WTF You Just Watched: ‘The Last Thing He Wanted,’ Aka the Most Confusing Movie Ever
Lately, it feels like every movie has us thinking, “What the fuck did I just watch?” In this series, we will break down exactly what happened in all those wild, mind-bendy, and just plain strange films...in a way that’s much easier to understand than the actual movie.
THERE ARE SPOILERS AHEAD FOR THE LAST THING HE WANTED.
When I heard Anne Hathaway and Ben Affleck were going to be in a Netflix movie together, I’ll admit I was intrigued. I mean, two actors of that caliber don’t always make a movie that goes directly to a streaming service, but 2020 is a weird time. After watching The Last Thing He Wanted this past weekend, I get it. This is literally the most confusing movie I’ve ever seen. Let’s talk about it.
Usually, these posts start by saying something about the plot, like a little summation. I would do that here, but I literally cannot, because it was so damn confusing. Here’s what I could glean from an IMDb copy/paste: “A veteran D.C. journalist (Hathaway) loses the thread of her own narrative when a guilt-propelled errand for her father thrusts her from byline to unwitting subject in the very story she’s trying to break. Adapted from Joan Didion’s namesake novel.” Cool-cool-cool. Losing the thread of her own narrative is right.
Here, a list of the most WTF things that happened in this godforsaken film:
The casting of Willem Dafoe as Anne Hathaway’s dad. Is he really old enough to be her dad?! Hooboy.
The fact that Ben Affleck’s character’s name is Treat. TREAT. I have no words.
Elena ditching her campaign trail job to run GUNS across the border for her father. I don’t care who your dad is, most people are more logical than that. She and her dad weren’t even close!
After delivering those guns, Elena stays in Costa Rica (I think—it’s very hard to tell) “to investigate” or something. IDK, but it seems ill-advised to get in the car with an illegal weapons trader when you don’t even know what country you’re in.
Wait, what was up with that breast cancer storyline? Like, I’m not mad about it, I just needed it to be tied to something else and have a logical purpose.
When Elena sleeps with Treat for literally no reason and it seems like there’s a backstory there that we, the viewers, never find out. Like, did they hook up before? Because that seems like the only explanation here.
Honestly, the entire second half of the movie could be on this list.
It seems like there was supposed to be a connection between that Bob Weir guy and that Ben Affleck character, but could anyone actually explain it? Seriously, I’ll give you $1 if you can.
The fact that she was ultimately killed by the guy she slept with not 24 hours before. Remind me to never go on another date, ever.
Did I miss anything? Probably. This film is a dumpster fire of plot points that never quite come together and make you feel like you need to know a lot about South American politics to even get the gist. Some movies are confusing in a good way. Like, Inception for example. This is not one of those films. So, if you’re staring down your very full Netflix queue, feel free to take a pass on this one. It is, quite literally, the last thing you’ll ever want.
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