It's not what we came here to do," he argues to her. The problem: that village lies across a desolate waste of land separating the Allied troops and the German troops dubbed "No Man's Land." She insists on running to the rescue of the village, but Steve insists that they continue on their mission. Diana ( Gal Gadot) is being ushered through the trenches at the battlefront by Steve Trevor ( Chris Pine) when she hears of a village that has been taken by German soldiers. "She doesn't do anything." It's a sequence that, on paper, seems like a waste of time. "What is the point of that scene?" they said. I remember speaking with someone about the "No Man's Land" sequence in Wonder Woman soon after the film came out in theaters. The camera lingers not out of cruelty, but out of love. And Flanagan's camera, unflinching, allows us to experience this nightmare right alongside her. We can only imagine the pain and the suffering as the flesh on her hand peels back, offering her the leverage to escape. What makes the moment so powerful is not just that it's one of the most gruesome and impactful scenes of violence ever created – it's that we know Jessie so well by this point and know that this is truly the only way for her to escape. Gasps and cries and screams filled the theater as everyone realized what Jessie was try to do, what she was going to do, to escape her predicament. My friend to my left sunk deep into his seat, audibly whimpering. She manages to angle it right at her wrist. She manages to hold onto one razor-sharp shard. She manages to get a hold of the glass of water on the headboard. Her husband is dead from a sudden heart attack.
Jessie ( Carla Gugino) has been handcuffed to a bed in her isolated country house for days. If you've seen the movie, you know the moment. Yes, Fury Road is loaded with great action, but it's this one moment – a moment of joy quickly shattered – that stands out the most, and feels the most important. It's almost unbearable in its bruised beauty. Furiosa staggers out into the sand and lets out a scream of rage, and hurt, and loss. The world she remembers from her youth is long gone, destroyed, devastated. And then the rug is pulled out from under her: she's told the place she was attempting to find, an almost mythical "green place", is no more. Her blazing eyes cutting through the dirt on her face, she's finally where she belongs. The women embrace her as one of their own, and Theron's performance in this moment is remarkable. "Seven thousand days," she says she's been gone, "Plus the ones I don't remember." In the middle of the desert, she's suddenly reunited with the tribe of women she was stolen from some time ago. After a long, harrowing journey, renegade Imperator Furiosa ( Charlize Theron), who is helping usher a group of women forced into sexual slavery escape from captivity, finally brings her vehicle to a stop. It's a pure celebration of the pursuit of passion, and it gets to me every single time.
All of his sacrifices, enduring the early days of their parents' volatile relationship, and his missed opportunities have resulted in these crazy kids getting to throw caution and logic to the wind and just go for it. There's such purity in his fist pumps and jumps of joy: genuine excitement for his brother, of course, but also a sense that his screw-up life has all been worth it because it led to this moment. As the pair sail off into the rain, Brendan watches quietly from the shore before bursting into celebration. Brendan aids in their escape, driving them to the docks and giving Conor some last minute advice. Armed with nothing but a demo tape and some modeling photos, Conor and Raphina decide to sail off to London to pursue their dreams.
That's why the ending of the movie is so affecting.
You can tell Brendan still loves and supports his brother, but as a former musician himself, there's also some resentment at the fact that Conor has an opportunity that Brendan never had. In one of the movie's most explosive scenes, he explains to Conor how, as the oldest child, Brendan had to carve a path through the jungle of their dysfunctional family and that Conor's success is partially because of the sacrifices he made. With his long, scraggly hair and devil-may-care attitude, Brendan is a college dropout and the screw-up of the family.