How to End a Movie
Sidney Lumet, House of Dynamite & Weapons
I think inevitability is the key. In a well-made drama, I want to feel: “Of course—that’s where it was heading all along.” And yet the inevitability mustn’t eliminate surprise. There’s not much point in spending two hours on something that became clear in the first five minutes. Inevitability doesn’t mean predictability. The script must still keep you off balance, keep you surprised, entertaining, involved, and yet, when the denouement is reached, still give you the sense that the story had to turn out that way.
This is from Sidney Lumet’s Making Movies. I like the distinction between inevitability and predictability. I was mixed on the third act of Weapons, but the denouement was a perfect visual and thematic punchline to what turned out to be an elaborately constructed joke. Inevitable. My wife and I groaned around halfway through House of Dynamite, when it became clear that the movie’s reset-the-clock structure was a one-way ticket to a cop-out ending. Predictable.