Hello everyone! Welcome to Thursday Movie Picks! Thursday Movie Picks is a weekly series of three recommended films of a certain theme. This meme is hosted by Wandering Through The Shelves. If you want to join this series, please check that link!
Prepare your tissues, bucket, and heart, because this week's theme is devastating crushing endings that makes you want to weep. Now, I almost mismatched MAKES YOU WANT TO WEEP with depressing films. So I watched a couple of films with devastating endings. Yes, they have devastating and crushing endings. But instead of making me weep, they just depress me. So I rack my brain and here are the three films that make me weep.
Atonement (Joe Wright, 2007)
I get it, these people who involved in Atonement's film were trying to make me feel my own feels. If that's your mission, congratulations, you accomplished it!
I guess what makes Atonement's ending is so crushing because it shows the ugly Murphy's Law and how a second chance for a tiny mistake can be unavailable. We have this certain illusion that things will work fine and we will arrive in a "happily ever after" but...shit happens.
Never Let Me Go (Mark Romanek, 2010)
I'm not great with deep analysis and reading between the lines. In my humble opinion, it shows that realizing how much you've wasted your life is more torturing than being dead.
The Imitation Game (Morten Tyldum, 2014)
Whoever knew that a man's service to the world could be overlooked by his sexuality? It really pained me how some people's action can be forgotten by trivial things.
The worse part? There's a fat chance what The Imitation Game's ending shows us is just a very small piece of Alan Turing's real suffering.
Wow, I just realized all of my picks are British films.
Honorable mentions:
Life is Beautiful (Roberto Benigni, 1997)
Letters from Iwo Jima (Clint Eastwood, 2006)
5 Centimeters per Second (Makoto Shinkai, 2007)
The Boy with Striped Pyjamas (Mark Herman, 2008)
Blue Valentine (Derek Cianfrance, 2010)
A Werewolf Boy (Jo Sung Hee, 2012)
Ain't Them Bodies Saint (David Lowery, 2013)
Two themes within the theme! Love that!! First the British theme and then the Keira Knightley theme. I completely agree about films that have endings that make you weep don't have to be depressing just evoke an emotional response. Depressing films just leave you feeling depleted.
BalasHapusI didn't care for Never Let Me Go much but the other two are wonderful films. Atonement, packed wall to wall with great acting, is a real heartbreaker. I'm not a crier but the resolution of this choked me up, helped enormously by Vanessa Redgrave's wonderful closing vignette.
Since I knew Turing's story going in I wasn't knocked for a loop by the ending but Cumberbatch really poured himself into the part and the film did pack an emotional wallop.
I went with films similar in feeling to yours, sorrowful more than devastating. I have an affinity for this type of film so I ended up with an extra I just couldn't leave off.
It's My Party (1996)-Eric Roberts, in the best performance of his career, plays Nick Stark a man with AIDS who chooses to end his life when told by his doctor that he is entering the final stages of PML which will reduce him to a vegetative state prior to death. Before doing so though he throws one last big party to say goodbye to all his friends and family. Randal Kleiser, director of Grease, based this on personal experience and called on many industry friends to work for scale. The film is loaded with a star filled cast including Olivia Newton-John, Margaret Cho, Marlee Matlin, Lee Grant (wonderful as Roberts’ mother) and a host of others. Laced throughout with gallows humor this will still punch you in the gut by its conclusion.
Running on Empty (1988)-In their youth protesting American involvement in the Vietnam War Arthur and Annie Pope (Judd Hirsch & Christine Lahti) bomb a napalm plant resulting in the blinding of a man who was there by mistake. They’ve been on the run ever since along with their two children. It's now sixteen years later and the musically gifted older son Danny (River Phoenix) longs to quit running and pursue his own dreams but his leaving will tear the family apart and he may never see them again. Can the family spare him and can he handle the loss if he decides to go? The film doesn't go for easy answers leading to an emotional workout. Phoenix was nominated for an Oscar and Lahti should have been.
Dark Victory (1939)-Bette Davis plays Judith Traherne a headstrong somewhat reckless 24 year old heiress who lives life on her own terms until she starts suffering from crippling headaches. It's discovered she has a brain tumor and she has what appears to be successful surgery. During her recovery she falls for her handsome doctor and they plan a life together only for her to stumble across the fact that her prognosis is negative and she only has a short time to live. How she copes with that information fuels the rest of the movie. Beautifully acted with a poignant deeply moving final act.
Honorable Mention-All Mine to Give (1957)-A young Scot couple (Glynis Johns & Cameron Mitchell) face many hardships as well as joys as they build a life in the logging town of Eureka, Wisconsin during the 1850’s, having six children along the way. When the family is hit by a succession of tragedies the mother extracts a promise from oldest son Robbie to secure the futures of his siblings. As Christmas approaches he sets out to fulfill her wish. The audience weeps. Based on a true story the British release title of this picture was “The Day They Gave Babies Away”.
I just realize it, haha!
HapusGuess I'm a bit cold-hearted because neither Atonement nor Never Let Me Go did anything. Just wasn't a fan of either. Need to see The Imitation Game.
BalasHapusAh such great picks and nice to see all Britosh - us brits can do sad costume dramas all day. Never Let Me Go is a stand out, such deep emotional characters and yet they're not really allowed to express any of it. The end is just too much.
BalasHapusAnd all with Keira Knightley, is she a bunch of sad? I love the ending of Imitation Game although it's not as tragic as I thought it would be.
BalasHapusI agree it's not tragic, but it doesn't make it less painful.
HapusOh boy-I was one that hated Atonement because I found it so boring. In fact there were 5 of us who went and we all found it boring. The ending was great and a surprise but blecchhh:) I have not seen the 2nd film but I agree about the last one., How sad about this brilliant man and he deserved an Oscar for his portrayal of this man
BalasHapusI LOVE these picks! All three great, emotionally effective films.
BalasHapusKomentar ini telah dihapus oleh administrator blog.
BalasHapusHonestly, both Atonement and Imitation Game made me cry. Atonement was the first movie which ending got me feeling so suffocated. As for Imitation Game, well, isn't it just sad that someone was unfairly prosecuted just for being who he is. And it's even sadder because such thing is still common right now.
BalasHapusAnyway, I nominated you for The Sunshine Blogger Awards 2016: http://itcaughtmyeyes.com/?p=1975
I'd be very happy if you take some time to read and take part in it! ;)