Silent Night Extraordinary Movie Ending Explained. Confession time. My favorite Christmas movie isn’t A Christmas Story. (Adam, I’m sorry, but A Christmas Story is literally the movie I hate more than any other on the planet. Nothing compares. So you are going to have to take this movie recommendation post with a serious grain of salt.) And you know those claymation Christmas movies? Scare me to death. Mortally. My favorite Christmas Movie – 100%? Die Hard. So, if you are looking for Christmas movie recommendations… I am not your guy. So, take this entire post with a grain of salt. But Silent Night?!? Hahahaha. That is the magic of Christmas that I’m here for! haha.
What is it? Silent Night is a British Christmas movie about a deadly cloud that is bringing a horrifying Ebola-like pandemic. A horrifying illness so ghastly that the entirety of the first world has decided that they are giving their citizens easy-out pills. Yes, you heard me right, this Christmas movie recommendation from me is… a global suicide pandemic.
You are going to have to enjoy dark comedies, black comedies? How do you say that? Just morbidly over the top humor in the face of dire circumstances. More than once I found myself laughing out loud at this ultra-dry comedy. (‘Wait, let me get this straight…” “Sure, go on…” “Yep. So, you are telling me that this movie is a CHRISTMAS movie…” “Yes. Definitely a Christmas movie.” “OK… A Christmas movie about a storm plague…” “uh huh… that makes everyone bleed out the eyes and ears.” “Right, an Ebola plague. Got it. And it’s a comedy? Like hah. hah. hah…?” “Assuredly.” “Tis a fair cop.”) Just go watch it, and you’ll see what I mean. But I will admit, throughout the movie, I was just laughing at how improper the whole thing was. The ending of this movie has a bit of a twist that you’ll not want to spoil… so please don’t keep reading if you haven’t seen it yet.
Silent Night Quick Overview
Friends are assembling. Why? We aren’t told. But they are all converging at Nell (Keira Knightley) and Simon’s (Matthew Goode) home to celebrate the holidays. No. That is not why they are converging. But the atmosphere is festive, excited, and totally upbeat. The friends are excited to see each other even though they are simultaneously trying to bury some old hatchets before the big event.
Wait, what is this big event? What are they assembling for again? The movie is decidedly cagey on this point. But we begin to ascertain that there is some sort of fast moving cloud sweeping the world over. And this cloud is bringing with it an Ebola-like doomsday… an unbelievably horrific death. Extreme pain. Suffering. Horrifying chaos. I’m guessing it is sort of a zombie-like Ebola-type illness. But all we get is rumor and bad guesses that get thrown around at parties. Not too unlike what people say about Covid incorrectly. Regardless, this particular group of friends have decided that living would be the worst possible option. “The pain is intolerable – pain is why some people choose to die.”
As the friends try to have fun in their last few hours, their pasts keep coming back up to haunt them. Affairs that were had, and affairs that didn’t happen that they wished would have. If someone would like to hand me a person by person breakdown of the various characters and their relationships with the various other characters in the movie, I’d gladly post it. But suffice it to say, there are grudges aplenty from top to bottom of this particular guest list.
The point of interest for me is the fact that there are wrongs. There are sins. And this is Christmas after all. But we’ll get to that in a minute.
Eventually, Art (played the glorious child actor, Roman Griffin Davis, who you obviously know from Jo Jo Rabbit), frustrated, runs outside and discovered a car with a baby in it and comes completely unglued. There are Ebola Tornadoes (I don’t know! What would you call them?!?) swirling around him, but soon after, his dad comes and carries him back inside. And as the movie winds down, the families start peeling off, and prepping to commit suicide. (Such a crazy sentence to use for a Christmas movie.) And thus begins the blackest of black comedies as Nell and Simon’s family undergo a comedy of errors, delays, and bids for full cans of colder coke, etc., etc. Eventually, everyone in the house has either committed suicide, or has been murdered… as the case might be.
Which brings us the twist… to this ending right here:
Now, to explain… no, there is too much, I’ll sum up… everyone is dead. Art was presumed dead, and he was actually the catalyst that drove his family to suicide. They saw that he had this Christmas Ebola, and they quickly dispersed with their reservations, downed the suicide pills, and died. Now, Art is alive. Wait. WHAT? Art is ALIVE? Roll credits.
Silent Night Movie Ending Explained
The reason Silent Night works is because of the fact that it is an amalgamation of a number of juxtaposed ideas. (Complicated speak for – it’s a mess dude.) What brain trust decided that we should glue Christmas and a post-apocalyptic tale together? Who thought adding a suicide pact into a holiday celebration? They were extremely clueless – or enlightened. One or the other… there is no real in-between here.
Let’s back up to the beginning, and tell the story from an enlightened vantage. A murderous Ebola inducing cloud is sweeping the globe. Knowing that the cloud would arrive the next day, a group of friends have decided to gather to kill themselves, their loved ones, and evade a horrifyingly painful death. And along the way, they are hoping to maybe get a little resolution on some of their past mistakes, some of their more insensitive moments before they die. They never do though. Did you catch that? Like I mentioned… some of these couples slept with each other, out of line. And some wanted to. But there is no sort of forgiveness, or understanding. There is no grace among these people. Just a desire to continue on in their avoidance all the way to the grave.
But this is a Christmas movie. And that means something. It wasn’t a summer fun pool movie. One last splash in the pool before we die. Right? It could have been. It was specifically set at Christmas time. And what does Christmas connote? Even for atheists… it is supposed to mean something. And that is a day of celebration for the coming of the Christ – the day that makes away for the forgiveness of sins, a potential restoration for man to God Himself. We have sort of neutered it into a materialistic chase for the best presents. Which, I’d argue is all 100% beside the point. No, it’s actually contrapuntal even. Right angled. ALL THAT TO SAY – I really think that Silent Night is calling this right angling out.
We have a story about Christ/Salvation/Forgiveness of Sins/Grace… and we have a group of people that are acting selfishly.They are not forgiving one another, grousing about past wrongs, not letting things go, and committing suicide in an attempt to avoid pain and suffering. What? They are acting so selfishly that they are about to all die because they are worried about pain. Amazing. This group of people are literally Jim Jones and company, top to bottom. They are convinced they are doing the right thing because the first world is doing it. But really? Also, did you catch the reference to communion in the movie? The giving of the pill, and the drinking of the wine (or beer, or whatever?) It was very very communal in feeling. Another reference to the spiritual overtones throughout this movie.
Is Art a Zombie? Or Is He Fine?
Now, the question that the movie leaves us with is simple. Is Art in some sort of Nether world, zombie existence? Or is he just fine? I don’t trust any of these people to give us good medical advice on the situation currently going on in the world. They weren’t engaging, they were just afraid of pain, and had decided to take the super easy out. So, could it be that these people, and the world’s advice on this science is wrong? Could it be that after a brief bout of orificial (is that even a word, my spell check didn’t buzz) bleeding, he’s completely and totally fine? Now he’s immune? Now, will he lead the world to a better place seeing as though all the ignorant and afraid people are dead? Or, will he mindlessly stalk the planet, looking for people to spread the disease to?
Personally, just knowing the movie, the ideas of grace, the concepts discussed in this movie… the really is only one answer here. And that is that Art is alive. He is well. He is probably immune (otherwise he walks outside and really dies for good minutes later, and what fun is that?) to the Ebola clouds, and he will be okay going forward. He was the only character in this movie that really asked questions and pushed back against the standard line that was being espoused by the greater global community. Which was, “we need to commit suicide to avoid the worst pain you can imagine… and you are welcome.” But seeing as though it makes sense that he ran counter to the thinking at large… I think he’ll be just fine.
I don’t know – what are your thoughts about that ending? Over on the THiNC. Patreon channel, I take this discussion even further in my video walkthrough of this movie. Join us on Patreon if you enjoy taking movies way too far than is necessarily healthy.
Edited by: CY