MovieChat Forums > A Kind of Murder (2016) Discussion > Beautifully filmed/designed, well-acted,...

Beautifully filmed/designed, well-acted, well done until the end. (Spoilers).

posted 3 years ago by RobertEvans (7)
1 reply | jump to latest

I was really enjoying this until the ending. I like period pieces, and this really seemed to capture the feel of 1960 really well.

I understand the ending was largely lifted from the book source, but it's SO ambiguous that it leaves the film feeling completely unresolved. We don't know who killed Clara, we don't know for sure if the events in the book actually happened, and we don't even know if Walter survives the stabbing.

Someone should've done something with the screenplay to provide a bit more closure.

There are also elements of the film that make it feel like large portions of the film were simply cut out. Like, how did the bookstore owner get the black eye? Why was Tony mad at him? I'm guessing that the owner made a gay pass at him, but it's not spelled out at all, at least not on Hulu. (Edited version?)

Fwiw, I'm pretty sure Clara killed herself. She said she was going to, and she was under high stress with her mom dying, so it makes sense that she would. Given that she promised to anyway, it wouldn't make any sense for Walter to kill her. And the bookstore guy just wanted to get away with is own murder (so he could be free to be with Tony?), and had no motive to kill her either.

[–] Mallen (3) 3 years ago

So this is what I think of movie ending. Clara killed herself. Kimmel killed the detective and kimmel stabbed Walter. But Walter lived to write the story. The book however Walter killed the detective presumably and hopefully then kimmel killed Walter. I liked the movie ending better. Walter May have been morally culpable to some degree. Maybe more than some but she sure pushed him hard I think she killed herself to spite him as she actually said. The ending in the movie was so dark and hard to see.