MovieChat Forums > Shoot the Moon (1982) Discussion > The ending is worth seeing the movie

The ending is worth seeing the movie

posted 19 years ago by jolypm
17 replies | jump to latest

What went wrong exactly between these two (Finney and Keaton)? I don't think it is ever being said. When the film starts, he has a mistress, the wife finds out and the next thing you know and expect, she's gonna have a lover too and there it is! Not very original! It looks very superficial to me. I mean, it's treatment. A lot like the French movies. French are masters with movies about marital/love affairs going wrong. Still, the ending is great. I liked it! I thought his madness was the expression of the love he still had for his ex-wife... and all his frustations coming out suddenly were justified... Will she forgive him or not for having destroyed almost everything? (The kids, in their beautiful innocence, immediately did.) To each his own answer. The more movies I see starring Albert Finney the more I discover what a great, great actor he is. The late Dana Hill was wonderful, too. So believable in her role. The movie, visually, is a wonderful poem. Really, really beautiful. Like paintings. I liked the movie but still many things were missing. And sometimes, the relations between the mother and her daughters looked... felt... false. Would like to know other opinions... This movie has been done in the 80's and it still looks good. Surely, because of Alan Parker's signature.

[–] muscla_1 19 years ago

CAUTION: SPOILER!

I recently understood the ending when I watched this movie on home video recently. What happens is that Albert Finney, who's left his wife for a vapid younger woman, finally realizes his mistake. He gradually brings his daughters, who hate him, back.

In the final scene, Faith, his wife, is having a party at just finished tennis court that her lover has built. Albert Finney stops by. Things are cordial.

Suddenly, Finney gets on a bulldozer and proceeds to destroy the new tennis court. The lover drags him off and beats the crap out of him. Lying there, dazed and bloody, his crying daughters hold him. He looks up and his wife is standing there. He says "Faith?" and the final shot is a freeze-frame of his arm outstretched to his ex-wife.

What he's doing is "shooting the moon." In the card game hearts, the object is NOT to be stuck with hearts (negative one point) and especially not the Queen of Spades (negative 13 points).

HOWEVER, if you're really crafty and willing to risk it all, if you take ALL of the hearts and the Queen of spades, you get POSITIVE 26 points. It's a ballsy thing to do, and it takes strategic play and good cards (this is also strategic because you take 3 or 4 cards that you don't want and pass them to another player, so everyone exchanges cards, except in the last hand. So if you have a lot of high hearts and spades, it's a good idea to retain them and pass lower cards).

Finney takes a huge risk by doing exactly the opposite of a rational reaction by destroying the tennis court. It could have further estranged his family, and/or he could have been seriouly injured. But he's played his strategy, and takes his chances. The daughters come running to him...they are the hearts.

Faith is the Queen of Spades, and he's taking the final trick and shooting the moon when he reaches for her (well, we don't know if it works or not).

Powerful metaphor, and for years I could never figure out why this ending affected me so deeply (and I'm a HUGE hearts player). I finally got it.

Alan Parker's best film.

"Jack, I swear..."

[–] jolypm 19 years ago

Wow! Your reply to my comment is just sensational! Magnifique!
It proves to me that it was worth for me to write it. Thank you, very much!

[–] Newz_Dawg 18 years ago

So, do you think the kids helped look for Finney's testicles, which had popped out his ears after suffering a savage kick to the groin? And will the lover be arrested for murder, because Finney's character will surely die of internal hemorrhaging from an exploded groin?

"I hate people I don't like."

Newz Dawg

[–] AleksanderJacobi 17 years ago

Nice! I'm going to have to watch it again just off your explanation of the ending. Very nicely done.

[–] andreahughes3 19 years ago

The whole movie was about him and his midlife crises (that's why he had the affair), plus the romance has gone out of their lifes. I thnik it goes on in a lot of relationships. If you are not careful, you might wake up one morning and say to yourself who is this person I'm living with??? That is what the whole movie is all about and that's why I like it so much and English and Frensh movies as well. Look at the English movie " Sherley Valentine"!!!!

[–] rtestes 18 years ago

Something rarely mentioned, I see it as an example of a man living in a house of women. His crisis is that, not midlife. He gives in at the last.

[–] 18 years ago

[deleted]

[–] bowery_boy 17 years ago

I was about to post the same thing, that it was his station wagon, not a bulldozer. I like to think that she doesn't go back to him but my gut says that she does. This is such an amazing movie, flaws and all.

[–] AleksanderJacobi 17 years ago

There is nothing wrong with the ending of this movie. I think George reacts like he does because he realizes what he's lost and in his mind, albeit a strange way to go about it he believes by this act of rage that he can somehow show Faith that he wants her back and that he did indeed make a mistake.
I always liked this movie. The ending is fine with me. As for your comment that it's superficial. I think you're mistaken. Faith has no idea this is coming and it shows that clearly. It doesn't go into long, drawn out detail but it explains it enough to satisfy. I'm glad it's out on DVD finally.

[–] act928 16 years ago

I really wouldn't get back with him. That is over the line for me. No way. To me she probably ends up with Frank.

[–] mmitsos-1 15 years ago

Yes, even though he realizes he made a mistake, and even though he showed his realization in a big, dramatic way by destroying the tennis court, and even though he was beaten up Frank...I wouldn't take my husband back...no way. He was a SH*T for messing around her, and deserved to be kicked. No way. I'd call the ambulance for him, maybe, and then never bother seeing him again.

[–] ceebeegee 13 years ago

I don't think she should go back with Frank either. He beat up those kids' father right in front of them--they'll never be able to be around him again. Sure, I can see *why* Frank did it, but in front of the kids? No way.

[–] stayup_all_night 13 years ago

BIG TIME SPOILER:

The ending was great! It took me totally by surprise. The poster who likened George's destroying of the tenis court to the shoot-the-moon card-game gamble was right on. The poster who mentioned George living with all those females was onto something too. It's a fact than men are left-brain (logic) and women are right-brain (emotional). So George decided to let it all hang out emotionally in the final scene. But also, George did show violent tendencies when he broke into the house, threw his wife, and 'spanked' his daughter. The viewer kind of let that go (even though we shouldn't have)...and it came back to smack us at the end. Great ending!

[–] ceebeegee 10 years ago

It's not "a fact." Jesus Christ, you just saw a movie where two guys have the most emotional, violent (men are MUCH more violent than women so don't float this crap about men being inherently more logical) actions/reactions in the entire movie. And you're claiming women are somehow more emotional? Gross. Just gross. Fail comment.

[–] scorpion016 15 years ago

The ending scene was the best part to me too! I wish this movie would air on cable again. Perhaps, I should just go out and buy the movie!

No permitaque los bastardos le consigan hacia abajo!
SMG

[–] Echo_in_big_sky 14 years ago

I think he was a psychopath and if that's how people show they love someone, I'll pass. His wife does not extend her hand to him, which I think means she is so over him.

He was a self-centered ass who wanted his own life to include everything he wanted, but he expected his wife to freeze frame her life and not progress. He couldn't bear the fact that life goes on for his ex wife pretty darn well without him.

The ending left me cold. I was like, "I hope he gets life in prison for that."

Always the officiant, never the bride. http://www.withthiskissitheewed.com

[–] mathmaniac 8 years ago

I didn't think he should get life in prison - but maybe, instead, months of rehab and help to understand how adults go on with their lives after divorce and how men learn to treat women with respect.

Faith could use that kind of counseling, too. But, then, she's not the person who put the lives of all those guests at risk by driving full-throttle into a crowd.

The 'Shoot the Moon' analogy sounds good. IMO, what George saw was some success in his soon-to-be-ex-wife's life. That just drove him over the edge. His ego wouldn't allow him to have a young girlfriend AND a wife who WASN'T pining over his leaving her. She was showing all the signs of a person who moves on: building new things, telling him that they could be adults and he could bring his girlfriend to play tennis there. Her virile younger man was the perfect match for George's new younger girlfriend. It just drove George temporarily insane to realize that he couldn't control how other people succeeded or failed in their lives. Selfish? Yeah. A jerk? Yeah.