Choices and In Bruges (some spoilers)

(Given that I'm writing this post at a sad point in my year, I feel like I should clarify that this is just a thought I've been chewing on independent of anything else. Also, hi Blogspot, how are you?)

There's this song that plays during my favorite scene in In Bruges, when the fat assassin (I honestly forget his name) is about to throw himself out of the tower, and the young "heroes" are kissing and laughing, and death is striding toward them all with one eye covered in a bandage, and this song plays. This sad Irish love song. About how the lady was clearly a bitch and would lead him to angst, but he loved her anyway and gave her everything and so now he's sad because she let him down.

And that scene, that song, kill me every time. If I watch it alone, I bawl. If I watch it with someone, my face twists up so I don't bawl.

And the thing is, I never, ever, hear that song as being about relationships. That's never what pictures it stirs up for me. It's totally about choices and agency. About the job. About chasing after something that you know is going to end badly, but disregarding because there's something beautiful and thrilling right here right now. In the context of that movie, it's about this guy, the fat assassin (I feel really bad that I don't remember his name, but I'm not taking the simple step to Google it, either, because I'm writing about what's in my head right now), who has spent his whole life being really good at this job that is, right now, killing him.

And yet, of course that's how it would end for him. Because he's a killer. We've spent this whole movie loving this character, but he's a killer. And he's dying like a killer. And that's exactly--fucking exactly--what he saw coming down the road, if not when he started the job (we don't know), then certainly later on. And what we, as the audience, should have seen. And it's a reminder, right before the final chase starts, that we would be naive to expect or feel entitled to a happy ending for Colin Farrell's character, who made the choice to chase after the same bitch of a job.