MovieChat Forums > The Beguiled (2017) Discussion > Wow they put no effort into the ending d...

Wow they put no effort into the ending did they?

posted 7 years ago by Mister Babadook (2684)
7 replies | jump to latest

I mean the ending in the original had emotion to it, Clint if i remember right its been a while since i've saw it, but i think he declared that he was leaving the next day and that he and Edwina was gonna get married and start a family. And Edwina looked so happy and you could see the guilt already on the faces of the girls knowing they poisoned him.

He even said he was gonna make sure the first union soldiers he met up with he was gonna send back a guard for the school.

Then you have the moment where Edwina is about to eat the mushrooms and Miss Martha yells "No Edwina don't!" and you have the shock on Clint's face knowing he'd just been poisoned. It was a great moment.

But here in the remake he comes to dinner, sits down, barely says a word except the mushrooms are good, Edwina says nothing at all, he eats them and then dies and it ends.

Theres no mention of him and Edwina leaving together to get married, theres no moment where McBurney realizes he's been poisoned by Martha yelling at Edwina, in this she just says "Edwina you don't like mushrooms do you?" "Oh no i guess i don't" and then he just drops dead.

This just lacked the emotion and passion the original ending had, he doesn't even say anything to make any of them feel guilty like getting married or anything, and that just took away from the ending.

[–] LetThemEatCake (2717) 7 years ago

It's what sofia coppola does I guess, take the soul out of everything, but I still enjoyed it.

[–] alymac (5) 7 years ago

I agree. The ending was lazy.

[–] Mister Babadook (2684) 7 years ago

I know, it just felt like they wanted to get the movie over with already so they cut out stuff and made it shorter. This doesn't even come close to being as impactful or as good as the original. Honestly this movie was a giant waste of time.

[–] Cookie.L.A. (2117) 7 years ago

Yeah...this is more of an atmosphere piece...the 1971 original had more tension, and its plot had "higher stakes," as Hollywood writers are so fond of saying.

They also cut out the (somewhat quasi-lesbian) bond between Edwina and Miss Martha -- she has been a mentor to the younger woman, and is going to leave her the school. So that tension is missing, too. It's part of what fuels Martha's decision to [spoiler]amputate[/spoiler].

It also helped in the original that Geraldine Page was NOT a physically attractive woman, like Nicole Kidman is. You felt more clearly Page's Miss Martha knew McBurney had duped her. And this ratchets up her anger.
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[–] LetThemEatCake (2717) 7 years ago

I agree.

[–] dxben99 (63) 7 years ago

Unfortunately I never watched the original (just never got around to it) but saw this version now and wow, the original ending sounds so much better just reading it. I wish I watched that movie instead.

[–] vicky_lc2001 (1907) 7 years ago

I agree. I liked the original more and was actually surprised with how underrated it was. And everything in that film was far more ambiguous, with no hero and no villain. Yet like you mentioned, we learned to care for the characters unlike in this film where no one was really likable nor did we learn to care for them. I think the problem is how extreme everyone was in their characters (in this remake) in that they were not relatable nor realistic enough for us to care as much.