endings with no endings?

My new goal for this year is to learn how to watch movies differently. 

Let me explain. 

As a viewer, I get very attached to the characters who I have been living with for the past 90 to 120 minutes. I want them to win and succeed because I see myself in these fake people – which is the whole point of movies. And I want the ending to be what I want, which is simple: rainbows and butterflies, of course. 

Watching movies is a break from real life, as a friend of mine recently stated in an article. And I couldn’t agree more. Letting other people live their lives and make their mistakes takes the weight off of your shoulders for a brief moment to sit back and enjoy all of life, without any of the responsibility.

So, when this desired finale is not followed through by the end of the film, I am left disappointed. A happy ending is preferred, a sad ending is upsetting, but the worst of them all is the open-ended one. 

Not having a proper conclusion means that it could have gone good or bad, ended up how I wanted it to or not, with no guarantee of either one. And losing that definitive answer means that things are left to the imagination, one where things could quickly turn sour. 

However, put In this context, when the ending is unclear, it actually becomes the realest part of the movie. Because my life does not end with a wedding or a reunion or a graduation, it always keeps going. It is always unclear and open-ended. And in open-endings, I am faced with what actually scares me the most: uncertainty. When I am trying to escape reality, I end up being confronted by it again. 

So, realizing this, this year it will be different. This year, instead of dreading not knowing, I am going to embrace the possibilities.

New obstacles and mysterious paths are the truest endings to movies that mimic reality, and in it, there is something that we can learn from, not run from.