10 Utterly Devastating Film Endings That Totally Came Out Of Nowhere
10. Marley And Me - Marley Dies
At first glance, and after multiple glances, Marley and Me could be dismissed as a harmless bit of fluff. There's an adorable dog, a throwaway plot and in the form of Owen Wilson and Jennifer Aniston, established Hollywood A-listers working on auto-pilot. So far, so good. What happens is the humans get gradually more flustered by Marley's antics, and a good time is had by all. Then come film's close, Marley is put to sleep as he begins to succumb to the ravages of old age.
Sorry, what?
Where the hell did that come from? All the while we imagined that this was a kid's film - after all, the rating doesn't give it away as anything particularly shocking, and the trailers establish something of a goofball romp. Yet here we are come the close, with a dog being put down after falling victim to illness. For adults, it was traumatic so imagine what effect it had on the kids whose parents had brought them in expecting something similar to Beethoven or Homeward Bound.
It was just wildly, wildly unnecessary. No film should ever end with the titular animal character being down, Old Yeller notwithstanding. Yet Marley chose to follow through on the upsetting vignettes, cementing itself as an Old Yeller for the modern age and unexpectedly traumatising some moviegoers. The only way it could have been worse was if they used the Old Yeller gun-out-back technique.