Warning: as indicated in the title, this post will have MAJOR spoilers for the ending of A Simple Favor (both the book and the movie) and I wouldn’t recommend you read this if you hate spoilers and want to either watch the movie or read the book, or both.
Recently, I watched the movie A Simple Favor and read the book and was struck by how different the endings were. The premise for both was the same: Stephanie’s best friend, Emily, goes missing and her body is later found. Stephanie, who has always admired the glamorous Emily, ends up in a relationship with Emily’s husband, Sean, but also starts receiving creepy messages that suggest that her best friend might not actually be dead.
In both the movie and the book, we find out that Emily is not dead. The book ends with Emily pointing the police to Stephanie, implicating her in someone’s murder, and pretty much having achieved her goals (husband out of the way, her old status back, and on the road to getting rid of Stephanie. On the other hand, the movie has Stephanie and Sean set up a dramatic reveal that exposes Emily as the bad guy and she’s hit by a car and thrown into prison.
I’m going into this much detail because I want to emphasise how different the endings are. This isn’t a minor change, like changing Stephanie’s blog to a vlog because what goes well on paper and what goes well on film is different. This is changing who gets a happy ending and who doesn’t. And it had me thinking – is this change because most of us (readers/viewers) want happy endings?
I enjoyed the book A Simple Favor, including the ending, because I realised that the author pulled a bait-and-switch – Stephanie wasn’t the main character, Emily was. And if Emily is the main character, then it makes sense that Emily gets the happy ending. But, I can see how I could have gone the other way and be very disappointed; Stephanie is more likeable and her voice takes up the first half of the book. It’s so much easier to root for Stephanie and want her to be the one that solves the mystery and come up on top, which is exactly what the movie did!
But which ending did I prefer? If you’re talking about what I felt when I just finished reading and watching the book and movie, the movie was definitely more feel-good. I didn’t have many major complaints, though when discussing it with my fiancé, we both concluded that the ending felt a bit implausible (you can’t tell me Emily is that smart and then so and too dramatic. It’s an ending that feels good at first but has holes if you think about it too much. On the other hand, I wasn’t too disappointed with the book, and the more I thought about it, the more I thought it made sense when we considered both Emily and Stephanie’s characters. In other words, it felt more plausible, even if it wasn’t happier.
I’m curious to hear what your thoughts are – do you think happy endings are inherently satisfying, or do you have a different set of criteria for what you consider a satisfying ending? And if you watched/read A Simple Favor, how did you find it?
There’s definitely a difference between a feel-good ending and a “satisfying” ending. I don’t really like unhappy endings because I don’t like to end books feeling annoyed or miserable, but I get sometimes they fit the story.
I read a rather depressing book recently (everyone died type of book) and it fit in with the theme. Now that I think about it, I wasn’t that unhappy about the ending, though after that I definitely went for something lighter haha. I think maybe we can’t have a diet of only unhappy endings.
I haven’t read/consumed A Simple Favor, but I have heard someone say that audiences will accept sad endings in a stage play that they won’t accept in a movie. Reason: at the end of the play, the actors come out for a curtain call. So somehow, you are better able to emotionally process the the characters getting “killed” or otherwise destroyed.
I wonder whether the same applies to books. In a book where the protag you are rooting for doesn’t win, usually there are hints, buildup, and enough hours reading the book that you should be somewhat mentally prepared for it. Also, you can go back and read through the parts where you were first getting to know them. Just a thought.
Oh that’s true – if the buildup was good and the climax makes sense, I’m okay with a non-happy ending. I think it really depends on whether the ending fits with the book or whether the author tried to write it to fit what s/he thought the audience wants.
I usually prefer happy endings as they’re satisfactory and often feel good and also there is a sense of hope. Life is already real without happy endings or hope for some or most people so I wouldn’t want the same for fiction.
That is a fair point! I think many people read to feel happier about life.
I definitely need satisfying over happy. Sometimes happy is satisfying, but sometimes it really isn’t and that depends on the story! But whilst I hate when adaptations don’t follow the books, I understand why they’re always wanting to go with the happy endings for the public
I prefer the ending that makes the most sense for the story, but happy endings do make me feel good
. I think movies are less likely to take chances on upsetting the audience and will be more likely to go for a happy ending. But I do get annoyed when adaptations change the ending of a story from the original. It’s too big a change. The only one I didn’t mind was for Stephen King’s The Mist, but maybe that’s because the movie went for a more distressing end for the protagonist.