Clerks II didn’t have that unhappy an ending. By deciding to stay, buy the Quick Stop, and marry Becky, Dante was actually getting into a happier situation than the one that he had almost gotten into. After all, Emma didn’t really love him as much as she claimed to. She was marrying him because she was in her thirties and had gone through several romances with guys who were more popular and successful than Dante. She only was marrying him because the popular, successful guys had treated her badly and dumped her. She decided that she had better settle for a less popular and successful guy like Dante, since he was unlikely to jerk her around. Furthermore, the job that Dante was going to get in Florida after he and Emma moved there after their marriage wasn’t that great a job anyway. He would be running the carwash that his father-in-law-to-be owned. Dante decided to reject a better-paying but less independent job for a less-well-paying but more independent job. Also, Dante really loved Becky more than Emma, but he had felt that he had to go through the wedding because he couldn’t dump Emma.
Small Time Crooks
The Story of O?
Plus I could live with that man and his voice forever
American Graffiti:
Everybody ends up staying in Bakersfield. Even Kurt had second thoughts, but everybody else forces him to get on that plane.
Presumably, they cruise the nights away, Milner gets killed, Toad goes MIA in Viet Nam and whats-his-name marries his highschool girlfriend and ends up selling insurance.
Egads!
The message of Gung Ho to US auto workers: Quit the unions, work harder, and embrace your new overlords.
To some degree, Brokeback Mountain. Ennis knew his place might maybe be with Jack, but he settled for a more “normal” life.
Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore. Ellen Burstyn is going to California to be a singer and she’s not interested in finding a husband. She ends up staying in Phoenix (?) with Kris Kristofferson.
Yeah, but she would have known deep down that the prince didn’t really love her, and that she didn’t really love him. Her refusal to go through with it was kinda the opposite of settling.
Sorry. Thanks for the correction.
But the movie promotes the idea that rich people should stay with rich people and working-class people should stay with working-class people, no? I sure remember being surprised by that the last time I saw it.
(i.e., Tracy remarrying Dex and Mike staying with photog gal is presented as the right thing to do, not as any sort of tragic circumstance.)
Well, the settling there is the tragedy of the movie. That the two of them, discovering each other in the times that they did, were forced to be other than what they could be. The fact that they had to deny their own happiness and conform to an expectation imposed on them by others makes the case that their settling was a tragedy.
One could almost say the same thing about ‘Up in the Air’ with George Clooney. In the end, even though he tries to improve his life, he falls back into his depressing, isolated routine.
Just what I was going to say.
That is an interesting article, and it makes some good points. It does make me wonder how many movies, especially kids movies, are made where the hero succeeds at an improbable goal after lots of hard work and luck, not just out of luck. Even in movies where the underdog or underdogs start working hard in practice or whatever to achieve their goals, it’s a lot less work than the evil opponent has put in, put still the underdog wins.
Toy Story
Both Woody and Buzz Lightyear.
Woody had to come to terms with the idea that he was no longer Andy’s favorite, and settle for second-best.
Buzz had to realize that he couldn’t really fly and that he was not in a perpetual science fiction adventure - he was just a plastic toy.
Didn’t The Incredibles have a similar theme/message? I only saw it once but I remember walking out thinking something similar.
The story of Icarus from Greek mythology. “Don’t fly too high, dumbass”.
The Great Gatsby - “She’s just not that into you no matter how many nuevo riche parties you throw, dumbass”.
The Devil Wears Prada. Moral: if you can get a huge boost to your career by working a tough job for difficult people and eating shit for a year, but you don’t get to spend as much time with your boyfriend as he’d like or you occasionally have to cancel dinner with your friends, it’s absolutely not worth it.
I dunno. Benjamin Stone did end up in some place different then where he started from and where he thought he should be.
Is either a movie where settling is “the tragedy” or one where the protagonist “tries to improve his life” but “falls back” a movie that praises settling? 
“It exists or happens” ≠ “it’s a good thing.”:smack:
I haven’t seen “Brokeback Mountain” but I didn’t get the impression that the ending of “Up In The Air” was in the spirit of “hurrah, Clooney’s character is back where he belongs.” :dubious: As opposed to “It’s a Wonderful Life” or “The Devil Wears Prada,” where the movie clearly approves of the protagonist abandoning their one-time ambition.
I interpreted the ending of “Up In the Air” as Clooney’s character abandoning his existing lifestyle to cash in his miles and find something new, the events of the movie having moved him to question how much fulfillment he was really getting. Was he really going back to his old ways?
Also, wasn’t the ambition in “It’s a Wonderful Life” to commit suicide?