

This time though, the good guys are less a force to be reckoned with than a group of people who successfully overcome their own problems with the help of the title character. What about something a little more sophisticated?Īs wonderfully complex as Amelie is, it still ends the same way as the missiles and chicks flick. The good guys have won and the Main Character heads back to Miramar happy- Top Gun is the very definition of the Happy Movie. Tossing his buddy's dog tags into the ocean, he's now "free" to kick ass on his own terms. In the following scenes, Maverick (Tom Cruise) has finally resolved his personal issues concerning Goose and living under the shadow of his father. What does the clip above reveal? Well, if you look closely, you'll notice that the good guys are jumping up and down while they thrust their fingers in the air, proclaiming their victory over the Evil Empire. We start out with the super cheesy celebration of all things male, Top Gun. The good guys win and the Main Character goes home happy.
Happy endings 2009 documentary movie#
The majority of people want to see a movie with a happy ending (Personally, I prefer something a little more complex, but we'll get to that in a different post). While I don't have any deep scientific research to prove why, I'm pretty sure it's because Happy Ending films have the biggest box office draws.

These are the kinds of movies that everyone thinks most stereotypical studio executives love. We'll start out with Happy Endings, which we can also call Triumphs. Do the good guys win? Does the Main Character go home happy? That's it. To determine the type of ending you have to figure out the answer to two questions. So how do you determine exactly what ending a story might have? It's really quite simple. Afraid that might be a little reductive? Not when you realize that there are a zillion different ways of presenting these endings. Overall, though there are some significant issues from a writing perspective, the actors save this piece.There are basically four different ways you can end a movie: Happy, Sad, Bittersweet Happy, and Bittersweet Sad. Instead of deftly showing the information we need, the film inundates the audience with minutiae and sly comments that have little bearing on the film's action. But she scraps her ditsy-girl act, and her damaged character exudes a vulnerability that her other work didn't allow her to explore.Īlso, throughout the film we get title cards explaining characters' back-stories, and this strikes me as lazy filmmaking.

Of particular note is Lisa Kudrow, with whom I, a long-time Friends hater, have never been impressed. The way in which each of these actors commit to their characters makes the film almost believable. However, good actors can sometimes save bad writing. A lot of the critics' reviews of Happy Endings lamented the ludicrousness of its storylines, and from a writer's standpoint, I have to agree. In my sentence-summary of the film, I listed the most prominent plots, and if you think I'm being somewhat satirical, you're right. Sure, there are a couple moments that were chuckle-worthy, but that's about it. I write "dramatic" intentionally because even though the title cards and other sources identify this as a comedy, I saw very little humorous about its situations or delivery. Multiple intersecting stories, including plots about blackmail, stolen sperm, and a woman who fucks a gay drummer and his father, are at the center of this Robert Altman imitation.īy the end of this film, I thought that it had reached the Altman Standard in terms of its ability to cleverly combine these characters with some degree of dramatic effectiveness.
