One of those movies that people tend to really like or hate. Even I am torn between the two sides. On the one hand it is stylish, very nutty and unpredictable at the end, but on the other hand that resolution does seem like a lame cop-out. Plus, the individual stories were mostly incomplete. Their incompleteness can be easily explained by the fact that they are dreams, but this doesn't change the fact that they don't end satisfactorily.
The conclusion is quite trippy. It makes little sense though, aside from explaining that Nyman actually hallucinated everything while in a coma - and it explains why he attempted suicide.
Very iffy, this suicide business though. Why would a middle-aged man kill himself over some guilt-trip stemming from decades earlier? What was he waiting for? Or was there a different reason for the suicide? Why does he hallucinate these three stories about science being superior over superstition and fear? Why this subject? Is he even a TV personality to begin with? Why does the movie LIE to us about EVERYTHING only to throw the "mega twists" at us? Can't they deliver a story with twists while playing fair with the viewer? It's easy to offer "twists" when you LIE throughout the movie: that doesn't take intelligence and isn't innovative, it's just a cheesy, cheap trick. Lying is easy, after all.
Besides, the writers/directors (Nyman and another guy) lay ALL the blame on Nyman for the death of the mentally-challenged character, when it is abundantly obvious (all the way from outer space) that it's the two thugs that are primarily to blame. Nor do I find it very realistic that Nyman didn't report the event; but OK, that's a minor flaw. It's improbable but not impossible.
The bullying incident itself was way over-the-top too, typical cinematic overkill: the thugs first basically attempted to murder Nyman, then when Kojak showed up they decided to murder him instead! That's how it comes off. The thugs did not appear to be THAT stupid though. They weren't serial-killers, were they? I'd expect only total and utter fools to try that bottle thing without the fear of doing a big stretch of time for it. (Then again, being minors in Britain, they'd probably get a slap on the wrist, nothing more.) Or to send a mentally deficient person into a long, dark, narrow tunnel. Unnecessarily far-fetched. Over-dramatized hence silly.
Another problem is the switching of themes, which is admittedly unusual but basically daft. I'm fine with a very unpredictable ending (people who claim GS was predictable are pathological liars, because there is NOTHING to tell you that he is in a coma, making it all up; only in hindsight can you understand the "clues"), but what has Nyman's suicide have to do with the INITIAL theme about science/reason vs the supernatural? Nothing. The movie starts off with one premise and topic then COMPLETELY veers off into a totally unrelated tangent, as if randomly chosen.
In fact, the very first scenes depict a Jewish family torn by racial prejudice! Goodman talks of how "religion tore our family apart". How? Not only do we not get an explanation, but that topic has very little to do with either the main science/ghost premise nor the later themes of suicide and guilt. It's a very muddled script, in that sense at least.
Typically, all the reviewers who praise GS talk about the clever ending, yet almost none of them discuss WHY the ending is clever or what it even means on some imaginary "profoundly intellectual" level. I am of course referring to the spoiler reviews. None of these spoiler reviews with high ratings discuss in detail WHY the ending is allegedly brilliant. Not one.
As far as the stories...
The 1st story is good. It's nicely shot but seems incomplete. It doesn't even add any hints/clues regarding Nyman. (Of course, later on the last scene ties in well with the hospital segment.)
The 2nd story is very interesting. It's a pity the zombie parents shown briefly were never explained, but perhaps it's better like that. Still, it was a nice touch. Having a sort of demon run over was also a fun and original premise, but it sort of goes nowhere, this story also being incomplete. The photo on the wall is a nice touch too because it's the first hint of the big twist - despite the fact it only has significance in hindsight. Also, Nyman finally experiences something weird after the story; alas, this occurrence only vaguely connects to the ending and is usable as a hint only in hindsight. It means nothing on the first viewing.
The 3rd story has some nice touches, is quite good too, but more importantly after it finishes the trippy stuff starts, beginning with the totally unexpected "suicide" by Freeman - which in hindsight turns out to be related to Goodman's suicide AND Dr Freeman's jokey suggestion that "a shotgun aimed at the head is the right way to do it". (Strangely enough, Dr Freeman says this AFTER the dream, meaning that he must say this "joke" often, though it seems a little odd that he would repeat it, and more than once within comatose Goodman's earshot. A bit far-fetched.)
Shortly after that the movie moves into art-house territory, and then we get that "it was all a dream" cliche ending. Are these film-makers even aware how many movies used this shtick? The first one was "Wizard of Oz" frcrssakes. "Dead End", "The Others", "Sixth Sense", "Specters", "Carnival of Souls", "Stay" and a host of other movies have a similar or same twist. Plus of course "The Usual Suspects" whose end-twist GS unashamedly uses.
Hence I presume that some people impressed with GS must be new to cinema, or at least horror/fantasy films. Everyone else should feel somewhat let down by the ending which is unfortunate because the trippy section that preceded it was a lot of fun and promised a wild ending rather than just another problematic cliche.
After an additional viewing:
I enjoyed the film more the 2nd time around, knowing how things would play out. Slick, interesting, moody, good dialog, good photography, well acted, original...
However, that incomplete ending just doesn't sit well with me. Basically, it tells us that Goodman is a random suicide coma case. We realize that we know almost nothing about him, aside from the guilt he has over the incident in the tunnel. The film lies to us all along, which is OK to a certain extent i.e. Provided it gives us at least some info about the man. The entire movie was told from his perspective, basically, yet when the movie ends we know far less about him than we (believed we) did 90 minutes earlier. We know almost nothing in fact. For all we know, he is Romanian bank clerk as opposed to a Jewish paranormal debunker.
That to me makes no sense, that we should know LESS at the end than at the beginning. Goodman is basically a random person picked off the street and thrown into the script, just because he had a botched suicide attempt.
Even that old tunnel incident turns out not to be necessarily relevant to the hospital scenes, because it fails to explain who Goodman was, what his life was like, and what lead him to suicide. WHY should such a story revolve around a random Joe Shmoe about whom we find out practically nothing? As it is, the film's ending expects us to be satisfied with an ending that basically has some random guy tortured for "eternity" because he failed to kill himself? How fashionably nihilistic, which is ironic considering the moral lecture Demon Freeman was giving to Goodman just before he was "sent back" to the hospital. But then again, that was just a dream, hence potentially meaningless.
And what the hell is that bird hitting the window supposed to represent? I mean, aside from the end of the most recent dream and the beginning of the next i.e. A repeat of it i.e. The loop being continued. Why did the writers choose a bird hitting a window to signify the re-start of the loop? Because there's a window and it's convenient? We also don't know for sure that the dream does repeat: maybe it's a completely different one every time - in which case AGAIN we have a meaningless ending, because the movie covers only one of potentially infinite dreams.
There is the additional annoyance of Freeman acting as some kind of avenging angel, as if Goodman deserves to be tortured for eternity (or how many years he'll be stuck in a coma) for something that two other guys are responsible for. Wouldn't it have made more sense to somehow pin the punishment for the demise of the kid on one of his actual killers? The script could have possibly used another twist, which leads to the hospital bed of the fat killer. Or elsewhere. Or something of that nature. Instead, the innocent gets punished, the guilty go scot-free.
Then again, we don't even know what really happened at the tunnel that day, because all we get is the dream version of the event. So in fact we might not know squat, except that a random suicide coma case is having the same elaborate dream in a loop.
In fact, if the point of this movie was to say "this is just a prank, there was no childhood guilt trauma, this story exists just to be fun" then that I'd accept. But in terms of there being a "moral" to this story, forget about it. Zero moral. Certainly I am hoping that the writers weren't so naive as to expect us to conclude that Goodman committed suicide as a result of his guilt. What, 30 years after the incident he decides to kill himself? Despite not being guilty of the murder? Still, this way or that, the ending does not work that well.
The conclusion, as it stands, means nothing. It is merely a rehash of "Stay" (and a number of other "endless loop" films) plus the "free association" shtick of "Usual Suspects". Pity, because a worthy ending would have turned this into a great movie.
The conclusion is quite trippy. It makes little sense though, aside from explaining that Nyman actually hallucinated everything while in a coma - and it explains why he attempted suicide.
Very iffy, this suicide business though. Why would a middle-aged man kill himself over some guilt-trip stemming from decades earlier? What was he waiting for? Or was there a different reason for the suicide? Why does he hallucinate these three stories about science being superior over superstition and fear? Why this subject? Is he even a TV personality to begin with? Why does the movie LIE to us about EVERYTHING only to throw the "mega twists" at us? Can't they deliver a story with twists while playing fair with the viewer? It's easy to offer "twists" when you LIE throughout the movie: that doesn't take intelligence and isn't innovative, it's just a cheesy, cheap trick. Lying is easy, after all.
Besides, the writers/directors (Nyman and another guy) lay ALL the blame on Nyman for the death of the mentally-challenged character, when it is abundantly obvious (all the way from outer space) that it's the two thugs that are primarily to blame. Nor do I find it very realistic that Nyman didn't report the event; but OK, that's a minor flaw. It's improbable but not impossible.
The bullying incident itself was way over-the-top too, typical cinematic overkill: the thugs first basically attempted to murder Nyman, then when Kojak showed up they decided to murder him instead! That's how it comes off. The thugs did not appear to be THAT stupid though. They weren't serial-killers, were they? I'd expect only total and utter fools to try that bottle thing without the fear of doing a big stretch of time for it. (Then again, being minors in Britain, they'd probably get a slap on the wrist, nothing more.) Or to send a mentally deficient person into a long, dark, narrow tunnel. Unnecessarily far-fetched. Over-dramatized hence silly.
Another problem is the switching of themes, which is admittedly unusual but basically daft. I'm fine with a very unpredictable ending (people who claim GS was predictable are pathological liars, because there is NOTHING to tell you that he is in a coma, making it all up; only in hindsight can you understand the "clues"), but what has Nyman's suicide have to do with the INITIAL theme about science/reason vs the supernatural? Nothing. The movie starts off with one premise and topic then COMPLETELY veers off into a totally unrelated tangent, as if randomly chosen.
In fact, the very first scenes depict a Jewish family torn by racial prejudice! Goodman talks of how "religion tore our family apart". How? Not only do we not get an explanation, but that topic has very little to do with either the main science/ghost premise nor the later themes of suicide and guilt. It's a very muddled script, in that sense at least.
Typically, all the reviewers who praise GS talk about the clever ending, yet almost none of them discuss WHY the ending is clever or what it even means on some imaginary "profoundly intellectual" level. I am of course referring to the spoiler reviews. None of these spoiler reviews with high ratings discuss in detail WHY the ending is allegedly brilliant. Not one.
As far as the stories...
The 1st story is good. It's nicely shot but seems incomplete. It doesn't even add any hints/clues regarding Nyman. (Of course, later on the last scene ties in well with the hospital segment.)
The 2nd story is very interesting. It's a pity the zombie parents shown briefly were never explained, but perhaps it's better like that. Still, it was a nice touch. Having a sort of demon run over was also a fun and original premise, but it sort of goes nowhere, this story also being incomplete. The photo on the wall is a nice touch too because it's the first hint of the big twist - despite the fact it only has significance in hindsight. Also, Nyman finally experiences something weird after the story; alas, this occurrence only vaguely connects to the ending and is usable as a hint only in hindsight. It means nothing on the first viewing.
The 3rd story has some nice touches, is quite good too, but more importantly after it finishes the trippy stuff starts, beginning with the totally unexpected "suicide" by Freeman - which in hindsight turns out to be related to Goodman's suicide AND Dr Freeman's jokey suggestion that "a shotgun aimed at the head is the right way to do it". (Strangely enough, Dr Freeman says this AFTER the dream, meaning that he must say this "joke" often, though it seems a little odd that he would repeat it, and more than once within comatose Goodman's earshot. A bit far-fetched.)
Shortly after that the movie moves into art-house territory, and then we get that "it was all a dream" cliche ending. Are these film-makers even aware how many movies used this shtick? The first one was "Wizard of Oz" frcrssakes. "Dead End", "The Others", "Sixth Sense", "Specters", "Carnival of Souls", "Stay" and a host of other movies have a similar or same twist. Plus of course "The Usual Suspects" whose end-twist GS unashamedly uses.
Hence I presume that some people impressed with GS must be new to cinema, or at least horror/fantasy films. Everyone else should feel somewhat let down by the ending which is unfortunate because the trippy section that preceded it was a lot of fun and promised a wild ending rather than just another problematic cliche.
After an additional viewing:
I enjoyed the film more the 2nd time around, knowing how things would play out. Slick, interesting, moody, good dialog, good photography, well acted, original...
However, that incomplete ending just doesn't sit well with me. Basically, it tells us that Goodman is a random suicide coma case. We realize that we know almost nothing about him, aside from the guilt he has over the incident in the tunnel. The film lies to us all along, which is OK to a certain extent i.e. Provided it gives us at least some info about the man. The entire movie was told from his perspective, basically, yet when the movie ends we know far less about him than we (believed we) did 90 minutes earlier. We know almost nothing in fact. For all we know, he is Romanian bank clerk as opposed to a Jewish paranormal debunker.
That to me makes no sense, that we should know LESS at the end than at the beginning. Goodman is basically a random person picked off the street and thrown into the script, just because he had a botched suicide attempt.
Even that old tunnel incident turns out not to be necessarily relevant to the hospital scenes, because it fails to explain who Goodman was, what his life was like, and what lead him to suicide. WHY should such a story revolve around a random Joe Shmoe about whom we find out practically nothing? As it is, the film's ending expects us to be satisfied with an ending that basically has some random guy tortured for "eternity" because he failed to kill himself? How fashionably nihilistic, which is ironic considering the moral lecture Demon Freeman was giving to Goodman just before he was "sent back" to the hospital. But then again, that was just a dream, hence potentially meaningless.
And what the hell is that bird hitting the window supposed to represent? I mean, aside from the end of the most recent dream and the beginning of the next i.e. A repeat of it i.e. The loop being continued. Why did the writers choose a bird hitting a window to signify the re-start of the loop? Because there's a window and it's convenient? We also don't know for sure that the dream does repeat: maybe it's a completely different one every time - in which case AGAIN we have a meaningless ending, because the movie covers only one of potentially infinite dreams.
There is the additional annoyance of Freeman acting as some kind of avenging angel, as if Goodman deserves to be tortured for eternity (or how many years he'll be stuck in a coma) for something that two other guys are responsible for. Wouldn't it have made more sense to somehow pin the punishment for the demise of the kid on one of his actual killers? The script could have possibly used another twist, which leads to the hospital bed of the fat killer. Or elsewhere. Or something of that nature. Instead, the innocent gets punished, the guilty go scot-free.
Then again, we don't even know what really happened at the tunnel that day, because all we get is the dream version of the event. So in fact we might not know squat, except that a random suicide coma case is having the same elaborate dream in a loop.
In fact, if the point of this movie was to say "this is just a prank, there was no childhood guilt trauma, this story exists just to be fun" then that I'd accept. But in terms of there being a "moral" to this story, forget about it. Zero moral. Certainly I am hoping that the writers weren't so naive as to expect us to conclude that Goodman committed suicide as a result of his guilt. What, 30 years after the incident he decides to kill himself? Despite not being guilty of the murder? Still, this way or that, the ending does not work that well.
The conclusion, as it stands, means nothing. It is merely a rehash of "Stay" (and a number of other "endless loop" films) plus the "free association" shtick of "Usual Suspects". Pity, because a worthy ending would have turned this into a great movie.