10 Bleak Movies With Unexpectedly Happy Endings
Films that depress you for the first 90%, then try to make up for it with the last 10%
Tone is a funny thing in movies, isn't it? Any college professor will tell you that tone is something that must remain completely consistent throughout the entire movie. But the way in which tone is funny when it comes to movies is that it doesn't necessarily dictate what can and cannot happen in a movie.
Sure, a Shakespearean tragedy probably shouldn't have a Megazord from Power Rangers crashing down in the middle of the proceedings - though that would definitely make The Merchant Of Venice less boring to sit through - but that doesn't mean a sad story can't have a happy ending. Or even that a downright bleak and depressing story can't have a happy ending.
True you have to try extra super hard to make it work, but if you do, then it will be the ultimate emotional catharsis after such a depressing series of events. Ranked from least to most jarring, these ten movies spend all but the last few minutes or so trying to make you as sad as possible, only to mood whiplash you at the last second.
10. 12 Years A Slave
Starting off with easily the least jarring entry on this list, it isn't unfeasible for a story centering around the American slave trade that doesn't end in its abolishing to have a happy ending, but it is definitely an uphill climb. 12 Years A Slave, to its credit, successfully makes that climb - through the simple act of not making the ending all that happy, all things considered.
12 Years is an unflinchingly bleak look at humanity's gleeful willingness to dehumanize whoever they have to in order to feel better about themselves. Throughout the entire film, our main character, a technically free slave named Solomon Northrup, is kidnapped and thrown right back into bondage for 12 years. He spends these 12 years being passed around from one owner to the next, every one of them some level of absolutely horrible.
The ending to this movie gets put at the bottom because it's not nearly as happy as the others on this list. It's about as happy an ending as you can get with a true story about something like this, but also includes the fact that Northrup tried and failed to get some legal payback against those he was sold off to in the years following the events of the film. But at least by the end, he was no longer under their boot heels.