MovieChat Forums > The Player (1992) Discussion > Incredibly Haunting Ending

Incredibly Haunting Ending

posted 16 years ago by Mr_McLaurel
16 replies | jump to latest

I just watched this movie again and I was struck by how incredibly haunting the scene with Griffin leaving Bonnie as she's sitting on the ground crying is. This slick murdering bastard got away with everything and ended up with a great life while his ex-girlfriend who never did anything wrong ends up fired and crying and broken.

This isn't to say the rest of the movie isn't brilliant - I especially liked the interrogation scene (or the "tampon scene") as well. It's a great scene that shows why Altman is such a great director - the tension never breaks but it never tilts into conventional thriller territory either. The whole movie is like that! Plus I'm a total sucker for references to other movies no matter how cynical and downright empty Altman makes them seem. The Player is like Day For Night's cynical twin brother, and I love them both.

What's the Spanish for drunken bum?

[–] ntini77 16 years ago

It wasn't a haunting ending, it was funny and well done IMO

This is a very good dark comedy.

[–] rzajac 16 years ago

Myself, I'm with fringomania on this one.

Though, when I saw the thread subject line ("Incredibly Haunting..."), I was thinking about the *very* ending; at the house with his now-wife pregnant, with Mills camping up a bad-ass cinematic hero figure.

But I'm glad fringo brings up that penultimate scene with Bonnie. He's right; that's an important part of the fillip that closes out the movie.

And I'm still haunted by that ending as no other ending has ever haunted me.

[–] Scatophobe 15 years ago

The baby chanting music at the very end made it particularly creepy, almost like a horror film.

[–] rzajac 15 years ago

Scat,

If you really understand the meaning of the ending, The Player is almost the ultimate horror film.

It suggests that the true fabric of life isn't a beneficent force; that it's really composed of utterly amoral stuff. And, furthermore, that Hollywood has figured out that there's good money to be made labeling this amoral reality as heroic, heartwarming morality and selling it back to us for a profit.

[–] CoriSCapnSkip (2756) 6 years ago

There should be a sequel. Obviously both these people were sociopaths. Imagine their spawn turning into the Menendez brothers. There could be the ultimate child actor gone bad story here. They should think about it. It was interesting, though, that at the beginning someone was pitching a sequel to "The Graduate" when one, well, sort of, was made, with Kevin Costner, and it was awful.

For this movie's sequel, I can already think of about four plots.

[–] AsaNisiMasa_63 16 years ago

I thought so too at first. It was disturbing because knowing our legal system, many rich people probably get away with murder like this. The ending was pure exercise in the plastic arts; the ending mimicked the ending of the film within a film. But then I realize its a hollywood comedy, so at least all the knots in the end were tied. *insert sarcasm*

[–] CharteredStreets 15 years ago

Bonnie crying is in some ways the real heart of the ending; the creative people, and people with integrity, are tossed aside by the heartless and powerful. Only the bad guys get a happy ending - which isn't really a happy ending at all, is it?

If I have to tell you again, we're gonna take it outside and I'm gonna show you what it's like!

[–] sean_pak215 13 years ago

Honestly I almost teared up at part (Bonnie's crying). It was a surprisingly emotional scene in a movie that was otherwise very unemotional. In fact it spent its entire running time satirizing Hollywood conventions such as sentimentality. But notice that it does, at least once, everything it satirizes (sex, nudity, violence, comedy, happy ending, etc.). That scene was the emotional apex and it really does come out of nowhere. Truly, that part isn't realistic at all. It's been an entire year since Griffin left Bonnie for June and she'd probably still be angry at him. So the whole begging to see him in his office is overwrought, and I suspect intentionally so, since that's what it's making fun of from other movies.

[–] prplayer 9 years ago

it was a fantastic ending to a wonderful movie 8/10

so many movies, so little time

[–] udippel 9 years ago

Hmm. I must have seen a different movie. The ending made me go down to 6/10, though the rest was much better.
That's about the lousiest ending I could think of. The hollywoodien positive ending, positive enough to let the bad guy off the hook? I might ask. And Bonnie fired!?

It might as well have ended before the 'One year later'. Not that it had to be any other way, not that the culprit had to be taken to court. But I was waiting throughout the last half hour or so for some new twist or turn. Like June being the writer, or June having watched the action close to the cinema car park. Anything else. But at last half an hour sitting in my sofa and waiting for anything out of the ordinary to happen, I was badly bored/disappointed.

[–] Charlot47 8 years ago

In this life people are liable to be bored and disappointed if they cannot tell the difference between satire and reality.

As for hoping that the character June would do something positive, isn't she one of the dumbest blondes ever put on screen?

[–] MNRebecca (773) 6 years ago

But I was waiting throughout the last half hour or so for some new twist or turn.

You didn't think the call from the writer was a powerful twist?

[–] EliotTempleton 8 years ago

This slick murdering bastard got away with everything and ended up with a great life...

Like Robert Wagner, who makes a cameo appearance in the movie?

[–] dlynch843 8 years ago

not 'murdering bastard'....more like 'manslaughtering bastard'. (Mill met up with Kahane intending to patch things up with him, not murdering him.)

[–] Cookie.L.A. (2117) 8 years ago

<< I was struck by how incredibly haunting the scene with Griffin leaving Bonnie as she's sitting on the ground crying is. This slick murdering bastard got away with everything and ended up with a great life while his ex-girlfriend who never did anything wrong ends up fired and crying and broken. >>

Welcome to Hollywood!

(Altman did some sh!tty things to coworkers over the years....so he knew about this aspect of the business, himself.)
.

[–] CoriSCapnSkip (2756) 6 years ago

I was actually afraid it was going to be a lot worse. When Julia Roberts was being led to the gas chamber, she looked enough like Bonnie to make me think maybe Griffin took a page from a bad script, faked his own death, and got Bonnie sent to the gas chamber for his murder! I was so relieved it was only a movie, though all bad enough as is!