” or “Facing the Giants” may produce a smile, their over-used, corny, fairy-tale endings can get tiresome.
Watching a film like “Slumdog Millionaire” inspires a warm feeling of contentment, sure, but serious realists will roll their eyes at the implausibly fanciful storyline. Cynical critics look down on happy endings like that of “Slumdog” as wishful or illusory, claiming that movies with such “magical” endings are departures from reality and havens for escapist romantics. Honestly though, there are dozens of excellent examples of true stories with storybook endings, including past blockbusters “Pursuit of Happyness” and “Miracle.” The real world is not always as bleak as Hollywood tries to make it appear.
Nevertheless, the truly extraordinary screenplays are the ones that perfectly offset heartbreak and joy to tug at the audience’s every emotion. Movies like “Braveheart,” in which the main character dies as a magnificent inspiration to overthrow evil, possess a substance and epic beauty that set them miles above the common cinema experience. “The Passion of the Christ,” the greatest story in history, is one of the most painful films ever created, but ends with the glorious resurrection of our Savior. The key to the perfect plot is a balance of happy and sad, a quasi-tragedy with some redeeming finale. So if you cry your heart out in your next visit to the theater, in both overwhelming joy and sincere sorrow, then the writers have done their job.
