I *loved* the ending.

This "sad/dark endings are automatically better than happy endings" sh*t that is so fashionable nowadays totally misses me.

I loved, absolutely loved the end of this movie. The music that is playing as Parris runs to his new love is nothing short of magnificent and ebullient. I love that Drake chooses to laugh at the sadistic doctor's pathetic attempts to kill who he is and rob him of his confidence, character and strength. I love that the new woman in Parris' life makes him realize that he has to treat Drake as a patient, not as his best friend, and he realizes what he has to do. I love that Parris doesn't ruin a young woman's life in an ill-attempted move to save his best friend from suffering by committing an innocent women to a lifetime of unimaginable mental anguish.

By the way, from all I have seen, the movie is much better than the book. The book isn't better just because it's "edgier". We already have one crazy, sadistic doctor (the surgeon). I like it better in the film that Cassandra's father hasn't been raping her and sexually abusing her her whole life. It's actually more creative in the movie that Cassandra's father kills her to spare Parris from what he believes will be ruining his medical career, staying in a small town like he did, to care for Cassandra. In the father's mind, it is almost a mercy killing to free Parris from the life he has had to lead, because as he says in the film, and you can clearly see this, he loves Parris as if he were his own son.

I believe Cassandra is pregnant from Parris, this is what she was trying to tell him when they were by the river together, she just couldn't make herself say the actual words. It is beyond clear in the movie that the two of them had sex the night Parris forgot his books at her father's house and he returns to pick them up. Again, I prefer this to, "crazy old doctor father repeatedly rapes daughter who ends up pregnant".

I can't even remember everything else that I have heard about the book but it really does just come off as too try hard. The film certainly has its' dark moments (Sadistic surgeon who gets off on torturing people? Check. Father kills daughter then kills himself? Check. Mental illnesses that go untreated for years? check. Confident, rich, "playboy" has all of his trust fund money stolen from him and has his legs unnecessarily amputated? Check.) But the movie doesn't go overboard like the book does, where I feel the book needed to rein in some of its' excesses. Sometimes dark themes have more of an impact if you aren't constantly being slammed over the head with them.

I saw one poster claim the ending was "bizarre, cliched and forced". Guess we weren't watching the same film.