I haven't really read any good arguments for why that could be considered a good ending, by any standards. Simply doing what the viewer doesn't expect doesn't make something good. There needs to be a reason for the twist, and if the reason is because, "haha you didn't think that was true, but it is!" then it's lazy and meaningless. As I've explained, the story had potential for meaning up until the ending. The twist removed all meaning. They don't get credit for removing the meaning, simply because we didn't expect them to be bad writers.
Again, it's only a twist because many viewers didn't take the time to ponder whether it was really all religious zealotry, or if it could have some validity to it. That is the only reason why it was a "twist" -- because, realistically, the film could have only ended one of two ways.
1.) Fenton was right and his brother and dad were nuts.
2.) Adam and his dad were right all along and Fenton really was a demon, even if he hadn't yet realized it.
There did not need to be a reason for the twist: it's just that some people didn't see it coming. More people should have -- which just goes to show that the average viewer tends to be narrow-minded about what they perceive and believe when it comes to film (and life, really). Hell, I'm guilty of it, myself.
I would also challenge that just because you found no meaning in the ending does not inherently say that meaning didn't exist. Obviously the ending had meaning to many -- it just didn't fulfill what you wanted out of it. That happens, sometimes. You can be unhappy with a film and it could still be meaningful to others -- and believe it or not, this is not always because they missed something. People don't all have to see eye to eye -- which is why I would never begrudge you the right to despise this film, the ending and whatever you hoped it would be.
I think you might have misunderstood what my point was with the bad vampire twist ending example for Shawshank. You tried making the argument that the reason people are still talking about Frailty today is because the ending is so thought-provoking or intelligent or whatever. I don't agree with that point, because I think a movie could be talked about years later for reasons other than being great, like perhaps being a huge disappointment, just like Shawshank COULD have been if it had a terrible ending and ruined an otherwise great film. I wasn't trying to set up Shawshank to have a similar twist to compare to Frailty. I could have said evil unicorns flew down from the sky and exploded on impact, destroying the prison. The point is that you can write a great movie, ruin it at the end, and cause discussion, debate, and complaining for years to come. So the fact that we're still talking about it doesn't necessarily mean it's because it was so good or because it had a good ending.
I would agree with that....to a point. A film doesn't have to be a masterpiece to spark discussion. Dear God, just look at The Room (2003).
That said, nobody is going to argue the artistic merits of that pos film. This one, however, did earn the respect of many as a good film -- including men who are more qualified than you or I to make that distinction (among them James Cameron and Sam Raimi).
In fact, fun tidbit, it was James Cameron, himself, that insisted the reveal come at the end; Bill Paxton was going to have it shown as the father touched the demons.
It didn't tickle your fancy, and that is perfectly fine -- that doesn't make it a horrible film, anymore than everyone else's love makes it a masterpiece for you. Feel free to hate this film with every bone in your body. People should be free to their own opinion.
I think this just further demonstrates where we both draw the line when it comes to giving a writer credit and what we think is intelligent vs lazy. How could we possibly give the writer credit for maybe writing a character well, if only we saw a different movie from a different perspective in which we could see feelings and thoughts that never surfaced in the original piece? We can't. So unless it happened in the movie, the writer can't be given credit for possibilities that we inject into it when we imagine what could have been done better.
I would agree, again, to an extent. While we can't definitively know what Fenton thought and felt throughout, and we can't know exactly when his snapping point really was, has it occurred to you that the ending gave us a much broader grasp of what it was like, emotionally, for Adam and their father?
Adam loved his older brother -- yet he knew what his dad spoke was truth. Imagine the pain he felt trying to keep things together all the while. If he postulates on what Fenton might have thought, it means he's considered it in his own mind. He must have wondered all these years what Fenton must have felt, and how desperate his father must have felt knowing that what he saw was real, knowing that he couldn't make Fenton see it, and then finding out his son was a demon.
Just look at his father's eyes right before he dies. In fact, the dad showed more emotion in that moment than Fenton -- because, again, he knew what he was speaking was truth.
Adam's revelation at the end may have closed the door on what Fenton supposedly thought. However, it opened the door to give a much closer look at the turmoil Adam and his father must have felt. It let us see how Adam perceived the situation -- let us in on what he hoped his brother felt for him and his family.
More than anything, it was an affirmation that Frailty was more than the story of Fenton -- it was the story of that family and the task they were given.
That's not how it works, though. Yes, we thought it was Fenton's pov, then it turns out it was Adam's pov. Ok, we didn't expect that. Great, so now what does this mean for the story? Well, it means that everything that was set up and developed up until this point now has no meaning. Does it now add meaning in another way? Nope. There is no meaning to gather from the idea that god hires vigilantes to murder demons that are disguised like people with his holy household tools. That's not meaning. That's ideas for a story. This goes back to my original question when I asked someone to explain the meaning of this movie. Not what happens. Not the story. The meaning. I'm still waiting for someone to answer that.
See above.
The meaning has simply shifted. Instead of focusing only on what Fenton thought, the ending gave a glimpse of what Adam and their father went through, knowing why they were doing what they did, and knowing that Fenton never would be able to understand.
In scripture, all we know is that God metes out vengeance -- we don't know HOW He does it, if not always by His own hand. This movie just posits a theory.
Imagine I write a story that does a similar thing. Let's say there's a teenager who thinks he has a super power that he can be stabbed in the heart and not die. I set up the whole movie to be about a depressed kid who has delusions of grandeur, his family treats him like crap and says he's crazy for thinking something so stupid. They even try to get him on meds and see a shrink. He's had his heart broken, and it all leans towards him wishing his heart was invincible because of everything he's gone through. We feel bad for him, we kinda understand why he'd wish for that particular super power, cuz he's been hurt so badly in the past and every day by his family, kids at school, etc., and we're hoping he overcomes this problem and strange obsession and realizes that it's not about being impervious to pain, but about learning to cope with it in a healthy way. So let's say the whole movie goes that way and then suddenly at the end, when things are at their worst for him and he has to make a choice, he just grabs a knife and stabs himself in the heart and he doesn't die and the movie ends like that. While it would be an unexpected twist, that would absolutely be a garbage ending that ruins the whole rest of the otherwise meaningful story. We took a kid struggling with his emotions and trying to use fantasy to overcome a real life problem, but in the end, we just made him a guy with a super power. Now he doesn't have to overcome his problems, giving him no character arc. The audience can't relate to him anymore cuz nobody is impervious to emotional pain, and he's now a useless, one dimensional character. Might as well not even be a human character. This is Frailty in a nutshell.
Ah crap.
I hate to say it, because I do feel your passion for the analogy, but it again veers off a bit from the premise of this film.
The reason for that is, all you've told is the kid's side -- yet in Frailty, despite the fact that many dismissed the other two, it was always about THREE people: Fenton, Adam and their dad.
If you only saw Fenton's side and weren't prepared for the possibility that he was wrong, that is not the fault of the film. Myopia does not make a film good or bad -- just good or bad for the viewer. I say this because there were many who DID see it coming -- many who were intelligent enough to ponder the possibility.
There were also others that did not see it coming, yet were confident enough in their own knowledge to realize that this film caught them sleeping. They zeroed in on Fenton and never once devoted proper attention to Adam and their father. I was in that camp, in fact. I didn't expect the ending that happened. Still, I enjoyed it because it made me go back and watch the film a second time sans preconceptions. It made me realize that to truly understand the story I had to watch and digest the fact that Fenton's father wasn't acting merely on insanity. I had to watch and realize that Adam's devotion was more than just blind worship.
Basically, the viewer thought for a good while they were only getting the story of Fenton and his whacked out father and brother -- then were made to accept the fact that their preconceived notions might have been misdirected.
That's a hard pill to swallow for some.
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