The Spielberg Ending: The Terminal

While this may be the wrong note to strike in an article that may already seem an exercise in willful contrariety, The Terminal has the least-complained-about ending among the films in this litter … but it's the runt. Now, that's grading on a curve because the ending isn't bad, but it flubs its big question, the one in which the viewer is emotionally involved.

What the ending of The Terminal gets right is its MacGuffin: What's in the peanut can that Viktor (Tom Hanks) always totes around? Whatever's actually in there can never live up the mystery with which it is imbued — which is true of every sought-after item in every movie — but The Terminal makes better hay of it than most. Viktor, stuck in the airport when his once-in-a-lifetime trip from fictional Krakozhia to New York is spoiled by a coup that invalidates his travel visa, reveals the contents of the can only to Amelia (Catherine Zeta-Jones), a stewardess with whom he's smitten, and even then it's his very last act of courtship — in other words, we're primed for this reveal and it had better be good. And so Viktor pops the lid and pulls out a much-folded, much-loved magazine reprint of Art Kane's photo "A Great Day in Harlem," explaining how his father got the idea to write all 57 of its subjects and ask for their autographs — a middleweight idea until you place the father in (what we can only assume is) impoverished, Communist Krakozhia, and suddenly the American dream gets a fresh coat of varnish on it. Viktor has come to town to get the 57th autograph, the only one that didn't arrive before his father died, and refuses to relent in the face of stiff bureaucratic opposition because he wants to honor his father; he says in his Pidgin English, "Maybe I think he do it for me." Wham — they've nailed it. And the final scene, in which Viktor receives that last autograph, is perfectly underplayed.

More than that, however, The Terminal is a jazz riff on Casablanca — we have a practically nationless locale, a war, a pining leading man, a romantic interest with other attachments, a middle manager minding the store with less power than he would like, a constant scuffle over transit papers, a young couple that needs the protagonist's intervention … it's more than can be chalked up to coincidence. And if that's what you're invoking, it's incumbent on you to hone the romantic angle to a fine edge, which The Terminal doesn't really do.

In the best of circumstances, it's hard to find a screen lover for Hanks — beyond Meg Ryan, you're hard pressed to find a character on whom Hanks' character has focused his romantic ardor since the days of Splash. Helen Hunt in Cast Away? Robin Wright Penn in Forrest Gump? Antonio Banderas in Philadelphia? Bo Peep in Toy Story? Matters are complicated here by his portrayal of Viktor not only as a marginal English speaker but also as a man trapped in an endless Jacques Tati setpiece. Hanks' physical comedy is sublime, but the romance of the piece is grounded on a much more humdrum plane.

Things are legitimately sparky with Zeta-Jones, but they're really never allowed to ignite. The principal problem, to bring back the Casablanca comparison, is that they've never had Paris — they're stuck doing meet-cute scenes, which is fine except that the movie tries to complicate the relationship in a way that directly invokes the way Rick and Ilsa's love was doomed due to her marriage to Laszlo, the freedom fighter who could not carry on that fight without her. By comparison, however, Amelia is a frustrated mistress taken with a man that will never leave his wife. Trying to pass this off as the unsolvable impediment to their love — or, if not this, Zeta-Jones' complementary observation that Viktor should "stay away" from her because she's damaged — just doesn't float. It's a women-are-from-Venus shorthand, and we're never allowed closer to Amelia than that; her lament at one point that the sex is just too good doesn't help.

Then things become a muddle. Amelia says she's decided to leave her guy, until she realizes that Viktor has been misrepresenting his detainment, but then they smooth over that (the peanut can scene) and consummate their relationship. The next time we see her, however, it's bad O. Henry: She has plied her lover (who works in Washington) for an emergency travel visa so Viktor can collect his signature … but she presents the visa after peace has been restored to Krakozhia. Peace in Krakozhia means that the value of Amelia's visa has been mooted (although the characters are inexcusably slow to recognize this), and her putative sacrifice — because in exchange for the visa, she's agreed to stay with her lover — is pointless before she makes it. We see her dejectedly hug the guy before putting on her stewardess smile and descending down the escalator with him, and it just doesn't work. Her unexplored devotion to this guy is the one note that's out of tune, and the filmmakers hit it again and again. The story inconsistencies could be worked out or overlooked if the emotions could be articulated, but they never are.

Spielberg says he simultaneously shot an ending that favored the couple and "waited 'til the last minute to make my choice." It's hard to say how the film would have been constructed around that ending, and it's equally hard to know why the decision came down the way it did. But there's no question that as Spielberg shot two endings, he did it with the knowledge that the public had grown less and less interested in sticking with him through his last reels.

Introduction | Saving Private Ryan | A.I. | Minority Report | Catch Me If You Can

E-mail Sean Weitner at sean at flakmag dot com.