In Looper , Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Bruce Willis play old and young versions of the same hitman, who are trying to take down a crime boss who ruins their lives in the future.
When they come face-to-face with the crime boss – who at the time is just a child – Levitt’s character realizes that he’ll turn into the monster he becomes if his mother dies. In order to prevent that, Levitt kills himself, thereby killing Willis as well. That way, the boy’s mother survives, and the kid never turns into the crime boss of the future.
Donnie Darko
Honestly, all of Donnie Darko is pretty confusing. Throughout the film, Donnie is haunted by an evil spirit in a bunny costume. What the movie fails to clear up – and what the director has stated in the aftermath of the film – is that Donnie Darko actually involves parallel universes.
Donnie himself is living in a parallel universe. The film follows him as he tries to fix a time rift in “Universe Prime.” When he dies at the end of the film, he acts as a sacrifice that then saves everyone he loves. It’s really a heroic story.
It Follows
The premise of the 2014 film It Follows is already a little ridiculous. It centers on Jay, who catches a “sexually transmitted ghost” and must pass on her curse by sleeping with someone else. By the end of the film, Jay manages to pass the ghost onto Paul, who then passes it on to a prostitute.
In the final scene, however, Jay and Paul are followed by a dark figure as they walk down the street. The film’s director, David Robert Mitchell, says the scene was purposely created to be open to interpretation.
Mulholland Drive
When an aspiring actress moves to Los Angeles, her plans are slightly derailed when she finds an amnesiac woman living in her aunt’s home. The film sets itself up for a solid story, but it goes off the rails, especially when it shows random vignette’s about other, seemingly random characters.
Director David Lynch refused to comment on the meaning of the movie, but one critic claimed that the film is meant to be about nothing. Roger Ebert said, “The movie is hypnotic. We’re drawn along as if one thing leads to another, but nothing leads anywhere.”
Drive
Drive finished on an interesting cliffhanger. As Ryan Gosling’s driver speeds away at the end of the film with a painful stab wound, viewers are left wondering if he lives or dies.
Unfortunately, the driver doesn’t make it. Earlier in the movie, Gosling asks the mob boss if he is familiar with the story of the Scorpion and the Frog, which ends with both animals dying because they must be true to their natures. By asking this question, the driver makes it clear that he knows he’s going to die because neither he nor the boss will resist their nature.