In her Letterboxd account alone, my girlfriend has rated 929 films on a scale of one to five stars. When I first met her, it seemed like she had watched every movie I’d ever heard of — and every movie I’d never heard of. Though mildly impressed, I was never surprised by this hobby. I felt the same way that one feels when someone mentions their interest in sports or baking or creative writing. Most people have something that they are a bit obsessed with; movies are, in my estimation, one of the most common. What did shock me, however, was a less common habit of hers: looking up the ending of a movie before watching it and sometimes even while watching it.
At first, this bothered me. I believed, and still do believe, stories aren’t meant to be told or understood this way. A story’s foreshadowing, character arcs and events can only truly be understood in sequential order. Consuming a story out of order may change the message the storyteller is trying to convey. Worst of all, it takes away some of storytelling’s mystery and wonder by eliminating the questions around what’s going to happen.
That being said, I’ve come to understand the urge to know the ending before the story finishes unfolding.
Consider the popular murder mystery film “Knives Out.” For those who haven’t seen the movie, it is centered around two questions: Who killed famous and wealthy novelist Harlan Thrombey, and who will inherit Harlan’s considerable wealth?
The thrill of this genre-bending whodunit comes from the suspense that rises from one fake murderer reveal and the twist of the actual murderer reveal. Knowing the ending of this particular movie diminishes its magic; sorting through the clues and information given by unreliable narrators simply isn’t as fun when you already know the truth.
However, this is only true when you are able to separate yourself from the story. A murder mystery can only ever be considered fun either when it’s so far removed from your life that it doesn’t seem real or when it is entirely a work of fiction. Actually being in the position of the Thrombey family would be awful: Both losing a family patriarch and all financial security would be crushing.
Perhaps the only form of slight consolation one has in a situation like that is knowing how the story ends.
Though most of us will never experience something as drastic as being embroiled in a murder mystery, most of us face a smaller scale version of this phenomenon all the time. As a college student, it’s not always pleasant to be the protagonist in your own story. I’d be able to pay my own tuition if I were given a dollar every time someone asked the questions: “What are you studying?” and “What are you planning to do with that?”
The truth is that most people entering college have no clue how to answer either of those questions. Despite the fact that the cost of the American college experience averages about $35,000 annually, about 80% of college students change their major at least once. This uncertainty about the future doesn’t change after graduation, either: The average college graduate changes jobs four times in their first decade of work, sometimes moving into entirely new industries.
Arguably, the hardest part about college is the uncertainty of everything. You’re never sure which parts of your education you will use (and which you won’t), what you’ll do after, who you’ll actually be able to keep in touch with or even where you’ll live. Doubts linger in every corner: Is this worth it? Does this matter? Are my efforts in vain?
But what if I had the option to know the end of my story? So many of my unknowns would suddenly become known. I’d stress less about whether something or someone is worth my time. Perhaps there’d even be no reason to doubt the point of it all. If we were given the opportunity to know exactly how our story ended, who actually wouldn’t take that chance?
Alas, we don’t get to choose whether we know the end of our story or not; spoiler alert — life isn’t a movie.
It doesn’t have an inciting incident, rising action, climax, declining action and resolution. It isn’t carefully scripted to the smallest detail. It doesn’t begin when the cameras start rolling and end with a neat little bow that ties everything together, closing all the loopholes in the story. At its core, life isn’t a story; it’s an experience.
Life goes on. Life can be unintentional. Life may not make sense.
If we were given the opportunity to know exactly how our story ended, who actually wouldn’t take that chance?
Perhaps the only way to maintain our sanity is to understand the things that happen within our lives not as stories but as experiences.
My time in college is not a story but rather an experience. The same will be true of my professional and personal life. We can’t simply look up the ending to have certainty in the present. We’re predestined to experience all of life’s highs and lows and follow all of its twists and turns.
But maybe that’s not a bad thing.
The magic of watching movies is often that we don’t know the ending and have fun figuring it out along the way. Perhaps that’s the magic of life, too. Perhaps it’s a blessing to have no way to know our endings.
Perhaps life is better because we can’t find it on Letterboxd. Perhaps it is better because there is no script to follow. Life is beautiful because it’s ours — perhaps its experiences and its unknown endings are what make it so.
The magic of watching movies is often that we don’t know the ending and have fun figuring it out along the way. Perhaps that’s the magic of life, too. Perhaps it’s a blessing to have no way to know our endings.
