In a sense, it's sort of like the ending of "Sweet Charity", telling us that through movies, she would live "hopefully ever after", if not happily.
"Great theater makes you smile. Outstanding theater may make you weep."

Surprised to see no one here mention that the ending is lifted from Fellini's
Nights of Cabiria
.
Similar circumstances for a similar character, setting up the same final shot.
Not that that's a bad thing. It fits this film perfectly, and Allen recontextualized it into a very moving statement about what the movies mean to people. It's a great homage to one of the greatest endings in cinema.

Yes, it can be uncomfortable. But Woody Allen himself said that making a conventionally happy ending would have missed the whole point. I'd say it would have turned the fantasy into reality, which would have turned the magical into the mundane. As it stands, we realize at the end that we've seen an epic, the story of Cecilia's life. The conventionally happy ending would have restricted the movie to just that one point in time.
What we see is that Cecilia has found a way to deal with the severe problems in her life which have to do with being entrapped in various ways, not just by her marriage. And in that sort of environment, her marriage could have been a lot worse. That's not to defend anything about the way her husband treats her, just to say that it could have been worse and that she at least has the freedom and ability to escape into her fantasy world.
You're pissed at Gil (of course), but was Gil even real? Or was Gil part of Cecilia's fantasy, and thus part of the way she's learned to deal with her world? Did Cecilia have to let Gil go so that she could move on with her fantasy? Would she have been stuck in a far deeper and uglier rut if Gil had stayed (that is, if her fantasy hadn't moved on)?
I don't know if I'd say the ending is beautiful. It's a part of a whole. Certainly I had tears streaming down my face. But a different ending would have given the entire movie far less weight, far less sense. The ending reveals and explains what we've been watching. I won't say it's the only ending that could do that, but I will say that most "happy" endings which are proposed would remove that revelation and explanation.
Feel any better? Probably not.
Edward

fresh off of seeing it, I am pretty angry right now but they should have had the last shot of someone offering her popcorn and end right there. It would have been ambiguous, the audience not knowing if it was gil, her sister, or her husband. I'm pissed at Gil right now but more concerned for Cecilia, it should've ended more positive, like her leaving her husband and being a proprietor of a movie theater in some town or the popcorn girl of the movie theater to show that she's not gonna stay with that horrible husband. I felt that Allen basically gave the message that "yeah she's going to forever be with that horrible husband, receive beatings and take his crap, she had that chance to live in a fantasy world and missed it, that's reality folks." That's what I'm thinking right now and I'm probably wrong but I'm pissed right now after watching it. Hopefully these boards will help me realize the beauty in the ending.

Remember that we don't know what's real and what's Cecilia's fantasy. Is Gil just as fictitious as Tom? Has this happened to Cecilia before? Will it happen again? Did all those other people actually notice, or was that part of the fantasy too? Is the ukulele she's holding at the end the one that Gil bought her, or has she had it for years and taken it with her through many fantasies?
Edward

The unhappy ending reminded me of William Wyler's "Roman Holiday", legendary anti-Hollywood ending.

Its the only ending that works with the theme of the movie.
At the end of the movie she still smiles at the Astaire and Rodgers happy ending even though her life, like most of the general public, is pathetic. The power of the "hollywood ending" is its ability to soothe and sedate any sad or depressing life.

I loved the ending. There was no way that Gil could realistically take Cecilia with him, and it's hard for me to say just after seeing it for the first time whether he really loved her at all, right now I'm inclined to say he never loved her, and was just a very good actor, though the parts where he tells her how much she loves his movie etc., those seem genuine to me. Anyways, I'm SOOOOO happy that Allen made the ending this way, anyone who was just expecting Gil to fly back or you know, come to her rescue, was kidding themselves, just like she was kidding herself the whole movie. This is my favorite Allen movie I've seen so far, (Annie Hall, Manhattan, Crimes and Misdemeanors and Nothing to Lose), is there anything he's done besides this that fans of TPRoC would say is almost as good? Clearly nothing's better!

I had agreed with alice in an earlier post. I too felt that when we see him on the plane that he feels guity about lying to Celia. Some have suggested that its a look of relief or worry of what would happen to his career.
He's taking the knife out of the Cheese!
Do you think he wants some cheese?

Thanks, Susan. It is a gem and a beautiful little movie. I'm not really a Woody Allen fan - I can take him or leave him most of the time - but I love this one.

Spot on analysis alice . . . I agree.
Even though I know it was the more "real" ending - the whole picture wasn't about reality, so a happy ending would not have disappointed me, but it would not have been as memorable.
This film is an absolute gem. Beautiful little movie. One of Allen's best.

I think he did tell her he loved her just so Tom would go back on the screen. Then you saw his look on the plane - he looked guilty but regretful too, I thought. I didn't think he loved Celia, but maybe for a little while wondered what it would be like to live a real life with a real person who saw the best in him, not the shallow existence he was living. Or he was regretful that he wasn't the man Celia thought he was.

I lovethis movie but I was dissapointed with the ending, too. I guess I just love happy endings and it would of been better to me if they would of ended up together! It's like he told her he loved her just so Tom would go back on screen. All I could think of is that she was going to have to go back to her awful life with her husband.
,
Scarlett
"Color is my day-long obsession, joy and torment"

I expected the exact same thing. I was 100% sure he would come back. Even though the end was heartbreaking, it was perfect!

I don't remember if I expected a happy ending - I saw it in the theater when it first came out. I do remember that I was enchanted with it from start to finish and thought the ending was perfect. My friends, though, hated the ending and complained about it. I remember feeling that they completely missed the point and that I wasn't going to explain it to them (we were pretty young in 1985!)

Woody Allen is a genius. He totally surprised me with this clever, brilliant ending. I was expecting a happy ending, completely. I was expecting either Gil to appear right next to her, or Cecilia entering the Top Hat film or even Fred Astaire to come out of the screen to meet her! How wrong I was.
I forgot how brilliant Allen could be. It's an unexpected, touching and mostly downbeat ending. Cecilia may be feeling that slight moment of happiness when she's watching Top Hat but you just know that when she steps out of the cinema, her life will be a living hell. That's reality for ya!
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I actually half-expected her to step into the screen.
Perhaps that is quite cliche, but I was sort of hoping for that to happenseems intangible, but it would have made sense in the context of the film's whimsy and its transcedence of reality.

I didn't expect the Hollywood ending, but neither did I find Cecilia to be reverting to a fantasy escape mechanism. The telling point is that, instead of returning to her wonderfully crap husband (seriously, this guy had absolutely NO redeeming features! Even Hitler loved dogs!), she goes to the cinema. God knows what would have happened after this (probably why WA did it this way - if you can't make your film poignant, give it an ambiguous ending), but I notice that pretty girls don't do too badly in life. I just got the feeling from her expression that she enjoyed Fred and Ginger for what it was, and wasn't investing it with the same rapture as previously. It all depends on how you look at things - are they tragic or are they comic? (sorry - I saw Melinda and Melinda recently as well)

that Gil was going to "tap her on the shoulder" so to speak. When he was on the plane he was simply heading back to Hollywood. He may have felt a little bad about tricking her but thats about all he felt.

This message has been deleted.

Im not sure that the end of this movie is intended to be that simple or pat. If you think of the film as an allegory for romance in the movies, the ending has a stronger resonance. As Cecelia sinks back into her chair to bask in the elegance of Fred and gingers breath-taking moment, you know both the impossibility of celluloid grace of this scale, and its worth. Our lives are as impossible as the love triangle played out in the movie, as difficult to reconcile with the nature of desire, and all the time shadowed by life not how we wish it to be, but how it is but they really are beautiful when they dance and that is something that can sustain us. As with the best of Allens films there are no easy answers, rather complex possibilities.
Yeah, this is a funny movie, but I think it also asks what it is to watch a movie.

i loved the end soo much. Gil didn't come back because it was the point about the difference between reality and fantasy. about how you have to stay in reality, but in the end it doesn't always have a happy ending, but the movies are her escape every so often from the downs she experiences in real life.

See, I see that this movie is about the psychology of facing or avoiding reality and the ramifications of both. She could go into the fantasy of the movie, she could fall in love with the character in the movie, even talk to him and have him invite her to his world but it wasn't REAL. She wasn't just TRICKED into not going with him, she COULDN'T have ever gone with him. And the reality is that the actor was only trying to save his own career. He didn't care about her. Nor does her husband. Her only way out is to STOP escaping. But she instead choses to escape. And that's okay if it's okay with her, which at the end, it appears to be so. That is the choice we all have, to face things or to escape things. That is something everyone can relate to. We want to believe that she "could have" gone with this guy or with that guy but I say no she couldn't! Unless she truly FACES her life, face her reality, she will be held in that state of fantasy. And because she was so extremely engrossed in fantasy, it actually swallowed her up for a moment and spit her back out, right where she started. However, in the end, she knew more of what she truly wanted and that perhaps it DOES exist somewhere in the world. That little seed may be all she needs to move into that direction. Or not. Either way, that is the path of all life really. I absolutely love this movie. I own the DVD and in watching it more than once you really do see more and more in it.

I think you're absolutely right. Cecelia had a depressing life, she escapes from it by going to to the movies, and she just imagined the whole thing. Tom Baxter did not really come off the stage, Gil didn't ever come to the town, and this whole frenzy was just inside Cecelia's fantasy world.
I think we're supposed to conclude that, because it's the only way that the story could truly make any logical sense. The movie is intentionally vague about the line between fiction and reality, and that's how it all comes together.
The first time I saw this movie, I felt really robbed and angry by the ending (I'm a hopeless romantic who likes happy, Hollywood endings), but looking back on it I now understand that it had to end that way because the movie is all about how reality is not the way it is in the movies.
It's just absolutely depressing to conclude that she goes back to live with her beep husband.