George Bernard Shaw’s play Pygmalion is almost the archetype for this. Eliza does not stay with Henry Higgins. Shaw even wrote a lengthy afterword for the published edition of the play, explaining what happened afterwards.
Of course, they changed it for the musical “My Fair Lady”, with Lerner and Lowe (in the published edition of their play) saying that they didn’t think Shaw got it right.
But…
One thing I have NEVER understood is that, in the 1938 Leslie Howard/Wendy Hiller movie, which has a screenplay by Shaw himself (and for which he won an Oscar)*, ends with Eliza going back to Higgins. I was flabbergasted when I saw this – Shaw himself took pains to avoid that ending for the play, and Lerner and Lowe never mentioned that someone had switched the ending before them
the IMDb doesn’t say anything at all about it.
presumably most of the other adaptations are faithful to the play:
The Prince and the Showgirl, starring Marilyn Monroe and Laurence Olivier.
The two lovers part ways at the end of the movie. They are making plans and arrangements to reunite later, but they both know that it may never happen.
There are LOTS of “twist” endings, but in many cases, the "twist itself is a cliche of sorts.
I’ll stick to movies that end the way things generall DO end in real life, rather than the way Hollywood usually goes.
One that comes to mind is the teen comedy “The Last American Virgin.”
You sort of EXPECT the pretty girl to embrace the nerdy guy who truly loves her and has been there for her all along… but instead, she chooses the handsome asshole who impregnated and abandoned her.
It wasn’t a great movie, by any means, but “Forces of Nature” was a refreshing change from the usual Hollywood romantic comedy, where it’s generally taken for granted that straitlaced folks need to dump their reliable boyfriends/girlfriends, and embrace an unconventional, anarchic free spirit.
In “Forces of Nature,” after all stiff Ben Affleck’s adventures with free spirit Sandra Bullock, he comes to realize he actually loves the conventional girl he’s engaged to, and marries her.
**Cast Away **-- not only did Tom Hanks’ character not restart his relationship with his former fiancee (Helen Hunt), it’s left undetermined whether he will ever introduce himself to the artist whose package he finally delivered. (He did leave her that note on the package, though, so she’ll probably be contacting him!)
Actually, the first “Rocky” picture fits. When I first saw it, I was expecting the see the gritty underdog, Rocky Balboa, win the fight.
Instead, he hung in to the very end, but lost the decision.
That’s as it SHOULD be, of course. Rocky was based on Chuck Wepner, a club fighter who lasted 14 rounds with Muhammad Ali. But it’s a simple fact that Chuck Wepner could have trained around a the clock for months, and he could NEVER have beaten Muhammad Ali. He NEARLY managed to go the distance against a champ who was out of shape and didn’t take his opponent seriously.
“Rocky 2” STARTED off great, because it shows what REALLY would have happened to a guy like Rocky Balboa- he’d have tried and failed to parlay his 15 minutes of fame into wealth, and would have gone back to being a nobody.
There’s NO WAY Rocky Balboa could have beaten an in-shape, motivated Apollo Creed. Hence, the second half of “Rocky 2” felt like a cheat.
Terminator 3 sure didn’t end the way I expected it to. But I like that they actually ended it they way they did. Of course, only me and about 3 other people in the world actually seem to like the movie.
Just for those that haven’t seen it but have no intention of seeing it but are curious what I’m talking about…
Instead of saving the world from Skynet like expected, they fail, and the robot apocalypse happens.
Terminator 3 discussion: It made sense to me because if Skynet or something like it never existed, then where did those friggin’ Terminators come from??. As I understand it, what Sarah and John Conner did in Terminator I & II was prevent a paradoxical timeloop version of Judgement Day from happening, but the “real” version that was an almost inevitable result of historical trends still happens.