MovieChat Forums > Year of the Dog (2007) Discussion > Unsatisfied by Ending (Spoiler!)

Unsatisfied by Ending (Spoiler!)

posted 18 years ago by talkinhorse
6 replies | jump to latest

Spoilers to follow! You have been warned!

I mostly enjoyed this film. It had a good eye for characters, and caught the way people manifest their emotional scars and impact others in weird little ways. And I respect it for steering clear of a standard obligatory Hollywood ending where the couple fall in love and live happily ever after. That's the good part.

However, it lost me by ending on a note that seemed to validate the narcissistic kookiness that Peggy had fallen into. It left her happily riding away on the bus with the other self-absorbed mental patients, working together to impose their internal demons onto the rest of us. I wondered for a moment if this was meant to be interpreted as a sad ending, acknowledging that she had deteriorated into another angry pod person. But, no, the music that ramped up as the credits started to roll was glorious and upbeat, suggesting we were witnessing a happy scene. This made no sense to me. I don't understand how a film that opened with introspection and insight ended up, in its indie way, to be as stupid and formulaic as the typical Hollywood nonsense. Maybe they just didn't know how to finish the story.

Now if I were writing an ending....hmmmm, what would I do? I think maybe I'd have Peggy emerge from 48 hours of catatonia and wander, dazed and dreaming, into MacDonald's, where she'd order a quarter-pound cheeseburger. She'd stare at it for a crucial moment, and then wolf it down with great ambivalence. Then, after another moment of contemplative ambivalence, she'd rush out and vomit in the gutter. Then she'd go back to the counter and order another quarter-pound cheeseburger. The guy at the counter, having watched this episode, would say something like, "Lady, are you sure about that?" And she'd get this determined look in her face, nevertheless manifesting a hint of doubt, and say, "Yeah, I'm sure." And that would be the ending that would make me happy.

Okay, you may toss tomatoes at me if you like. But that's what I think, take it or leave it.

[–] JC_Aliss 18 years ago

I thought it was a bit ironic that the overall basis of the movie was Peggy's disappointment in people failing her, yet in the end, when they ALL pulled through for her, she turned her back on them and dove even further into hiding behind the animals. A better ending would have been her realization that she CAN find what she needs in other humans, that they all really did love her and care about her.

[–] IMDbyebye 18 years ago

Seems to me that would have been the cop-out ending. After all her effort, she reverts back to the exact same life (sans Pencil) that she lived so unsatisfyingly before? Talk about depressing!

Instead, once she realized she had some power in the world, that she could change actually people's minds and lives, she took that to heart and followed her own path. Instead of shoehorning herself into an uncomfortable existence, getting paid by a company that tortures animals for tests, sitting mute while her brother and sister-in-law conduct their banal boring insipid family life, she took control of her future and followed it in the direction it naturally flowed.

I found the ending very positive. Now Peggy is finally going to live for herself. Pencil's death was the very catalyst her life needed.

[–] JC_Aliss 18 years ago

I see your point about her anger at Al, but that still doesn't answer to my main point, which was "was Peggy's own irresponsibility partially responsible for Pencil's death?" For someone who loved her dog with all her heart and soul, it is questionable leaving that dog out alone to wander the dark at night. Again, as I mentioned, that baffles me about MANY dog owners. Where I live there is a strict leash law, which just about NO ONE follows. As much as we love our dogs and consider them our children, they are still animals ruled by instinct and lack of logic and can so easily get distracted toward something dangerous. And, quite frankly, you WOULDN'T leave your child to roam the streets at night, anway!

[–] talkinhorse 18 years ago

As a plot point, yeah, this wasn't quite credible. With a dog owner as devoted as Peggy, we'd expect either the yard would have been fenced, or the dog would have been completely reliable in not leaving the property. It seems to me we've got to suspend some disbelief to get through that event. (As I watched it, I had assumed there was a fence behind the hedge, and was wondering how the dog had gotten into the neighbor's yard. Or if he could move freely between the two yards, why didn't he come home when he started feeling sick? And why didn't Peggy just push through the hedge into the next yard if she heard the dog and thought he needed immediate help? And if the dog could move freely between the two yards, why wasn't the nighbor already acquainted with the dog and with Peggy? No, I couldn't quite believe this sequence. It was a bit contrived, I think. That's not a fatal flaw, in that the movie didn't lose me there. It just wasn't quite right.)

[–] JC_Aliss 18 years ago

I just realized my comment was meant to post under the other thread I had started about her anger at Al. Oops!

[–] jessie142 18 years ago

Whay gives you the right to determine what should be important to other people?

You sound every bit as much the "mental patient" as anyone on that bus

Maybe you need to climb out of your dull, suburban "pod person" life and have a few new experiences