Many people subscribe to the idea that a movie is only as good as its ending. While the journey should be every bit as important as the destination, it’s hard to move past a poor conclusion because that’s how the experience ends. The Liam Neeson vehicle The Grey gets a lot of flak for promising a fight between the actor and a pack of wolves, only to pull the rug out from underneath the audience right when the fun is going to start. The movie even rubs salt in the wound by including a post-credits scene in which Neeson’s character and his hairy enemy lie on the ground together after their brawl.
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Netflix’s latest release, A House of Dynamite, from director Kathryn Bigelow, finds itself in a similar boat. The premise of the story is that the United States is targeted by a missile whose origin the government can’t figure out. There’s a scramble for information, and without anything concrete, the president is presented with an impossible choice: do nothing and let the missile hit or retaliate against a foreign nation that may not have anything to do with the attack. The president makes a decision, but the movie doesn’t show it or the missile hitting. It leaves the audience in a holding pattern, which its creative team is more than ready to defend.
Kathryn Bigelow and Co. Believe That A House of Dynamite Is All About Starting a Conversation
Despite knowing that her audience will turn on her movie expecting a conclusion, Bigelow isn’t shying away from the fact that she is aware of what’s missing. As she told Netflix’s TUDUM, she was far more interested in telling a story about the chaos the idea of nuclear weapons could cause rather than what they can actually do.
“I want audiences to leave theaters thinking, ‘OK, what do we do now?’” she said. “This is a global issue, and of course I hope against hope that maybe we reduce the nuclear stockpile someday. But in the meantime, we really are living in a house of dynamite. I felt it was so important to get that information out there, so we could start a conversation. That’s the explosion we’re interested in — the conversation people have about the film afterward.”
Noah Oppenheim, A House of Dynamite‘s writer, shared a similar sentiment, telling Decider that, in his head, he knows whether the missile detonates and what the president does about it. However, he doesn’t believe those answers are worth delivering.
“It’s a call to attention and an invitation to a conversation,” he said. “No matter what final outcome you imagine, you’ve already seen a horror unfold. And in the real world, these weapons and all the processes you’ve just seen are still lurking in the background of our lives. Are we comfortable with that reality or should we do something about it?”
A House of Dynamite Could’ve Had Its Cake and Eaten It, Too
There’s something commendable about what Bigelow and Oppenheim did. They knew that putting their movie on Netflix would expose it to many eyes, yet they still decided to go through with their controversial ending. While critics have more or less embraced A House of Dynamite, flaws and all, regular Netflix subscribers aren’t there yet, clinging to the fact that they embrace a group of characters and a story that don’t care enough to show love back. And it’s hard to blame anyone who feels that way, because the final moments feel like they’re running away and hiding rather than tackling the problem head-on.
What House of Dynamite could’ve done is play out the story the same way, but reveal the missile’s fate. The blame game didn’t have to continue, and the president didn’t even have to announce his choice. All people want is to feel like their time isn’t being wasted, and by at least extending one olive branch, A House of Dynamite would have made the rest of the ending go down much smoother.
A House of Dynamite is streaming on Netflix.
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