Invasion of the Body Snatchers, at least the more recent version. I don’t remember how the original ends.
I’d dispute two of those. Welcome to the Dollhouse ends with Dawn Weiner finally catching on to the rhythms and finding an environment where she’s not a freak. (Happiness is a much bigger downer.) Boogie Nights, although we all know the AIDS epidemic is merely days away from exploding, ends with these sorry misfits finding the only family they’ve ever really known; it’s about as happy an ending as can be expected.
More downers: ** The Grifters, Sounder, Last Tango in Paris, Godfather 3.**
How about Roger & Me - particularly in light of what has happened to that city since then…
Spoilers for both Welcome to the Dollhouse and Boogie Nights below…
Really? I interpreted it as her going on a trip to Disney World (or land?) that she didn’t even really want to go on because she has to. And then at the end when you hear her singing merging with everyone else’s–it’s like she’s totally integrated, but unwillingly, into the fold. Slipping between the cracks, so to speak. I didn’t see any evidence that she liked or fit in with anyone else there on that bus.
It looked so sad, though. The main character just staring at his huge penis in the mirror…it looked like he knew it all really meant nothing, this dehumanizing world where all that mattered about him was that one body part.
I’m surprised no one mentioned Ironweed with Jack Nicholson and Meryl Streep. That is truly one of the most depressing, and emotionally draining movies I’ve ever seen, with some of the most phenomenal performances at the same time (as you would expect). Misery, followed by tragedy, followed by misery, wash, rinse, repeat…
That and the aforementioned Monster are two movies I’ll never see again.
One of my constant complaints is that Hollywood takes SF stories and changfes them out of recognition. Both of these movies are based on Philip K. Dick stories, but they don’t resemble the original stories much. And, in particular, the endings are completely different. So you can’t pin this on Dick.
Come to think of it, you could make that statement about practically every movie supposedly based on a Philip K. Dick work. And there are a lot of them.
Citizen Kane
and
Penn and Teller Get Killed
Make of it what you will, but Dawn Weiner later commits suicide in Palindromes. There’s not a lot of hope to be found in Todd Solondz movies.
Le Salaire de la Peur (The Wages of Fear), and its America remake Sorceror. These movies have been discussed here before (and led to my only mod warning), but I have to say that I like the remake a little better, in part for the ending. Just when it looks like Scanlon has caught a break, his past catches up to him. The original achieved its downbeat ending with a deus ex michelin.
I’ve only seen it once, but I don’t remember any happily-ever-after at the end of Rififi.
And I’ll put The Hustler up for consideration. Eddie beats Fats, and grows enough to defy Bert, but I don’t think any of those characters were happy again for a long time.
Why does everyone keep saying Requiem for a Dream didn’t have a happy ending? Hey, at least she was working!
Brotherhood of the Wolf, which was not a good movie, didn’t have any semblance of a happy ending. In fact, it felt pointless.
I would like to second Umberto D. and Bicycle Thieves, two of the most depressing Italian movies I’ve ever, ever seen. Excellently made, but God protect me from ever seeing them again.
Actually, Palindromes was supposed to be about what happened an older Dawn Weiner. However, when Solondz approached Heather Matarazzo about reprising her character, Matarazzo apparently wanted too much money and generally acted so diva-ish that the two had a falling out. As a result, Solondz had to rewrite **Palindromes ** so that it would be about a new character and spitefully dealt with Dawn Weiner by having it mentioned she committed suicide after suffering a series of further indignities and humiliations.
Moral: never piss off a writer.
Fargo
I’d dispute that one.
Life for Marge and Norm Gunderson was pretty good. Aside from the little stamp mishap, that last scene with them was really sweet.
Yeah. Norm is miffed that his artwork was only put on the 2-cent stamp, but all-in-all they seem to be doing OK. The crime was solved and the guilty punished.
You betcha.
The almost completely forgotten Burt Lancaster movie Twilight’s Last Gleaming. Not to give it away, but a lot like The Parallax View in its general outlook.
The German film Stalingrad. The Germans are the protagonists in this movie. The battle of Stalingrad didn’t go too well for the Germans. Nuff said.
Did someone mention The Talented Mr. Ripley and I just missed it?
Gestalt
About Hays-era happy endings: what are some movies where a happy ending was tacked on that was so ridiculously out of synch with the rest of the film, so artificially glurgy, that it’s obvious that the director was flipping the bird at the censors? I’ve heard this claimed about Bad Seed but I’ve never seen it for myself.