This sweet love story can only end in blood!

I’m not sure what put this topic into my head but as it’s there … does anyone remember the 1986 movie Something Wild?

Jeff Daniels plays Charlie, a married salaryman who encounters Lulu (Melanie Griffith), a flamboyant free spirit. She lures him away from his work and his family, getting a kick of seeing him walk on the wild side. Except all is not what it seems. Charlie’s divorced and unattached when Lulu flirts with him. Lulu’s plan includes taking him back to her small town’s high-school reunion to prove to her old friends that she’s gotten her act together.

How will they react when they realize they’ve both hooked up with someone who’s not what they initially assumed? I’d have been interesting in finding out, but we don’t. Instead, Griffith’s ex (Ray Liotta) horns his way into the relationship, talks/bullies them into participating in a robbery with him, then when they get away hunts them down and tries to kill them. The last third of the movie (or so it seems in my memory) jumps from an oddball rom-com to non-stop graphic violence.

The violence would have been bad enough to make me dislike the film (up until that point, I’d been into it) but it also kills the narrative arc. Yes, Charlie and Lulu get together at the end but they never resolve any of the “you’re not the person I thought” stuff, they simply hook up.

Orson Scott Card wrote in a couple of his how-to writing-advice books (despite his going off the deep end politically, I’ve found them both valuable) that the ending of a story should mirror the beginning. Say your novel/film/comic book is both a heist story and a romance; if you open by focusing on Mr, Big bringing the gang together, the ending should resolve the heist (they get away, they die, they’re all busted). You’ll want to resolve the romance too but it’s more of a subplot. Conversely, if you start with two lovers who then get drawn into the heist, it’s important the ending focus on the fate of their relationship.

For an example of doing it right, 1961’s Cash and Carry is a caper film in which Andre Morell takes bank manager Peter Cushing’s family hostage to ensure his cooperation in the robbery. The story starts by introducing us to Cushing’s character, a man who appears to have ice water in his veins. He’s ruthlessly efficient, considers the office Christmas party an annoying intrusion on business and probably isn’t’ much fun as a family man. It’s something Morell rubs in at several points — you aren’t much of a father, surely you can do this to save your little boy?

At the end of the film (very good, with two terrific actors at its core), Cushing’s staff saves the day. I can’t say he has a three-spirits-visited conversion but he’s grateful for what the staff did and does his best to look cheerful for the party. The film starts with him as a cold fish and ends with him thawed.

Similarly, Hitchcock’s North by Northwest (1959) is a spy thriller that wraps the spy plot up before the end. Spymaster Vandamm is satisfied Roger Thornhill (Cary Grant) is dead; double agent Eve (Eva Marie Saint) has proven she’s loyal to him; the American spymaster (Leo G. Carroll) has accomplished his goal. Except Roger has fallen in love with Eve and isn’t willing to let her go off with Vandamm. Worse, Vandamm’s figured out she’s on the American team and plans to throw her out of his plane during a transatlantic flight. Roger goes all out to rescue her, culminating in the classic chase across Mt, Rushmore (there’s nothing in this film that isn’t classic).

This is a personal fight, not part of the spy story, but it’s the right material for the end of the film. When we first met Roger, he’s a player who can’t keep track of which girlfriend should receive which gift without his secretary’s help. Events change him to the point he’s willing to put his life on the line for love.

By contrast, Something Wild didn’t’t resolve its ending. It’s not unique. The 1985 comedy Head Office has Judge Reinhold’s naive protagonist plunged into a corporate job that holds lots of opportunities for cheap sex and corruption; will he succumb? The resolution is having him and his girlfriend chased through the corporate office by a Latin American death squad.

1994’s The Paper shows an A-list production (directed by Ron Howard, and look at the cast above) can have the same problem. Early on we learn pregnant reporter Martha (Marisa Tomei) is worried her husband Henry (Michael Keaton), for all his promises that he’ll be a fully involved co-parent, will wind up putting in long hours at the office and leaving her coping with the baby solo. It is very obvious she has grounds to be worried. That’s a question I expected the ending to resolve. Instead, after the main plot — a heated struggle at the paper over how to handle an explosive story — we see Henry with his newborn son, then going to his wife … which tells us absolutely nothing about whether he’ll be a good father the following morning.

One final example, the delightful-until-the-ending Victor/Victoria (1982). It’s 1920s Paris and Victoria (Julie Andrews) has found fame by posing as a female impersonator/singer — OMG, look how well Victor pretends to be a woman! A mobster named King (James Garner) learns the truth and falls for her but dammit, now everyone thinks he’s a — well, you know. He can’t stand that; Victoria doesn’t want to give up the freedoms she gets by posing as a man. How will they work it out?

They don’t. After rumors Victor is a fraud circulate, the police descend on the theater; fortunately Victoria’s gay buddy (Robert Preston) is there to perform one of her signature numbers and he’s obviously male. Which apparently is good enough for the law. What isn’t good enough is that Preston’s drag number is the finish of the film; the romantic resolution is having Victoria join King in the audience dressed as a woman. Which is presumably meant to reassure us that rightful male-female relations are restored — but they’ve skipped all the character development that might have justified her decision. For all its charms, I have no urge to rewatch it.