Open Forum Friday: Are Twist Endings Clever or Just a Gimmick?
After our spoiler discussion about Shutter Island on last week’s podcast, I’ve been thinking a bit more about movies that have so-called “twist endings”, and how they are perceived by today’s moviegoers. Most people seem to agree that there are good twist endings and bad twist endings, but what distinguishes one from the other? A lot of the criticisms I’ve heard for Shutter Island seem to pinpoint the ending as being problematic, but since the entire movie is set up to be unreliable and ambiguous, I think it fits thematically. At the same time, when a twist ending undermines too much of what came before it, it can render the entire film pointless.
M. Night Shyamalan has shown us both extremes; The Sixth Sense is still held by many to be a brilliant and cleverly constructed thriller, while his later film The Village pulled a bit of a cheap trick on audiences with its final reveal. Unfortunately, I feel like Shyamalan’s later films have soured a lot of people on twist endings in general, to the point where they will denounce any movie that misleads them at all, which is a little unfair. How do you feel about twist endings? Do they always lead to flawed films or can they also be inspired and thought-provoking? Which movies have won you over with their deception, and which ones just pissed you off? Give us your thoughts here on Open Forum Friday.
Note: I imagine that this topic may lead to some spoilers, so read with caution, and please try give fair warning in your comments.
Comments (37)
Depends on the fucking ending man.
By the way, The Village does not have a twist ending. It just has a twist. It happens more or less halfway through the movie, when it completely changes character. It’s a movie that turns on a dime which may seem sloppy, but I think it’s what makes it stand out. It’s refreshing, the twist is not so much in what happens in the movie, but how the movie completely changes story and format.
Posted by Henrik on February 26th, 2010People give The Sixth Sense a lot of credit, but that ending upon re-watching makes NO sense. What did Bruce experience when he went to the supermarket and NO ONE served him?
Unbreakable’s ending is a little less ‘Oh my GOD!!!’ but much more fitting and graceful.
I think that some films, mostly thrillers, rely on them way too much. They feel reverse-engineered from the ‘clever’ ending they have dreamed up, kind of like the thriller script in Adaptation.
I think twist, no twist, whatever – as long as the ending of the film is fitting with the tone of the film AND MAKES SENSE, even after you’ve thought about it for weeks or had someone more intelligent than yourself explain it to you.
I always expected The Matrix trilogy to have an ‘It was all a dream’ ending – but it didn’t. That is an instance when I expected an ending but didn’t get it, by definition I suppose that is a twist ending.
N.
Posted by Nick Robertson on February 26th, 2010Adrien Brody was creepy when he was the monster towards the end of The Village – how he just stood there… Fucked up.
Posted by Nick Robertson on February 26th, 2010Did Bruce go to the supermarket in 6th Sense?? I got the idea he kind of… I don’t know, drifted in and out of, um, existence. ie He didn’t experience a full day as ghost Bruce, he just came and went as he needed to. Y’know, like ghosts do. Obviously he wasn’t aware of it.
The Vanishing has the best twist ending. Simple, effective, horrifying.
Posted by DavidM on February 26th, 2010Some twist endings have BECOME gimmicks. For example, the classic film major twist, They’re-All-Kids! Or the fall back, It-Was-All-a-Dream! I wonder if this is because there’s so much pressure for a film to have a clever, unexpected ending. Either way, I don’t think there’s any reason to be anti-twist. There can be interesting ones… it’s just… a lot of times there aren’t.
Posted by Falsk on February 26th, 2010I think the key to understanding movie twists and therefore appreciating whether they are good or bad is to understand how the filmmakers go about accomplishing the twist. Almost all movies that feature a twist do so by manipulating the narrative in such a way as to either mislead by ambiguity/unreliability or omission. They mislead by presenting only the information that they want initially ( a la Wild Things) or an unreliable and ambiguous perspective in the case of Shutter Island, Total Recall or the Usual Suspects. Where this gets difficult and troublesome is that the audience needs to have at least some base or foundation of the narrative that they can rely on as being objectively real and true. Twists that involve the story being revealed as all a dream are bad because in that case there was no basis for objective reality. There was absolutely nothing real. You can pull that twist out at any time. The audience hates it because they feel lied to and cheated. With Shutter Island, at least you could say that the main character was on the island, he went there with a partner, he met all the people on the island and events ensued. But beyond that, is where the ambiguity/unreliability lies. The misleading and ambiguous method that is used in both Shutter Island and Total Recall is effective only if one cannot at the end, definitively decide what actually happened. That is of course, if that was the intention of the filmmakers to get that result. The film goer should not be able to decide what is the correct reality until the very moment that the twist is revealed. If he is able, then the filmmakers have failed in their effort. And if the filmmakers have really done their job, the filmgoer should still not be able to decide!
Posted by Maopheus on February 26th, 2010The other method, as used in Wild Things, is to effect the twist by constraining the information revealed in the narrative, or present only one perspective. They only show you what they want. So everything in the movie actually happened. There is no attempt to present something on screen as being true when it is not. The twist is revealed by revealing more information and connections later on. This type of twist, I feel, may be somewhat more acceptable to the audience because they will not feel that they were lied to. In other words, it’s more of a mystery to be unraveled. The Sixth Sense uses a bit of a hybrid of the two. It withholds key information but is also unreliable because the main character appears to selectively ignore information that should very clearly tell him that he is dead. Perhaps his ghost is left so shocked that it cannot accept any information that contradicts his belief that he is alive. However, the movie does not try to deceive the viewer into thinking that something is real when it is illusory, a la Fight Club. The difference between the omission method and the ambiguous/unreliable method is that you should be able to discern the twist for the omission method if you are very observant. The ambiguous/unreliable method should keep you guessing until the end.
I may not be entirely correct in my interpretation here but I think that it more or less covers how twists work. Obviously there are many movies with twists, and some of them have twists that do not define the movie. For example, Chinatown has a twist and it uses the single perspective approach to execute the twist but I would not define it as a twist movie. It could have gone in a different way and been just as good without the twist.
Total Recall doesn’t have a twist ending either, in fact, the entire movie is spoiled not only once, but twice by characters in the movie.
It does have alot of plot twists though, which keep up the energy. I have re-watched this a couple of times recently, and it’s probably my favorite Phillip K. Dick-based movie, and one of my favorite Schwarzenegger movies. It’s amazing.
Posted by Henrik on February 26th, 2010I don’t have a big issue with twist films as longs as everything else within the film is good. In fact I liked Unbreakable and the Village simply because they were well made films that showed a good deal of craftsmanship.
My favorite twist films are as follows:
Fight Club
Posted by Marc on February 26th, 2010The Sixth Sense
The usual suspects
Unbreakable
Shutter Island
The Others
The Village
This addresses the subject:
http://www.asitecalledfred.com/2010/02/19/shutter-island-opinion-in-a-haystack/
Posted by Bob The Slob on February 26th, 2010I like what maopheus is saying about films that distort the narrative in order to fool you. I agree that there are some movies that so intentionally try to mislead and distort what they are showing the viewer that when the big reveal is finally shown the audience is not blown away by what should have been obvious, but is angry that the film has been so deceptive to them.
An example of this for me was the film high tension which Im going to spoil in this paragraph so don’t read this paragraph if you havent seen the movie. But when it is finally revealed that the killer is actually the girl herself I felt a little cheated. I mean the twist makes it so entire chase scenes and portions of the movie did not happen at all like we were shown, and there was no really cleverness in the twist because the movie basically just lied to you.
I kinda feel like a good twist should have you going “How did I not see that coming, that makes perfect sense with what the movie has shown me up to this point” and not “There was no way in a million years I was going to guess that, and it doesnt fit with what the movie has shown us.”
Posted by Matt on February 27th, 2010To me, a good twist ending is one that you could have guessed from the information provided before it, but either didn’t, or you did but it’s really the only way the movie can come together at that point.
Posted by Alex on February 27th, 2010Jacob’s ladder had an enjoyable twist ending..
its hard to think a movie with a twist ending that i did not like..
Taxi driver?
Rocky?
Reservoir Dogs?
The swimmer?
i even liked Ai and Vanilla sky.
hm…
twist endings i did not like..
hm…
unbreakable?
Posted by Kyriacos on February 27th, 2010or generally those that i see them coming from miles and miles away..
twist endings are good because they prepare you for random twists in life, like going to heaven and finding out your wife has been cheating on you.
Posted by suicide bama on February 27th, 2010Good thing!
Posted by Tommy on February 27th, 2010I generally enjoy them. But what I hate is the advertising or word of mouth telling me “oh man, get ready for the twist ending” because then there’s no surprise, and then really it’s no longer a twist ending. Just a 180 turn in the plot I have to look forward to.
Posted by Glendon on February 27th, 2010Like Glendon said.. twists are good when you are completely unaware that they are coming.
Posted by Niklas on February 27th, 2010If someone likes movies that have twist endings, but only if he is unaware that they are coming, then how does he go about finding these movies?
Posted by Reed Farrington on February 27th, 2010Well Reed, if I saw a movie that had a twist ending that blew me away, the last thing I would say to a person I was recommending it to is that it had a twist ending.
I guess spoilers are the norm nowadays though.
Posted by Henrik on February 27th, 2010Normaly people just go to movies Reed.. if a movie happens to has a twist ending that works then is even better.. its like discovering your girlfriend has HPV..
Posted by Kyriacos on February 27th, 2010Why has no one mentioned the twist in The Prestige or Memento? Ahh screw you guys!
Posted by Mr.asdsas on February 27th, 2010I’m surprised to be the first to bring this up, but here it goes – DROP THE KNOWLEDGE!!! Like all things in cinema the answer usually resides in this basic statement, “its about the characters and the central theme of the film”
Good twists usually work due to the twist be paired with a major revelation about the central character and theme in the film. Bad twist are ones that are not linked, or weakly linked, to the central character and theme in the film. M. Night’s early work was successful because he had an amazing gift for tying the central character’s struggle, the theme of the film, and the storytelling twist in to one grand move. In the Sixth Sense, Unbreakable and even Signs the twist is a grand reveal for both the audience and the central characters in the film. This is very cathartic for the audience and increasing satisfying as we not only see the change in the story but in the central characters themselves, and ultimately we “get” the statement the filmmaker is making in the film. I think if you take a moment and look at the twists you really enjoyed you will see they are tied to a satisfying character and theme moment.
The classic being the end of Planet of the Apes, this twist brings the hammer down on the central character’s motivation, changes the perspective of the audience, and makes a grand statement at the same time.
Someone brought up High Tension, here the filmmaker fails because he puts everything in the twist including the clues to the characters struggles. The twist should be the reveal not the entire character change. Its an example of lazy filmmaking; instead of thinking up creative ways to show a character in conflict that is both revealing and subjective he chose to hide everything in the twist. lazy lazy lazy. The director of High Tension basically shows he has NO confidence in his abilities as he refuses to make any attempt to give the audience any clues prior to the reveal. he’s a pussy
Films that do not tie the twist to the central struggle of the character fail miserably because they pull the audience away from the central thing the film has struggled to achieve for the hour and half prior to the twist – character and theme.
I have never been more angry at a film then I was at Mystic River. It is the worst use of a twist EVER. Here Eastwood makes grand gestures of misinformation (mysterious calls to Beacon’s character that mean nothing) and then reveals the murderers as kids we never have seen before. Eastwood doesn’t play fair and expects the audience to forgive him in the end because of the great character drama he “gave” us. It is an example of a director using a twist to fuck the audience and break what I call the “social contract” between filmmaker and audience.
Why do many twists feel unsatisfying? It is because the filmmakers did not do the one thing that will solve all problems in all films; they did not develop the characters and theme in a proper, satisfying and refreshing way.
Posted by rus in chicago on February 27th, 2010i liked high tension.. i even liked meat night train massacre.. There are genre movies usually in those movies nothing makes sense..
Oh.. there you go.. i did not like Secret Window..
i liked beautiful mind.. though
Posted by Kyriacos on February 27th, 2010Planet of the Apes is an example of a great twist. I like that it was brought up. And it’s an example of a great twist that gets sprung on you and it makes sense. Unlike the ending of the remake where you are wondering how the hell did that happen? It was like Bim Turton decided he needed some kind of twist and just slapped it in there. @Mr. asdas, uh you’re mentioning it now. So mention it.
Posted by Maopheus on February 28th, 2010what he have is a case of one directors style making this a debate point..M Knight has made a career out of hitting us over the head with his self percieved cleverness..any good film has a twist ending of sorts because you cant guess where its going to windup..a well thought out story makes the resolution plausible..
Posted by Pete on February 28th, 2010as opposed to a some out of the blue hard left in act 3
Actually, the ending of the Planet of the Apes remake wasn’t really a twist because it didn’t change what occurred in previously in the movie, whereas the original’s twist was a classic twist. The filmmakers used a lack of information coupled with Taylor’s assumption that he was on a planet other than Earth to then do the big reveal at the end. It was a really good example of an improvement on the source novel by changing the setting of the story. In the same context I have read other spoiler discussions on Shutter Island on another site that points out that the novel clearly defines what is going on whereas the movie takes a more ambiguous route. People have then been using the novel to more or less guide their decision on what actually occurred in the movie. I believe this to be a fallacious approach. The filmmakers adapted the novel into a movie, but they are in no way beholden to follow and stick to everything in the novel.
Posted by Maopheus on February 28th, 2010I love the twist in Drag Me To Hell. It wasn’t so much a shocking revelation (it wasn’t), it was more the perfect ending to that film.
Posted by Nate on February 28th, 2010Was the ending of Planet of the Apes a twist or a cliffhanger?
In movies like Fight Club, Memento and The Prestige twists work very well, while i felt kinda dissapointed in the twist of The Usual Suspects, Signs and Mystic River.
Posted by Mr.asdsas on February 28th, 2010There was a twist in Signs??
Posted by Henrik on February 28th, 2010I suppose you mean the ending of the Planet of the Apes remake. I suppose that would be considered a cliffhanger, a twist cliffhanger if you will. However it was one that you knew would never get paid off. Credulity would not just be strained but torn apart and ran over by a bulldozer to explain what happened.
Posted by Maopheus on February 28th, 2010There was a twist in Signs??
I consider the revelation that the dieing words of the wife (which initially was the final blow to make the lead character leave his faith) actually was the key to saving the family and ultimately returning the lead character to his calling a twist. On top of this, it reveals the true theme behind the film and clarification of what the title of the film is really about. So yes, it is very similar to M. Nights earlier work in that it is a twist that affects the lead character, the perspective of the audience and theme of the film, just a more subtle twist.
Posted by rus in chicago on February 28th, 2010I think it’s a way more organic way of telling the story than The Sixth Sense. That to me is a twist, Signs is not, the whole movie was about Grahams relationship with god.
Spoiler
The Sixth Sense was not about coming to terms with being dead.
Posted by Henrik on February 28th, 2010I know a great pornmovie called “The Sticksense”…. But there is no twist in it!
Posted by MGL on February 28th, 2010Ya know what “twist” ending bugged me? IDENTITY. Until the twist(that everyone saw coming a mile away) happened, I was really looking forward to how they were going to explain why everyone was at the hotel, why they all had so much in common etc etc etc….and then it is revealed that they are all characters in the guy’s head, and a rush of “meh” fell over the crowd in the theater.
Posted by Sacramento Mike on March 1st, 2010Oh I would also say that in today’s film world, most movie-goers are going to films expecting a twist ending. A lot of the time they are going in expecting it and hoping that it doesn’t happen.
Posted by Sacramento Mike on March 1st, 2010I’m not afraid to admit, I liked The Villiage.
Posted by Mike on March 1st, 2010I loved the twist in “Signs”.
Posted by Justin on March 1st, 2010It was very low key, and the reason why I feel most people did not like the movie was people really didnt understand the twist.
The whole point of the movie was the father thought that God had abandoned him and his family, when in acuality God had set up all those events previous to the invasion so that his family could survive the invasion. The wife dying, the brother’s inclination to always swing the bat, the daughter’s pre-occupation with water glasses and the son’s asthma.. all of it was intentional and purposeful.
@ Justin,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, you said everything i was going to about “Signs” great job mate i love that film!!!
Posted by jay on March 3rd, 2010Leave a Reply