"Leave the audience in the dark and let them make up their own minds..."
As if that's a bad thing?
***SPOILER ALERTS****
Hate to say it, but in the cases of most TV shows and movies, leaving the audience in the dark is the best course of action. It's not cliche, but a safe way to still knock it out of the park without committing yourself if it's done right, and I think it was done to perfection here. Nothing "cliche" about it...
About Glen being a nutcase... That's all a matter of perspective. Sure, today when nothing "end of the world" is going down if any of my religious type friends started going Jones town I'd be the first to call to lock them up. Not only is everyone in the house convinced that they're going to die in the next 2 or 3 hours, but who would you call to have them locked up in that scenario? Is the phone working?
The last 2 minutes of the movie were absolutely brilliant. There are a million and one ways they could have really ruined a great movie, but I feel they chose a perfect ending.
The religious crazy Glen withstanding, not only are these people wrestling with the notion of euthanizing themselves out of fear of a long and drawn out and excruciating death, but it just shows that even in the most dire of situations that people are still looking for a leader if they're going to follow suit and jump off the bridge. Peer pressure down to the very last second. Hell... even would-be cult leader Glen won't take the first sip.....
At the same time, it was peer pressure that brought out the religious crazy nut in Glen and put all of them into that situation in the first place....
THINK ABOUT IT :)
Every single thing they thought was happening was fabricated within their 8 collective minds and the crazy hazmat suit wearing conspiracy theorist next door. The only "truth" they ever heard was the 8 seconds they listened to the emergency band on the radio in between their own rom-com *beep* that they went right back to. (Remember how they finally figured out there was a radio in the shower and only seconds after listening to it we find out about more infidelity and more arguing ensues and we never hear the radio again?)
Personally, I think if they all finally drank the wine, that would be the funnier ending because I don't think what we were witnessing was even close to the apocalypse at all. Sure... tomorrow would have been a *beep* day, but I think as long as you were 10 or so miles away from a major city (or Orlando) that you'd be a dick if you called off of work. It never came up, but I bet most of them can sit in their underwear at home and phone it in at least 3 days a week if they wanted to. (assuming their phone and internet get turned back on)...
If you thought the ending of this movie was stupid, I ask you to watch it again with a different mindset.
Have you ever had your power go out in a bad storm only to look out your windows and see the neighbors across the street still have power?
Imagine a world where everyone outside of that little slice of suburbia knows more than what we know.
Imagine how even a moderately religious person could become a "messenger of God" when they know that they're all going to die in 2 hours.
Imagine how people who only go to church on Christmas and Easter might follow a person like that if they knew they were going to die in 2 hours.
Imagine how the godless might drink that wine only to avoid the promise of pain they've never felt before if they knew they were going to die an excruciating death in 2 hours.
Then imagine David Cross' Glen.... He's 20 years older than Julia Styles and all of her female friends, and obviously at least 10-15 years older than their husbands and downright the least attractive male of the group. He's never been married. She's obviously way out of his league and that insecurity shows so strong you feel embarrassed for him in the first 2/3rds of the movie... until he "has a purpose".
Is it any wonder that even when he has this great religious idea that he can't be the "Shepherd" that his new flock needs? lol
That's what's funny to me. The fact that every single one of them would have drank the second after he did. All 8 people at the table were waiting for just one other person to put it down the hatch.
8 sad and lonely people. No matter how successful or smart or pretty or how great their marriage was or whatever. Even though they supposedly all loved each other, the truth comes out in the worst of times and you hear all the infidelity and insecurity and all the darkest things that happen even within the best of friends....
My guess is that if they all stuck around for the 9:00 News that power would be restored, a lot of bad world news would be told followed by 10 times as many myths about the "end of the world" laid to rest.....
That wouldn't make a good end to a movie. I'd be pissed if they fast forwarded 6 hours, whether they drank the wine or not.
Nope....
That was the perfect ending to one of the best flicks I've seen this year.
:)