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 feel more responsible
to write her own ending.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ODG2dCwnr00&w=560&h=315]