Do you like movies better when...
...they explain everything and wrap up all the mysteries and plot points nice and tight, or do you like it better when they leave a few doors open for debate or discussion?
I just watched "No Country for Old Men" and they leave it open at the end exactly who killed Llewellyn, whether or not the guy killed his wife etc. Leelee Sobieski's "In a Dark Place" is a bit of an extreme example as the movie made no sense at any point of it but the ending was definitely ambiguous. And this movie leaves it wide open for discussion about whether or not both girls are innocent.
I guess for me, it's a question of perceived effort. Sometimes I feel like Hollywood writers leave holes open like that because they're too lazy to come up with something creative to close them and they know that hundreds if not thousands of IMDB posters will debate the ending until the cows come home, netting them free publicity. That's exactly how I felt after watching both NCFOM and IADP.
In the case of BP, I personally feel (and this is just my opinion) that there would have been an opportunity to make it a much better movie if they'd made each girl's innocence or guilt very clear in the beginning. Especially during the prison scenes - the dynamics between two best friends, one of whom is guilty and the other of whom is paying a steep inhuman price for her friend's mistake, can be more pronounced when the truth is not being kept from the viewer (there are only so many things that both a guilty friend and an innocent friend would say).
Your thoughts?