Thursday Movie Picks: Devastating Crushing Endings

This weeks theme describes exactly how I feel about quite a few films. Movies with Devastating Crushing Endings that Makes You Want to Weep. Don't forget to check out what Wandering Through the Shelves picked, the blog that started Thursday Movie Picks.

I think there is a difference between depressing endings and depressing films and unsatisfying endings are a whole other problem. I don't believe in the 'Hollywood' edning and that it works all the time, but when a film has been dragging you through the mud the whole way through, a light at the end isn't too much to ask. So follows 3 threes I watched once (except 2, I watched that twice for some crazy reason) and never again. They seem to also follow a pattern, drugs, sexual abuse and death.

1. Breaking the waves

I remeber while writing an essay for Uni about Dogme 95 I sought this films out as it was part of the movement and meant to be highly acclaimed. What I saw was one of the most depressing films I had ever seen. A young Scottish woman, Bess, falls in love with and soon marries an  oil rig worker, Jan. But while on the rig he is serverely injured resulting him being paralyzed. He asks her to take a lover. She ends up being shunned by her church, then raped and murdered by some sailors. It's just all round horrible. Sorry if that spoilt it for some people but its a sad film, you need to know going in.

2. Requiem for a Dream

I'm not sure how anyone could have read the book, let alone watch this film more than once. I watched it twice and I regret it. It is a well made film but the stories are just so bleak, not to mention the ending, seeing all the characters curling up, each having ruined their lives with herion and pills. One driven crazy by diet pills, one loosing an arm after being infected, one turned to prostitution and the other in prison being absued. This whole film is the best anti drugs campagine and would put anyone off drugs surely. I don't actually remember any happy moments in this film.

3. 21 Grams

The second film in the 'Death Trilogy' and for it was the weakest as it was too down trodden. Three people with strong connections. Recovering drug addict released from prison then accidentally kills the husband and children of another recovering drug addict in a car accident. Dying man whose wife wants a child, recieves the heart of the dead husband only to have the organ reject him. There is a bit about revenge in there but ultimately there is real happy ending, these people are all scarred and will remain that way. The title of the film is interesting though, apparently when we die, we loose 21 grams and it's meant to be our soul leaving our bodies.