So, you’ve got completed The Lengthy Stroll. Your toes harm, you are terrified of Mark Hamill, and you are still making an attempt to course of that brutal-as-can-be ending. And belief me, there is a lot to course of.
From an sudden dying to an ultra-ambiguous ultimate shot — to not point out some main deviations from Stephen King’s novel — let’s dive into the ultimate steps of The Lengthy Stroll.
Who wins The Lengthy Stroll?
Cooper Hoffman and David Jonsson in “The Long Walk.”
Credit score: Murray Shut / Lionsgate
Like in any piece of media involving a dying sport, from Battle Royale to The Starvation Video games to Squid Recreation, the largest query on any viewer’s thoughts stepping into is, “Who is going to survive to the end?”
Often, it is the individual we enter the sport with: Shuya for Battle Royale, Katniss for The Starvation Video games, Gi-hun for Squid Recreation. Nevertheless, The Lengthy Stroll switches issues up a bit. We primarily observe Ray Garraty (Cooper Hoffman) all through The Lengthy Stroll, however he is not the final walker standing. As an alternative, he sacrifices himself for the last word winner: his closest good friend on the stroll, Peter McVries (David Jonsson). As he does so, he tells McVries, “I can’t see it. You can.”
The road references an earlier dialog the place the pair talked about how McVries can discover the intense aspect of issues, whereas Garraty stays caught on his concept of vengeance and killing the Main (Mark Hamill). Then, as they close to the tip of the stroll, McVries asks Garraty to not shoot the Main, as that will lead to his personal dying and devastate his mom, Ginny (Judy Greer). As an alternative, he encourages Garraty to decide on love as a substitute of vengeance. In the long run, Garraty’s ultimate sacrifice looks like his personal method of following by on McVries’ plea to decide on love. He provides up his dream of vengeance and chooses for McVries to win, even confessing his love for McVries in his ultimate moments.
Garraty and McVries’ relationship is the cornerstone of The Lengthy Stroll, melding friendship and brotherhood and romance. Whilst you might interpret Garraty’s ultimate “I love you” to McVries to be platonic, the movie extremely suggests in any other case. Assume again to the very lengthy, loaded pause after McVries tells Garraty he does not have a girlfriend. Or the very on-the-nose imagery of the pair taking a look at a rainbow within the distance. Or all of the methods wherein they rise up for each other and maintain one another alive on the stroll. Yeah, that goes past simply friendship to me.
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Any implied romantic emotions between McVries and Garraty aren’t deviations from The Lengthy Stroll‘s supply materials. King’s novel is filled with references to Garraty questioning his sexuality and McVries being all in favour of Garraty as extra than simply associates. The Lengthy Stroll director Francis Lawrence (who helmed all of the Starvation Video games movies however the first) and screenwriter JT Mollner (Unusual Darling) simply take these references one step additional with Garraty’s specific declaration.
Nevertheless, each Garraty’s dying and McVries’ victory are main departures from The Lengthy Stroll‘s supply materials.
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How is The Lengthy Stroll‘s ending completely different from King’s novel?
Cooper Hoffman, David Jonsson, Tut Nyuot, and Ben Wang in “The Long Walk.”
Credit score: Murray Shut / Lionsgate
In King’s novel, McVries is third final to die, sitting down peacefully and going out on his personal phrases, simply as he makes an attempt to do within the movie. In the meantime, Garraty wins after Stebbins (Garrett Wareing) collapses and dies.
Nevertheless, Garraty’s victory isn’t any fairy-tale ending. (What could possibly be, after witnessing 99 different boys die on a dying march?) As an alternative of registering his victory, Garraty thinks he sees a darkish determine earlier than him, beckoning him on. “There was still so far to walk,” he thinks.
The e book ends with Garraty breaking out in a run towards the determine, leaving his destiny ambiguous. Interpretations of the ending fluctuate. Is the darkish determine a illustration of dying, which means Garraty is about to go away like his fellow opponents? Or might it’s a hallucination Garraty’s fragmented thoughts has conjured up after 5 days of strolling nonstop? Is he doomed to stroll ceaselessly, haunted by the trauma of the previous couple of days?
It is a grim ending, irrespective of the way you see it. However it’s in no way what occurs to McVries within the movie model of The Lengthy Stroll.
What does McVries want for after profitable the Lengthy Stroll?
Mark Hamill in “The Long Walk.”
Credit score: Murray Shut / Lionsgate
Upon profitable the Lengthy Stroll, McVries will get to ask the Main for one want. Towards the start of the movie, he stated his want could be for 2 walkers to win the Lengthy Stroll. That method two associates — like, only for instance, him and Garraty — might win collectively. (Very Starvation Video games double victor-coded of him.)
Nevertheless, he switches up his want after witnessing Garraty’s dying and decides to make Garraty’s want as a substitute. Identical to Garraty deliberate to do if he received, McVries needs for the carbine of a close-by soldier. The Main agrees, and the soldier fingers it over. McVries instantly takes purpose, and, after the Main tries to speak him out of it, he carries out Garraty’s want and kills the Main.
The second is bittersweet, with further emphasis on the bitter. Sure, it is nice that the evil Main is useless and that McVries is undertaking what Garraty would have wished. However on the flip aspect, he is additionally selecting vengeance in the identical method he begged Garraty to not do. Garraty sacrificed himself as a result of McVries was able to seeing the nice on this planet, however in killing the Main, is McVries snuffing out what Garraty hoped to guard?
The Main’s dying does not occur in any respect in King’s novel, however, within the movie, as soon as he is useless, there is a return to the anomaly of the supply materials. Upon killing the Main, McVries turns round and retains strolling into the gap. Despite the fact that there is not any darkish determine encouraging him ahead, the scene calls to thoughts Garraty’s continued strolling within the e book.
Nevertheless, one thing about these final moments appears off. Why is nobody chasing McVries down after he murdered the Main? Why are there no reactions from the gang? Heck, why does not the movie present anybody however McVries after the Main falls?
The whole sequence and its steadfast concentrate on McVries really feel like one thing out of a dream. And possibly that is what these ultimate moments are: a break from actuality.
Like Garraty within the novel, maybe McVries is so traumatized that he imagines that he retains strolling on. Or maybe, on a a lot darker observe, troopers opened fireplace on McVries as quickly as he killed the Main, and his ultimate stroll into the rain is him strolling into dying. The final picture is ambiguous sufficient to maintain viewers guessing, however relating to The Lengthy Stroll, nothing is ever too bleak.
