Conclusion

Abstract

The conclusion argues that the beach ending is perhaps the most significant trans-generic ending of the ‘post-classical’ film era, found in films from many different countries and across all the genres. At the same time, the vast majority of beach endings use the site inventively. For example, few such endings do no more than establish the formation of the romantic couple—something else is nearly always going on. The summarising example is from Sarah’s Key (Gilles Paquet-Brenner, 2011), the ending of which is also contrasted with that of the novel on which it was based. The chapter concludes by suggesting that opening up the study of film endings could be analogous to the study of film genres, giving further insight into how films work.