Land Ending Explained | Love, Loss, Hope, And Helplessness

Land is an unassuming film with a strong, poignant emotional thread throughout the narrative that leads to a satisfying end. If you’ve not yet watched the film, this review will be discussing spoilers, more specifically, the Land ending in detail. If you enjoy intimate, humanity-centered films like Nomadland then Land is the film for you. 

Land is a drama film about a grieving woman who goes off-grid in an isolated cabin in the woods.

**Heads Up There WILL be spoilers in this review.

**Double Heads Up This article discusses heavy themes such as grief, depression, and suicide. Proceed at your own discretion.

Land Ending Explained | Film Review

Land Summary

To understand the end we must first revisit the beginning. The first clear shot in the film is the white sand in an hourglass slowly filling up on the other side. This image communicates, “We’re running out of time.”

Our protagonist, Edee is severely depressed, speaking with a therapist that her sister recommended and reaching no suitable resolution. Then we see her dispose of her phone and take off to a cabin in the woods with no source of transportation to bring her back to civilization which is several miles away.

Edee struggles to fend for herself and her situation becomes dire when a bear raids all of her food and supplies. When Edee is unable to use her shotgun to hunt a deer for dinner, she turns the gun on herself, utterly hopeless, her finger dancing with the promise of death.

But when she thinks about her sister, Emma, she retreats. She writes her sister’s name in big letters and sticks it on the wall of her cabin.

Eventually, Edee’s portions run out and the frigid winter storms don’t help the situation. Edee soon finds herself helpless and catatonic, lying on the cold, hard cabin floor, waiting for death to come. That’s when Miguel and Alawa show up to nurse her back to health.

Once, Edee’s health is restored and her portions restocked, she reluctantly allows Miguel to return from time to time to teach her how to better fend for herself on her own. Even after she learns to cope for herself, Miguel still shows up occasionally solely for companionship, bringing his dog along.

One particular day, Miguel asks Edee to watch his dog for him while he goes on a trip for an unspecified amount of time. When Miguel fails to return to the cabin after a while, Edee finds Alawa at her nursing job and together they visit Miguel’s house.

Edee finds Miguel weak with tubes running through his nose. He has throat cancer.

In their final goodbyes, Edee finally opens up to Miguel about her husband and son being shot during a concert and Miguel opens up that his alcoholism was the cause of his wife and kids dying in a car crash.

The few years that they knew each other were healing for both of them as Miguel could escape the dark reality of being a cancer patient and Edee felt like being alive again for the first time in a while.

“You make me want to live again.”

Edee

At this moment, you may have shed a few tears.

Miguel gifts Edee his phone where she can listen to all the 80’s music he loved to sing as they spent time together and Edee takes off, knowing that that would be her last time seeing Miguel.

The next morning, Edee picks up the phone she’d just been gifted and calls her sister Emma. Emma is overjoyed to hear her sister’s voice.

The end.

Land Ending Explained

Land is such a powerful film with an ending to beautifully wrap up the strong, emotional message.

To put it simply, Edee’s experience out in the wilderness, and most importantly, the companionship that she formed with Miguel opened her heart up again to love.

The idea is that love, no matter how short of a time it’s around, is worth it.

After Miguel’s death, Edee knows that life is not promised to anyone so whatever time she has with her loved ones she’s got to make the most of it now.

This ties back into the opening image of the draining hourglass. Life is short, but love makes it worth it.

Human companionship is worth it, despite the pain it can bring. Despite the loneliness that can come with it, it’s what makes life worth it. It’s what makes us want to live again when hope is gone.

Even in the middle of the woods, where she craved isolation, she still found herself hanging up her sister’s name, images of her husband and son, and even the little drawing that she got from Miguel’s niece.

Those were the things that made living worth it for her.

In the Land ending, Edee learned that instead of running away from that human companionship that caused her so much pain when she lost it, she needed to run towards it. Her frozen heart found reason to beat again.

Themes Within the Land Story

This movie touched on a lot of heavy themes such as grief, depression, and loneliness, these topics often intertwining.

We learn that Edee suffered from the unimaginably heart-shattering loss of her husband and young son. The flashbacks and daydreams of holding them in her arms were so solemn and sad to behold. To vicariously feel a longing that will never again be fulfilled.

We also learn that Edee’s travel to the woods was in response to her grief, a way to feel closer to her lost family since it was a place her son longed to stay. The heaviness of her grief is something that no one around her could specifically relate to which made Edee feel really lonely.

Her loneliness came from a place of being in a uniquely dark emotional state. Anyone who could relate to her specific grief was dead and gone, so being alone was the only place where she was not pressured to put on a mask and be “better” as she described to the therapist.

And finally depression. Severe depression can lead to suicidal ideation. This often comes from a heavy sense of hopelessness and can also be due to many unfulfilled desires. She would never be able to hold her son again. She would never be able to lay by her husband at night again. She could never have her son and husband back no matter how much she wanted them.

These often hidden, heavy emotions of humanity were displayed so gutturally within the film with the subtlety and tastefulness that it requires.

Additional Praises

The dialogue is so intentional and authentic. The screenplay relied just as much on the actions within the film as the words spoken. There’s a stillness, a silence that speaks just as loud as the words.

Criticisms

There are some slow moments in the center of the film as Edee took in nature, but at the same time, those slower moments allow the audience to experience the world at Edee’s pace and never overstays its welcome. By the end of the film, the pace is perfect and wraps up the narrative neatly.

In Conclusion…

Land is a heartwrenching film, and the Land ending leaves the audience with an important message of hope in light of life’s darkest moments.

Despite review ratings under 7 stars on big platforms such as Rotten Tomatoes and IMDb, I have to strongly say that this film is far too sharp and moving to garner such mediocre scores. The heavy themes in the film most likely target different people to different degrees.

Overall, Land is a raw, intimate work of art dedicated to life, humanity, and finding meaning in the brevity of mortality.

Rating 9/10

What did you think of the movie Land? Let me know in the comments below!

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Peace, love, and lots of popcorn,

IMO