Film endings are maybe the most important part of a film. It's a shame how a terrible ending can damage an otherwise exceptional work.
I have said before that I am compiling a list of great films with terrible endings. Films like Million Dollar Baby, the Petrified Forest and Return of the Jedi end up on lists like that. They are films that are otherwise exceptional but (usually) with egregious character violations at the end. As my son Ben said, "once you set up a universe in your story, the characters have to operate and stay within that universe." Hear, hear!
When a producer or director or writer goes to all the trouble to set up a world and tell us a story from that world, when the effort is at its best, the effect can be absolutely absorbing. The best stories have that going for them: well-crafted plots, deep characters, (proper casting in the case of film), meaningful dialogue, excellent minor characters and subplots, all working together to give us a genuine lightning-in-a-bottle experience. It doesn't happen often.
I was excited for Lost Weekend for a number of reasons. First off, it won 4 Academy awards:
Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, and Best Adapted Screenplay. That in and of itself does not guarantee a good film, but it certainly means something. Secondly, it deals with the subject of alcoholism, something that I also fought with for eight years before winning. The scenes (more that half the film) where Ray Milland shows a man who cannot break the hold that the liquor has on him are genuine. The directing, cinematography, music, sound and lighting all combine to give us a view into the life of a man with no control. And its perfect.
While Ray's brother is ready to write him off (he's been taking care of and supporting the drunk for years), Ray has a sweetheart who just will not give up on him, no matter how bad he gets. She is the only person who he puts through the wringer worse than he does himself. And she won't quit. He's awful to her and everyone around him. He ditches responsibility, steals money, lies, cheats, and makes excuse after excuse on why he can't do better. Oh, and did I mention that he wants to be a professional writer, but has no confidence or commitment to get that done? Yeah this film hits close to the bone.
It's a 100 minute riveting ride that takes you inside the world of alcoholism, and shows you not only the base behaviors that people talk themselves into, but the results of those behaviors, such as hallucinations, illness, injury and possibly death. I thought I knew how things were going to end up. I was wrong.
I didn't dislike the ending because i disagreed with it. There are plenty of films that have disagreeable endings, but still make sense. No, this film's problem was that the resolution at the end had a huge character violation. That's a no-no. You can't expect me to invest 95 minutes of emotional energy (well worth it by the way), and them wrap it up with a terrible character violation the last 5 minutes. It leaves a bad taste in the viewers' mouths.
IMDB says 7.9/10. If the ending had been viable, I would rank it even higher. But because of what happened, I'm going to drop it to just outside the good threshold of "7" and give it a 6.9. It really is a shame. It could have been a spectacular film.
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