*Spoilers* I didn't like the ending
*Spoilers*
Well, one thing about it. Despite it being a cliche, I hoped that Dan and Gretta would end up together. And yes, I know that there have been several threads posted about this already.
People end up together in real life too, one way or another, all the time. It is only a cliche because it has been featured in the movies often. But when it comes to such movies, at least to me, it's more about the journey than the destination. And the journey was wonderful one way or another, but the destination-in that regard-was simply mind boggling and it would have been much better had Dan and Gretta got together, even though that would have been a cliche.
Yes, Dan and Gretta ending up together would have been predictable and sort of a cliche. But unpredictable doesn't equal good-neither does predictable. And the ending wasn't that unpredictable in that regard anyway, considering that John Carney had directed the movie "Once" which ended with two main leads getting back together with their cheating exes at the end (that's what happened, according to IMDb posts and Wikipedia summary-I haven't watched the movie).
But the worst part was that Dan had no chemistry with his ex wife. They barely had any scenes together. Watching them together by the end was so forced that it was almost nauseous. The main problem is that Dan and Gretta had more potential to become a couple than the person he actually ended up with, and none of the problems between him and his ex wife were ever revisited or resolved.
Finally, his ex wife was barely in the movie, so why have Dan end up with her at the end? I know that it wasn't a big part of the movie but it was supposed to be the result of that "journey"-his wonderful journey with Gretta-and a part of a closure for his character, show him get back on the track-after all the things he had gone through with Gretta... you get the idea.
It made absolutely no emotional impact and didn't feel organic. That's truly mind boggling. It is like most of the people only like the ending because it wasn't cliche, but don't care that it ignores the character development and, I daresay, logic in general to some extent.
Yes, chemistry is subjective, but if two people have less than ten minutes of screen time in total over the minutes long movie, that centers around one of those characters and his fellow protagonists, and the first mentioned pair argues 90 percent of that time... I mean, did anyone root for Dan and his ex wife to end up together? Hoped, at least? Did anyone even consider that while watching the movie?
Have Dan and Gretta go through so much together, only to have one of them Dan up with the person who was barely in the movie-as a result of him getting his life back on track thanks to Gretta. I honestly can't phatom the way the writer (also the director) or the producer or anyone involved with the plot basically, even considered that, let alone actually carried it out.
And yes, in real life Dan night have ended up with his ex wife rather than with Gretta (and let's ignore the fact that this is not a real life, but a movie with it's own internal logic that creates itself through the events featured)... but why have him end up with her (his ex wife) without featuring almost anything that led up to that?
And yes, I am probably taking this too seriously, but I've never seen a movie fail so bad in such regard, and I've seen plenty of movies, both better and worse than this one. It is baffling and almost tragic, since the rest of the movie is beautiful and inspiring. One exception may be John Carney's previous movie, "Once", which has a similar ending. I won't watch it, ever. I don't know why this guy has a thing for creating poignant protagonists only to make at least one of them end up back together with one dimensional cheating *beep* at the end, and frankly I don't want to know.
Ross Morin described "The Room", one of the worst movies of all time, as "the Citizen Kane of bad movies". I daresay that this, "Begin Again", is "The Usual Suspects" of bad movie endings.