Problems with the ending of Moulin Rouge

SPOILER WARNING: I will be comparing the endings of the movie and musical below. If you don’t want to know either of those, skip this thread.

The ending of Moulin Rouge the musical has been bothering me since I saw it in previews and I wanted to talk about it. In the movie version, Satine elects to be with the Duke due to an explicit threat of violence toward Christian. This is borne out when he enters the theater and is nearly killed. He then makes his speech to Satine and walks away. (This is important.) Satine then hears Toulouse call out “The greatest thing you’ll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return.” This stirs Satine and she starts to sing to Christian and goes to him before the tragic ending.

In the musical, Satine elects to be with the Duke to save the Moulin Rouge and her friends. There is an implication that the Duke has gotten violent in the past, but there is no direct threat made. Satine ultimately chooses a life of comfort over love; a pragmatic decision over an emotional one. Then Christian again makes his speech to her, but this time adds a threat of suicide if she does not go with him. This violent threat is what gets her to go to him this time before her death.

This change seems to undermine the theme of the movie and musical and rewards Christian’s violently manipulative behavior. Satine does not choose him of her own volition but under duress. I found this to be quite troubling and has soured the show for me.

I was wondering if anyone else felt the same or had other thoughts on this ending change.

Wee Thomas2 said: "Interesting analysis.



I was just happy it was over, that was my favorite part of the show!"

Me too. It felt like a theme park or cruise ship show.... with an amazing and talented cast.

Maybe a more competent actor in the role of Christian might have made his motivations clearer, and his actions a little more sympathetic. Mr. Tveit's utter lack of response to the death of the woman he supposedly loves, as he holds her dead body in his arms, is one of the weirdest things I've ever seen onstage. There's no comparison with that awful wail of anguish let loose by Mr. McGregor in the film. But of course, Mr. McGregor is a fine actor. Mr. Tveit sings really nicely.

DCDrama2 said: "SPOILER WARNING:

In the musical, Satine elects to be with the Duke to save the Moulin Rouge and her friends. There is an implication that the Duke has gotten violent in the past, but there is no direct threat made. Satine ultimately chooses a life of comfort over love; a pragmatic decision over an emotional one. Then Christian again makes his speech to her, but this time adds a threat of suicide if she does not go with him. This violent threat is what gets her to go to him this time before her death.

I haven't seen the musical, but is this a fair characterization of how it ends? I know many people have had issues with the conclusion but didn't realize Satine's decision now is motivated, at least in part, by a suicide threat. The film has issues of its own, but it had charms that overcame any problems. I'm not sure I would enjoy a Christian who is a manipulative jerk in the end.

I haven't seen the stage show, but it baffles me as to why they changed the ending like that. Trying to make the Duke less cartoon villain-y, perhaps? If that's the way it comes across onstage, I wouldn't like it either.

I didn't see it as Christian manipulating Satine with suicide, but more as him thinking it was his one great love and not wanting to go on without her and just being kind of desperate (the lack of emotional outburst when she DID die seemed a little off to me though). I feel like I didn't get this as much from the movie, but Christian in the Broadway version just seemed very dumb and naive, to the point where I started caring about Satine's personal arc rather than the development of their relationship as a love story, so I did roll my eyes a bit at his suicide threat (I thought he was planning on shooting the Duke when he first pulled out the gun).

That being said, I did expect them to push the "greatest thing you'll ever learn..." thing a lot more than they did since I'd say that should've been the theme of the show, but they seemed more interested in the Bohemian ideals instead so oh well. Definitely still a fun show regardless, but it just didn't pack the emotional punch for me that it seemed to want to.