MovieChat Forums > Limbo (1999) Discussion > The end of the movie

The end of the movie

posted 21 years ago by satanislav
58 replies | jump to latest

I guess I am not the only one haunted by the open end of the movie. Here's my logical view of the possible outcome:
- Even if we not consider the personal relation between Jumpin Joe Gastineau and Smilin Jack Johannson, which apparently is:
1. accusation for his brother's death. Jack's brtoher was on the same boat with Joe, that sunk many years ago
2. Jack had intentions towards Donna and seeing them together would not obviously make him happy.
- Let's view the logic in Jack's decision to come to the island, then check if the castaways are all right and return back -> There probably aren't many people lost and stranded somewhere on an island in a particular interval of time, so we may be sure that Jack knew who the killers were looking for
- The storm after Jack's return -> even if it's not suitable for flights, it's definitely not so bad for the coast guard boats, meaning he didn't alert the authorities for the castaways' location.
That's my basic thinking on the morning after I watched this masterpiece. My favourite character was that of Vanessa Martinez.
I am expecting for your comments over the end of the movie.
Cheers!

[–] vinnie22 21 years ago

Warning: SPOILERS!!!

I think the delay during the storm could work both ways. If he had good intentions... maybe he was waiting until the two thugs gave up hope and went back to their own town. He didn't want to return them home only to get killed. If he had bad intentions... the thugs probably were waiting for the good weather to go kill them. Why struggle through a storm, they'll be waiting for you.

Also, I think the end, whether they get rescued or killed, would be more of an epilogue than anything. So it doesn't bother me that they don't pick one for me. The relationship between the three was the true story, and they sum it up pretty well in that last conversation.

[–] moviebuff1207 21 years ago

for me the title resumes the ending.
limbo.
that's what the whole experience was all about, not only the characters experience but also the spectator's.
the feelings the movie generates are for me a sensation of floating, of knowing and not knowing that's the beauty of the ending that it doesn't end and that you don't know whether it ended or not and how.

and i do agree about Martinez: brilliant and very touching.

[–] dbdumonteil 21 years ago

Maybe because of the producers.Suppose Sayles had intended a horrible ending.What could be an entertaining flick for the whole family becomes unbearable for Hollywood market.So,to avoid a happy end he did not want,Sayles opts for the open ending.

This is only an opinion ,but look at the great number of movies the ending of which had to be "changed" because deemed "too hard"

[–] Shadow1517 20 years ago

in the wondeful commentary, sayles said that writing the script he never knew the ending, he tried both ways and he said neither seemed satisfactory, he said both seemed unfair to the viewer, so heleft it open

[–] watson-23 20 years ago

With a movie titled "Limbo" (as one poster wrote) I'd expect nothing less than the current ending.

It's been a while since I've seen this movie, but it leaves an impression on what a great filmmaker Sayles is.

I remember talking to a friend after viewing the film. His take was that maybe they didn't even live through the storm. Perhaps they died and what followed was Limbo. Maybe the plane was a symbol of ascendence to afterlife.

I know it sounds cheesy, but the possibilities with this movie are what makes it so memorable.

Truly an engaging film from start to finish...

[–] monkeyman85 20 years ago

i think that Sayles was a genius for making the film an open ending. the use of narrative of each of the three main characters is extremely important in the film, and at the end of the film, he puts the viewer into the characters' shoes by allowing the viewer to come up with his or her own narrative for how the story ends.

[–] airoff 19 years ago

Agreed. This is one of the great film endings in cinema. He lulls the viewer into thinking this is a mystery/suspense film when it's really a story about a daughter and mother coming to understand one anothers' lives and healing their broken relationship.

When the credits started this reality hit me like a rock. Even thought I knew there was a "surprise ending" I could have never figured out the surprise was actually the fact I was focusing on the wrong plot line.

I can't recommend this film highly enough.

[–] draagned 20 years ago

The movie ends when it ends because what happens after the plane arrives does not matter. It is not what the film is about. How the characters change while waiting to be rescued is what is important.

[–] LittleEarthquakes 20 years ago

the first time I saw this movie I was completely wrapped up in it...it was really late at night...i was about to go to bed and decided to channel surf first...ended up staying up till like 6:30 am to finish watching it....you probably could have driven a mack truck through my living room and I wouldn't have noticed because I was completely pulled in by the movie, so when I got left with not knowing the ending I hated it at first....not knowing was hard for a bit but then i started thinking about it, and really I don't think there could have been a better ending...I mean it *is* titled Limbo, and that's how we're left feeling at the end...it puts us in their shoes...for them that moment standing on the beach, watching the plane approach...unsure of what would be their fate would seem like an eternity....a lifetime could be lived in that moment of fear and hopefulness...and that's what we are left with

[–] lumbaka 20 years ago

As the plane flew in, I was thinking surely they aren't going to have the family killed at the end. Then, how are they going to make the ending happy without being cheesy... Then the screen went to blank and I hated it ending that way--for about 10 seconds--then remembered the title... I liked how she stepped out onto the beach and the others followed.

[–] imdb-com-284 20 years ago

Saw the promo for this on the DVD for Atanarjuat (The Fast Runner) and put in a request for it from my local library. Great story, haunting ending.

I couldn't help but chuckle when it was revealed who Noelle was attracted to. This created more tension between mother and daughter (as if more was needed) which I felt was portrayed quite beautifully in the ensuing course of the film.

The diary that Noelle found in the ruins of the house - very interesting, the fact that its entries came to an abrupt halt as the family featured within its pages met its end. Pure poetry the way the film's ending mirrored this.

[–] AgPie 19 years ago

I agree...this movie had so many surprising turning points for me. At first I just thought it would be a bit of social commentary on Alaska where the relationships between the characters would just be a vehicle of sorts. Then they got stranded and the movie became so much more immediately dark because now that unit of people was the focus. And then the ending...it's already been said but it was the only way this movie could end...it just left me with this feeling of uncertainty...in a state of "limbo" in fact (bad joke)...but bravo...I saw this movie 2 years ago and even now when I think about it I get chills.

[–] 19 years ago

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[–] djkidrich 19 years ago

Ummm,
I have read above twice about the daughter reading from the diary...

There were no entries after the birth of the baby foxes, so the daughter was making it up from that point on. She was to me, relaying some of her feelings towards her mother, and the feelings of abandonment she had. Great movie...

[–] 19 years ago

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[–] ubu55 19 years ago

I agree, the ending is a cop out. It seems either unwillingness or inability to choose, between depicting the death of the "family" (the most probable scenario, IMO),
or it's simplest alternative, a sappy walk into the sunset.

It even less-forgivably avoids going to the trouble to devise a more satisfyingly nuanced conclusion.

One critic at Rottentomatoes comments: "I've never heard such booing in a theater in all my life." It's very easy to imagine a paying audience being so upset. Even coming across Limbo on wee-hours TV, or the dollar bin at the local video store, it would be hard not to feel cheated.
We're asked to make a considerable emotional investment here, without a cathartic payoff. Instead, we get two possible outcomes... the more likely of which virtually negates all emotional or personal gains the characters struggled to make...about as far from life-affirming as one can get.

Limbo is where the viewer is left... the characters (following the lead of the mother, who I wouldn't trust for directions to the bathroom) can at least choose to leave.

[–] matman-7 19 years ago

I think that's an important point about the ending as well. In fact, it's the parallel stories of the family in the journal and the three who are stranded that make the ending, in my opinion, the ONLY appropriate ending (and perfectly fitting with the theme of Limbo).

The journal ends abruptly because it was left behind... if the girl keeping the journal had taken it with her (the only way the story could have continued so we could know their fate), it wouldn't have been on the island. So it is therefore impossible for us to ever know the final fate of the family on the island through the story being told in the journal.

So imagine, therefore, that the daughter is telling the story ... that she had been keeping her own journal... and that we have found their story on this island... her last journal entry would have been about seeing the approaching plane... whatever her fate (killed or rescued, leaving the "journal" behind) we would never know, for she wouldn't have been there to tell that part of the story.

I loved this movie. It's one of my favorites of all Sayles' films.

[–] rbw23-1 19 years ago

"The movie ends when it ends because what happens after the plane arrives does not matter. It is not what the film is about. How the characters change while waiting to be rescued is what is important."

Bingo. The movie ends when the story ends. The trick is, you may fail to realize up to then that the real story is the one of the relationship between the three principles...not the suspense story.

[–] parkmobile 19 years ago

When the movie ended before the plane came there were laughs in the audience, because we realized what the movie was about to do to us. I'm still not sure if the ending works but it has stayed with me for a long time.

[–] pwgabachito 19 years ago

When I saw it, audience reaction was half and half--laughter and swearing. I was laughing my ass off. Perfect. No other ending could have worked. Happy Hollywood ending? No thanks. Shoot them down on the beach? That would distract the viewer from the message. Limbo. Leave it as it is. Personally, I don't even bother speculating about what happens next.

[–] 19 years ago

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[–] DarkRiver 18 years ago

I don't think they have to worry if it is the bad guys in the plane - they are such bad shots that the chances of being killed are slim - I mean, two guys with high powered rifles with scopes couldn't hit three people dog paddling in the water.
Why are bad guys in movies always such bad shots?

The ending was a stupid cop out.
The reason that Sayles was unable to come up with an ending is that the whole film is unfocused. The whole beginning about the fish processing plant being shut down, the fight between the fishing boat owner and Frankie and Lou the resort owners was all irrelevant to the end, and yet a substantial amount of time was spent on developing these un resolved sub-plots.
The strengths of the film were in the relationships and especially in the daughter's invention of the story of the fox farmers on the island.
If Sayles had concentrated on the strengths of the story instead of irrelevant details he would have been able to resolve the tensions and come up with an ending.
I am a big fan of unconventional storytelling, but this was just badly structured, unfocused, poorly conceived junk - the whole thing about the drug dealers is such an overused cliche, whenever script writers resort to drug dealers for plot developments you know immediately that they have run out of ideas.
If Sayles had told an unconventional story, that would be fine, but he told a conventional story, brought the audience up to the point of resolution and then pulled the rug out from under them.
Edgar Allen Poe did the same thing in The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pyme. Too bad Sayles didn't learn from Poe's mistake.

[–] foxboxer 18 years ago

I agree! I love unconventional narratives etc, but this was just amateur, slow, and didn't even have any discernable plot. Sayles even admitted that during writing he couldn't think of how it would end; it was like he started a job and couldn't follow it through. Either optional ending wouldn't have saved the film anyway,

[–] loisbcuz-1 18 years ago

I agree about all the unresolved subplots. I expected some of the characters involved in them to reappear once the family was on the island.

I personally felt that when things went black, it represented their deaths and found the movie to be totally depressing.

I've always admired John Sayles' work, but this movie is disjointed and not worthy of David Straithairn's great talent.

[–] Frengers 18 years ago

The ending was brilliant... perfect, in fact. I cannot imagine either a conventionally happy rescue ending or a violent massacre ending, they would both feel totally wrong and ill-at-ease with the rest of the film. I didn't find it a disappointing cop-out at all, I don't see how it pulled the rug out from everything we had seen before, and I certainly don't know where people are getting words like "amateurish" from.

The ending of Limbo has stayed with me ever since I first saw it. It has a poetic, haunting ambiguity that is just the perfect kicker to the film, and ensures that whether you loved it or hated it, you certainly will not forget it in a hurry. If you loved the unconventional ending to Limbo as much as I did, I'd like to recommend some Atom Egoyan films like Exotica, The Adjuster or The Sweet Hereafter.

[–] 18 years ago

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[–] Frengers 18 years ago

Fully agreed, WesIsaLeo.

[–] Kroyall1962 14 years ago

I agree with DarkRiver on this one. It seemed like 2 movies awkwardly pasted together. When the half brother turns up at the bar and asks Joe to help him out it on his little mission it ruined the flow of the film IMO. There was already sufficient momentum to move the story along with the other characters and subplots that were going on.

Suddenly that is all forgotten and the movie changes into some sort of lame "stranded on an island" story. It was as if the screenwriter didn't know where to go with the characters that had been developed so the last half is a dark rendition of Gilligan's Island or Castaway. I didn't find the dialog or characters that interesting during the second half. The mother character had little depth, the child pretty much sticks with the opinion her mother is a screw up (which is true) and Joe is just being noble while telling the girls they are basically screwed.

[–] SlackerInc (1121) a year ago

I'm glad to read this, even though it's weird to know you almost certainly will never see my response. I didn't feel quite as harshly about the second half of the movie as you did, but I did like the direction it was taking in the first half and I think I would have preferred it stay with that more grounded drama. Not that the "adventure" section was completely implausible. It wasn't: it's just that it's much further outside the lived experience of most people.

But even wishing it had stayed in a more domestic drama mode (which might not have even gotten financing) assumes he would have been able to "land the plane", so to speak. Sayles would still have had to come up with an ending of some kind.

In any case, I have seen a lot of people say the opposite, that the first half of the movie was boring and that it only picked up when they were in danger. That's kind of sad, that people couldn't appreciate the excellent small-scale interpersonal drama depicted in the first hour, so I'm glad at least one other person sees this.

[–] makeminegreen 17 years ago

... or maybe without a radio and enough fuel, Jack didn't make it back to the bad guys at all -- MEM said the second-landing plane looked bigger, right? (You can see that the pontoons are different on the two planes in the pilot-POV shots for each landing.) Could have been another bush pilot altogether who just happened to see the smoke.

Just throwing that out there. Personally, don't know don't care about what happened next because the end was exactly right for me. As others have noted, the end of the story was the resolution of their relationship -- Mom will never leave daughter, but when she has to go away temporarily, she has someone who will be there. These three have finally found their way out of the chasm of loss they had all fallen into in their lives.

MMG

[–] the sphynx 17 years ago

Interesting, MMG. I had never considered the possibility that it was some other pilot entirely who was flying in at the end.

My feeling is similar to yours: while I would like those characters to be picked up off the island and live long happy lives together, it's unimportant. What's important is that they have already been "rescued" in that they found each other. The mother and daughter reconnected after years of misunderstanding and found they still love and can rely on each other; the woman and man connected newly and yet could trust and love one another; the girl and the man bonded as a father-daughter pair. Also, the girl was able to create a spellbinding and emotionally resonant narrative, using the diary as a prop; Donna picked a good man at last, even if she'd joked it could only happen by sheer chance; and Joe was able to return to fishing and take responsibility for two endangered lives with somewhat better results than the last time.

In other words, they've already had their happy ending. Whether or not they live on is trivial, compared to the things they've already achieved.