MovieChat Forums > Prime Suspect: The Final Act (2006) Discussion > Magnificent ending (spoilers)

Magnificent ending (spoilers)

posted 17 years ago by viktor_57
22 replies | jump to latest

Dame Mirren's performance in the final scenes of Prime Suspect 7 floored me.

After Penny is brought in and demanding to see DSI Tennison, we see Tennison's steely resolve not to see her, but we also see the hurt from being betrayed and the self-disgust at having been duped.

When Tennison finally does enter the interrogation room, she remains aloof and even more reserved than usual, but as Penny slowly unravels and the evidence against her proves inescapable, Tennison's compassion slowly returns for the young teen she befriended and once loved.

Finally, when Penny realizes all is lost, she turns on Tennison, but at this point, Tennison's anger has dissolved and all she can do is to respond that she never lied to Penny. Then, as Tennison seems to accept the hard truth, she has a flash which seems to offer a way out for Penny, and this brief, tenuous hope lifts Tennison slightly, who offers that Penny only meant to kill the fetus, and not victim herself. Penny refutes this, and Tennison collapses into herself.

The other detectives come in and take Penny away, but Tennison remains head down, unable to face anyone. Then, in a broken voice, made all the more powerful because she has always projected strength and hidden her emotions in public, she says that they got what they wanted. But she also got what she wanted, Sallie's murderer, as she promised Sallie's father. At that moment, however, she was not being a detective, but a lonely, driven alcoholic at the end of her career who was forced to cut her own lifeline to a world of hope and possibilities.

We do not end on this dark note, of course, as Sallie's parents thank Tennison and remind her of her years of service to all the victim's families, but the tragedy of the interview scene and the way that Dame Mirren played it mark, for me, the pinnacle of the series and the career of DSI Tennison: a determined, passionate individual who pursued her profession without apology or seeming regret, only to be reminded, at the very end, of what she sacrificed in the process. I would not call it a Pyrrhic victory, but it is a victory nonetheless.

[–] videoman-10 17 years ago

viktor, your summation of PS7 hits the nail on the head. I'm so glad that Sallie's parents showed up to thank Tennison at the end and allowed her to walk away with her head up...ignoring the retirement party about to ensue and the arriving male stripper (I assume that's who was entering the building as she was leaving). If it had ended immediately after Penny's interrogation it would have been far to bleak to handle. The ending hit all the right notes and maintained the integrity that has been a hallmark of this series for the past 15 years. Thanks for providing such an eloquent interpretation.

[–] amjets0912 17 years ago

That was a perfect summation, viktor_57. Thank you!

[–] screamthylastscream2000 17 years ago

I would just like to say that was an excellent summation of Prime Suspect 7 Viktor. Spot on.

Scott

[–] P-Mac-2008 17 years ago

The last few shots were very moving. Jane walking into the world, free, but hoping to seek redemption in Alcoholics Anonymous, with the sad music in the background... perfect ending. There was no need to kill her off.

[–] alfagetti 17 years ago

Excellent summary! I thought the male stripper was rather symbolic and used quite effectively. Jane was someone whose job had been to enforce the law. Now, she was being "stripped" of that title, and its responsibilities, due to retirement. She was leaving behind what was primarily a man's world. Jane seemed hopeful and ready to remove her emotional layers and hopefully discover the person (woman) beneath. AA was a start.

(Probably not the effect the stripper had in mind....)

[–] viktor_57 17 years ago

alfagetti, that is a very interesting symbolic interpretation of the male stripper and one I did not think of at the time or even in retrospect.

For me, the stripper represented the goodwill of Tennison's colleagues and their love and respect for her. They also, it seemed, wanted to give Tennison a light-hearted sending away and a retirement party she would remember fondly.

That Tennison walked out on the party was in perfect character because her career was her life, and the stripper, despite her colleagues' best intentions, seemed to demean and trivialize not only the hard and noble work she did, but also the sacrifices she made for her career. It is a far better summation of Tennison's career that her final memories of it be the gratitude of the murder victim's parents rather than the gyrations of a male stripper.

I know my interpretation of the stripper is far less creative than yours, alfagetti, but I am becoming more of a literalist as I get older.

[–] jonathan-wylie 17 years ago

The final scene with Jane and Penny in the interrogation room was the most moving scene I have scene all year particularly when Jane said to Penny, I wanted to give you love, the hairs on the back of my neck stood up.

Helen Mirren deserves the Emmy and the Bafta for this performance.

[–] viktor_57 17 years ago

Thank you, jonathan-wylie, for reminding me of that moment. I've watched Prime Suspect 7 twice now and each time I get to the final interrogation scene, I get so verklempt that I can hardly stand to watch it. But at the same time, I am so awed by the way Dame Mirren and Ms. Greenwood play the scene that I can't take my eyes away.

There are so many moments of small genius in that scene that I always pick up something new that adds to the overall power of the scene. When DSI Tennison says she wanted to give Penny love, the naked honesty in her voice is almost too much to bear. I am getting verklempt just writing about it.

Dame Mirren deserves not only the Emmy and the Bafta, but a Nobel as well. A Nobel Prize for Acting. They give one for literature, so why not acting? A Nobel for Dame Mirren!

[–] viktor_57 17 years ago

I agree, Paul-2006, that the closing shots of the former DSI Tennison walking out of her past life and into the world were very affecting. I too detected hope in her features and movement, but also a kind of resignation and loss, tempered, of course, by her steely resolve.

The fact that our final view of Tennison is from the back leaves us guessing as to what she might be thinking or feeling, but this seems right: the Prime Suspect series dealt with Tennison's career and how this all-consuming pursuit subsumed her private life to the point where she barely had one, and what life she did have she could barely sustain. Now that she is no longer a police detective, the camera lingers behind, almost out of courtesy, and releases Jane into the world free of her title and professional responsibilities, but not free from the damage to her soul and private relationships, the price she willingly paid for that title and her profession.

But if we've learned anything about Tennison from the series, we have learned that, as flawed as she is, her unwavering moral compass and core strength--the basis of her formidable persona--have always pulled her through before and will likely do so in the future, because that part of her psyche, despite all that she has seen and experienced, has remained intact to the very end.

I love this character and the way she was protrayed. Viva la Jane! Viva la Dame Mirren!

[–] llareggub 17 years ago

Shakespeare.
A local (Australian) review said the final series was worthy of The Bard. He/She/It was wrong. It was not just better, it was incomparable. It was what the great man would have written if he had had Helen Mirren as a lead. I am of an age that can remember Helen Mirren's chest rising from the Coral Sea in "Age of Consent". I am still a dedicated SCUBA diver, but nothing like that (them?) has reared it's head around here in the past 30 years. I am still looking, but despite her extraordinary beauty, one comes up against her outrageous talent. Words fail. Watch, and be mesmerised.

[–] waytoo1 17 years ago

Thanks for this! I missed the last part of the show and this was terrific!

[–] viktor_57 17 years ago

You're very welcome, waytoo1, but no written description of the final scenes of Prime Suspect 7 can do justice to both Dame Mirren's and Ms. Greenwood's gut-wrenching performance.

With the holiday season fast approaching, I suggest dropping subtle hints for your gift-giving loved ones that you would really, really appreciate receiving the complete Prime Suspect series, all seven episodes, on DVD. Or you could just get it for yourself. There is a thread with more information on the DVD box set:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0811026/board/nest/59870577

I hope you will be able to see the parts of the show you missed because they were, for me, some of the most powerful scenes in all the series and in all of television and film as well.

[–] Chirpy_Sabz 17 years ago

Yes, fantastic ending.

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[–] viktor_57 17 years ago

booradley9, it would seem I am not the only one who has given the life and motives of DSI Tennison a lot of thought!

Your observations seem to me spot on, especially concerning her ambivalent feelings towards Penny.

But I am still hopeful that Tennison may eventually learn to forgive Penny for her conflicted and deceitful behavior which led to the tragic conclusion of their relationship. Tennison could never forgive Penny for her crime, of course, as that would go against every moral fiber of Tennison's being, but I think Tennison could learn to forgive Penny for the emotional pain she caused her, especially as a step towards her new life free of the psychological burdens of police work and also, hopefully, of alcoholism.

That, unfortunately, is what made Tennison so great and tragic at the same time: her addictive and obsessive personality. To succeed in a man's world, she had to prove herself by driving herself constantly and very hard, and the relief she chose for herself, alcohol and intense but fleeting relationships, she pursued with the same drive and compulsion.

But that was the old Tennison. In my own storybook ending, Tennison stays sober through AA; reconnects with her remaining family--at least to the point where she remembers the names and birthdays of her nieces and nephews; finds a retired professor of Russian literature who will play the domestic and with whom she can settle down; consults occasionally--and with the passing years, less and less; and finally, mentors Penny through the juvenile justice system, eventually coming to love the young woman, broken psyche and all. I can even envisage, in a hokey but touching scene, Penny graduating high school, or with her British GED equivalent, in prison, and Tennison attending, her face proud, sad, and hopeful, with just a hint of tears in her eyes.

So I'm a hopeless romantic. But even hard-bitten, retired cops and emotionally troubled juvenile murderers can have a satisfactory, if not happy, ending.

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[–] khaled-19 12 years ago

thank you for that!! so great!!!! totally my picture of ot too)))

[–] apg-5 17 years ago

Excellent and interesting post. By the way - she's Dame Helen, not Dame Mirren. It's always the first name.

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