depressing

Rather than depressing I found the film uplifting.

Yes, perhaps you might want to watch a trailer before you watch a film? It is obvious this is a dark comedy/drama from the outset, if you watch even 15 seconds of the trailer. And it's a great film.

You could just as easily be saying "ah yeah, i hated the Muppets Movie...I don't like movies about puppets" or "man, i really wish i didn't see that HBO comedy special...reminds me how much i really hate to laugh"

LOL

I agree with you. It is a depressing film.

I don't think all films should be depressing, they don't all have to have joyous subject matter or happy endings. They can still be, if not enjoyed, appreciated.

However, I guess sometimes in your life you really have had enough suffering in your day to day, enough loss and enough pain that you just want a little bit of cheer in the evenings and this does not deliver it.

I sort of agree with you. I see what they did with this movie, and I was
kind of touched for a few seconds, but this whole movie was fake, just
a sill story, and why do negative and depressing. It was really a movie
that depended on a trick, it was the trick, so I don't think it was a very
good movie, even though it does kind of resonate because of the seriousness
of the subject matter. Kind of a depressive movie.

I sort of agree with you. I see what they did with this movie, and I was
kind of touched for a few seconds, but this whole movie was fake, just
a sill story, and why do negative and depressing. It was really a movie
that depended on a trick, it was the trick, so I don't think it was a very
good movie, even though it does kind of resonate because of the seriousness
of the subject matter. Kind of a depressive movie.

I agree. I came to this board, having just watched it and feeling angry. The end was shocking and painful -- needlessly so. The same points could have been made without the shock of loss. I feel manipulated by the filmmaker, deceived into attaching to the protagonist and his new trajectory... that at last he smiles and becomes radiant, to have that so violently curtailed. So then it's not a celebration of the compassionate functionary, it's a journey into even deeper loss -- it's not sly or subtle or subversive. It's cruel and heavy handed. It could have ended at the train station, or with the purchase of the doggie cups.

Thank you for sharing.

I do sympathize with you and your work and I am sorry you came away unhappy with the end. Can I ask, you did watch it all the way through to the very end? That is where the uplifting part hit me... I was crying and upset but those last few minutes when all the souls of the people he had helped gathered at his grave we knew he really had affected so many people and he did not die alone. Trust me, I cried even harder at this point but because I felt that all his efforts weren't in vain. I thought it was a brilliant and yes uplifting ending.

Yes, it was a shock ending, (that I didn't like when it was first revealed.) And I desperately wanted the girl to know what had happened, but it was also obvious to me what message the writer/director wanted to get across, once the ghosts appeared.

The message was: No-one knew how caring this guy was. No-one who knew him, knew that he had died. But all the dead people whose funerals he attended alone, knew what he did, and they came to thank him.

Once I realised that was the message, I accepted the depressing ending, even though I was hoping for a happy ending. I did swear at the TV a LOT through my tears!

After he first visited the daughter, and she said she didn't want to go to the funeral, I was expecting the suprise ending to be that she turned up after all.

Then, once we saw the daughter accept the invitiation to the funeral and making plans for a chat afterwards, I was expecting the surprise ending to be that she didn't turn up after all.

So I was kind of glad that it wasn't a predictable ending, and an even bigger twist.

"Look at it this way; in a hundred years who's gonna care?"