What was that ending?
She called me up,
accusing,
as though I’d written it myself.
I don’t understand it.
Everyone’s been talking about this film for months,
and I finally get to go
and that’s how it ends?
I sit there silently for a moment or two,
not knowing what to say,
and then quietly,
I begin with a careful explanation,
as if I am her English teacher.
I talk about ambivalence
and the magical opportunity
through imagination
to see how choices get played out —
the current popular obsession
with twist endings &multiverses,
how perhaps they fulfill
a need in the zeitgeist
because of all that’s going on in our world,
even if the screenplay was
written before it all fell apart.
But what about my need for a happy ending?
she pleads.
This film just doesn’t make sense.
After we hang up,
I think about it.
About how cheated we all are by the happy ending,
how betrayed she feels.
And then I think,
perhaps
now she’ll feel more responsible
to write her own ending.