A common criticism that movie-goers tend to levy against motion pictures of all kinds is: "Nothing happens." This, of course, is a phrase usually employed to denote that the movie was either boring, there was little action or dialogue to speak of, or the narrative didn't go in the direction they expected. Sometimes it can be all of those things. A lot of the time, though, "nothing happens" feels like something of a misguided complaint - just because the story was subtle or understated doesn't necessarily mean that nothing actually went on; there was still a "point." Take Lost In Translation, for example, a movie which has pretty much earned a status as the poster child for a "nothing happened" film, for good or for worse. Although many are quick to brandish it as boring because there is little "plot" to speak of, though, to say that nothing happens is far too glib a statement: for the characters in the movie, at least, a hell of a lot happens... the emotional connection shared by Bill Murray's Bob and Scarlett Johansson's Charlotte is something life-changing and transcendent. There just aren't any explosions to speak of. So "nothing happens" is a term that gets thrown around far too often, and one which is rarely used to accurately describe the movie in question. What we've gathered for this article, however, are 10 movies which could rather fairly be described as having "gone nowhere." Be it because the plots were convoluted and failed to make a point, because the films ended without making any sort of statement, or the story went nowhere, these are the motion pictures that had us scratching our heads at the end, asking: "What was the point?" Please note: spoilers within...
Sam Hill is an ardent cinephile and has been writing about film professionally since 2008. He harbours a particular fondness for western and sci-fi movies.
