Boogie Nights (1997 film) = Finished

I wonder if this would have been a better movie if it ended 3 minutes earlier.

Boogie Nights takes you on a journey that is honestly disturbing in its efficacy. When it first introduces you to the mundane bits of the creation of porn, the environment comes off as sleazy. Exploitative. Cheap. And of course, that's what it was. Despite the pretensions of some of the people who made it, the processes, practices, and treatment of individuals involved in making them was awful as hell. Eddie Adams (later known as Dirk Diggler) isn't a even legal adult before executives in the field are sizing up his schlong. "Roller Girl," as she's known, is in the same situation, her sense of self and dignity destroyed by the almighty, all-corrupting work. Burt Reynolds tells her to f*ck Eddie and she disrobes in seconds, screwing right in front of Reynolds while he evaluates the performance.

This world isn't sexy, you think, given brief moments to reflect.
It's wrong.

And then everything else happens.

Porn goes even cheaper. Practices get even more dirty and dubious, the people making it ever more broken, and egotistical. Somehow, the things that used to repulse you before start to seem...fine. Like the Golden Age the self-deluding characters believed they were living. Somehow, you start believing the lies with them, and hope to God there can be a happy ending to whatever the hell their existence has devolved to through the drugs and the loss.

The treatment of subjects, retaining cohesion despite varying approaches throughout a work of this scope and scale, is kind of absurd. The porn world is alternately glamorized and shown as an exploitative mess, and you can believe either one. Long shots distract you from focusing too long on the darkness, before a sudden rest period gives you that deadly rest period to poison everything you just saw.

Then, you get a glimpse of hope again through the twisted subjectivity you've accrued--and so the cycle goes. 

The penis of Wahlberg's character is depicted (or rather, not depicted) with the sanctity of Christ's birth. No matter how experimental the shots/editing gets, or how divergent the lives the differing characters lead become, emotional throughlines bind their ugly, painful journeys together. There's no way back, you think.

Then they find it.

The movie ends with a shattered Dirk Diggler coming back to Burt Reynolds house to beg for help. Everyone, in some way, finds their way back...And help them he does.

Boogie Nights closes with the revelation of everyone's new, connected lives. Reynold's house has become a haven for all of his dysfunctional children. Whatever the lives they lead or professions they now hold, they've come through the darkness to find some solace in the light of each other. Perverted or not.

Reynolds walks into the room of Julianne Moore's character. She's looking in the mirror. He compliments her, and walks away. The camera holds on her face, looking into the reflection--and the happiness everyone has found suddenly gets a bitter aftertaste. The darkness isn't gone. Not by a long shot. That sh*t happened.

They just live in spite of it. 

If the movie had ended there...I won't say it would have been better. It just would have been a different message. The one we actually get is far more concerning.

We see Wahlberg's character monologuing to himself after an abrupt cut. He's rehearsing. Wearing a new white suit deserving of the 90s, he will, again, assume the character of porno detective Brock Landers. The final revelation of the movie is the thing we've gone over two and a half hours without seeing - Diggler's massive penis.

He tells himself that he's going to be a star.

Here we go again.

That final shot of Diggler's dick is a perfect encapsulation of the journey the movie takes you on. What was once sacred is now plain. Grotesque. Ready for another round.

The loop was never broken, family taking its place, no matter how dysfunctional. It just completed its course.

So here we go again.

Here we fucking go again.