Meg Ryan explains that 'What Happens Later' movie ending: 'I hope it's not a cop out'
Spoiler alert: This story contains details from the final scenes of "What Happens Later" (in theaters now). * Flight attendant voice * Please make your way to the exit if you would like the ending to remain a surprise.
Moviegoers who’ve seen “What Happens Later,” Meg Ryan's highly anticipated return to rom-coms, might be wondering, “What happens even later?” Do exes Willa Davis (Ryan) and Bill Davis (David Duchovny) get back together?
The former flames, who dated in their 20s, reunite at an airport on Leap Day when a snowstorm delays both their flights. Bill is headed to Austin, Texas, to meet with his disgruntled, much younger boss. Willa is headed to Boston to meet the daughter she put up for adoption.
"I just love that part of it," says Ryan. "This idea, this fantasy that there are larger forces at work for your good, even if it feels like suffering at the moment. ... Who knows if that's true? But in this world, in this movie, it is."
"In retrospect, sometimes we say, ‘Oh, that was why I went to that place at that time. I thought it was for this reason, and it ended up being for that reason,’ " Duchovny says of real life. "As human beings, we want the story to make sense. We want to feel like somebody's writing it."
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Bill and Willa pass the day in the airport awkwardly making small talk initially, then effortlessly slipping back into old arguments and potentially reigniting their spark. After spending the night cuddled up on the airport floor, the storm has cleared and the two part ways.
“Hey, maybe we can” – Bill begins before Willa cuts him off.
“No,” she says, shaking her head. “But nice to have an extra day, huh?”
“We got lucky,” he says, and they say goodbye with a long, passionate kiss.
Bill heads to his gate and Willa flips over an old business card he gave her. He said he was going to write his number on it, but instead, he wrote “JUST TRY,” encouraging the nervous Willa to board the plane and meet her daughter.
Once boarded, they notice they can see each other from their plane windows. Using hand signals, Willa asks for Bill's phone number, but the planes take off before he can relay it (using his fingers). After departing, the vapor trails from their planes forms the shape of a heart.
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So what do Duchovny and Ryan, who directs and co-wrote the screenplay, have to say?
“For me, it was always just leave it in the lap of the audience, in a way,” says Duchovny. “Let them argue it out whether or not they want them to be together, whether or not they think they will be together or they think they won't.”
“I hope it's not a cop-out, the feeling of leaving it (up to) the audience,” says Ryan, seated next to her co-star. “We've just been on this ride with them where they feel like they're going to be together, then they have some idiot argument, and they do it again.
“How I thought of it was like, you know how they’re dressed the same, they have the same name? They're halves of a whole.” Ryan says. “This might be too esoteric, but like the yin-yang symbol, they're always trying to find this black-and-white balance, and they don't.
“Those two are going to be in that process together, and maybe that’s love,” she adds. “For some reason, these two go round and round, and I feel like they will do that in perpetuity.”