Ryan McNeil
After ten years, it’s fair to say that The Avengers are defined by how incredibly they work together. Time and again, when the numbers have been “six against a few hundred”, those six have found a way to combine their gifts in such perfect harmony so as to reverse the odds.
However, it is equally fair to say that what has defined The Avengers is how viciously they can tear themselves apart. Right from the moment they first came together, every version of this team has found a way to argue, splinter, fracture, and break.
Think getting six people to agree on pizza toppings is hard? Try getting six people to agree on the best way to protect the world.
All of that dysfunction would be difficult enough for any band of heroes to endure. Now add loss into the mix. Take any six people who have been through something cataclysmic and try to keep them on a united front. It’s almost impossible.
However, that’s the nature of loss – so very much seems impossible.
AVENGERS: ENDGAME picks up three weeks after the events of AVENGERS: INFINITY WAR.
What remains of the team – Tony Stark, Black Widow, Thor, Captain America, Hulk, Steve Rhodes, Rocket, and Nebula – are joined by Captain Marvel, and set-out to Avenge the fallen and bring the evil Thanos to justice.
After that, everyone is left to cope and grieve. Before you know it, five whole years have gone by. It’s then, after half a decade has passed, that an opportunity presents itself to lessen the blow. But at what cost? And after so much has happened, can Earth’s Mightiest Heroes possibly find it within themselves to rise to the challenge?
ENDGAME is a movie with grief on its mind.
Grief manifests itself in many ways, and they are all present in this film. There’s the desire to lash out in anger (Hawkeye, Carol, Thor) – even at those close to you (Tony Stark), the desire to be a beacon for others and to be “of use” (Captain America, Widow), the instinct to be a smartass in lieu of coping (Rocket, Rhodey), the inability to do a whole lot more than sit on the couch and self-medicate with substance (Thor again), and sometimes it even allows clarity, perspective, and an opportunity to be better (Hulk).
All of them are real, all of them are valid. What you never know is which one is going to bubble up in you when the time comes, or how hard it’s going to hit.
ENDGAME takes a long time giving oxygen to these manifestations. It is the driving force for every line of comic book mumbo-jumbo, every effects-driven action sequence, every joke, and every punch. We are witnessing larger-than-life titans trying to square themselves not just to failure, but to the cost of that failure. It is grief and pain on a level we seldom see in a blockbuster, and it’s what gives the film its unexpected weight.
There is an unbelievable desire in such moments to go back – to do things different. Tony, Captain America and Thor even manage to go back and get one more moment with people they lost. Who they confront aren’t people they can hope to revive with the greater mission, but instead people who are truly gone. The beauty of these moments is that they allow each character a moment of much-needed catharsis; the pain for us in the audience is that none of us will ever get them.
For a story that is supposed to be escapist, it’s a whole other level of escape – that one more moment with those we lost would bring us a measure of peace.
What ENDGAME takes pains to underline is that in lieu of that fantasy, there is another path that can lead one through the hardest parts of the grieving process – a path that does not depend on time travel (or shields, or hammers, or arrows, etc).
When Thor is at his lowest, he is reminded by someone he holds dear that he might have failed at being who he thought he was supposed to be…but that the measure of a person – a hero – is how they succeed at being who they are.
The truth of this statement is remarkable, since grief has a way of making one feel “unlike themselves”. What this point wants us to try to remember is that we are “still ourselves” – just different…perhaps better, and we can still succeed at being that person.
This moment is a gift, and it’s the beating heart of the film. It is a reminder that even though we will fail and we will lose, that we aren’t lesser for it. It can feel that way as we make our way through our lowest moments, so in that respect this film becomes a beacon. While it is a fantasy that allows great tragedy to be “undone”, it is also tempered with reality that often what’s done is done. Further, it even makes sure we understand that if we knew what we could have done to change the past, odds are high that we wouldn’t do it.
When we grieve, we begin to look at everything through lenses of the past…and ENDGAME is certainly fixated on the past. It deals with the loss at hand by remembering the joys that came before. Those joys don’t do that much to ease the characters grief (or our own), but they remind us that there is still joy ahead – even if it doesn’t feel that way sometimes.