[Editor’s Note: Endings, Beginnings was not rated, a trend we’re seeing more and more of with streaming, on-demand films. The content here would have earned this movie an R-rating.]
They say when one door closes, another one opens. Although in Daphne’s case, it seems more like she’s slamming one door shut while simultaneously trying to pry another one open.
After quitting her job and breaking up with her serious boyfriend without so much as an explanation, Daphne moves in with her sister, Billie, hoping to take things easy while in between those metaphorical doors. She refuses to tell anyone what happened with her job and boyfriend (she doesn’t really seem too sure herself), and insists she just needs to take a sabbatical.
It sort of works … for a time. But after not just one but two men take interest in her at a party, she decides she’s ready to fall off the wagon and give in to all the vices she’s been repressing—namely sex and alcohol.
Honestly, her plan to have it all might have worked out for her—if the two guys hadn’t already known each other. And in the meantime, she’s still freeloading off her sister (turns out employers don’t have a lot of confidence in people who quit their jobs with no notice after just six months).
Daphne can see doors closing all around her, but for the first time in her life, she’s slowly beginning to realize that some things have to end in order to make way for new beginnings.
Daphne deals with deep personal problems throughout the movie. She seethes with self-hate, she can’t seem to find a way to be OK with what she has, and she struggles to make or maintain any healthy relationships However, her friends and family support and encourage her through these trying times, offering sage advice at times.
In response to those issues, Daphne takes a “sabbatical,” promising herself to stay sober and celibate until she can figure things out. Unfortunately, she struggles with being alone, and she quickly falls into old patterns again. But when an unexpected pregnancy forces her to consider how her actions affect the people around her, she realizes that she’s tired of hurting them. She makes apologies and stops making excuses, finally getting it together and finding a way to love herself.
Daphne has a strained relationship with her mother, who spent most of Daphne’s childhood going from one boyfriend to the next looking for “the one.” However, after her mom apologizes for the mistakes she made, Daphne realizes how much alike the two women are and decides to forgive her, even accepting her mom’s offer to help her through her next stage of life.
Although Daphne hurts her ex-boyfriend Adrian by not giving him a reason for their sudden breakup, they eventually make peace. She thanks him for loving her even when she couldn’t love herself and wishes for him to be happy.
Despite her personal problems, Daphne dotes on her niece and always makes time for the young girl. A woman’s friends ensure her that she’ll be a great mom when she expresses doubt.
People celebrate Christmas. Someone calls her friends “dirty devils.” A woman sings a song at a wedding about the Garden of Eden.
Daphne and Frank have sex several times (including oral sex). We see and hear the motions each time. One scene includes breast nudity, and we see his bare backside as well.
Jack and Daphne have sex under the covers of a bed. We don’t see anything significant, but again, we can see and hear the motions. They later watch a movie together, and we briefly see a sex scene on their laptop. A man mentions “potential kids.”
Couples kiss and make out on multiple occasions. Daphne often wakes up in bed next to either Jack or Frank and cuddles the man she is with. Once, Frank tries to stop her from leaving and she winds up straddling him before kissing him and walking away.
A man’s revealing underwear leave little to the imagination. Daphne walks around her home in a tank top and underwear, and we see her bra on one occasion. Two women do yoga in formfitting yoga pants. A woman swims in a one-piece bathing suit. Women wear slightly revealing outfits to a club where many people are dancing.
A woman’s boyfriend kisses her when he finds out she’s pregnant. People talk about sex toys and reference the size of a man’s genitals. Bodily fluids are graphically referenced.
[Spoiler Warning] Afraid of being alone, Daphne explores relationships with both men despite knowing that the two of them are friends. She hides her true feelings and flat-out lies to Jack when he asks her what’s going on between her and Frank. Eventually, she gets pregnant, and both men are hurt when she can’t confirm who the father is and states that she doesn’t want either of them to be involved in the child’s life.
Short flashbacks eventually reveal that a man took advantage of a woman sexually when she was drunk despite her protests for him to stop.
A doctor mentions the possibility of terminating a pregnancy.
The f-word is used about 40 times and the s-word is used 10 times. We hear one use of “b–ch.” God’s name is taken in vain at least a dozen times, and we also hear one misuse of Christ’s name.
Daphne makes a pledge to stop drinking on her sabbatical. However, she still spends a lot of time around alcohol at bars and parties and eventually gives up on sobriety after breaking her celibacy pledge as well. Jack and Frank (despite knowing her sobriety goals) are partially responsible for this, since they continued to offer her alcoholic beverages and invite her on dates to watch them drink.
Daphne also has a terrible smoking habit. She is rarely seen without a cigarette in her mouth (even after she learns she is pregnant), and she proves to be a bad influence on Jack, who admits to smoking more with her than he ever has in his life. When Jack sends her a pack of cigarettes as a gift, she pours the cigarettes on her face to take selfies of herself for him.
People smoke and drink at parties. Several people, including Daphne, take pills at a club, and the combination of drugs and alcohol leads to an overly inebriated Daphne. Frank smokes a drug out of tin foil at a party. In a flashback, Daphne gets into an argument with her boyfriend after drinking multiple shots at a party.
Someone pulls a bottle of booze from a car glovebox. Daphne jokes that being sober is required to achieve optimal suffering conditions.
Daphne keeps her friends and family at arm’s length and develops a reputation for being flaky (which people later gossip about). She refuses to tell anyone about being assaulted (partially because she feels ashamed and can’t remember all of the details), and she also refuses to tell them why she suddenly quit her job and dumped her boyfriend. She winds up falling into a habit of lying, insisting that she’s “fine” when it’s clear that she’s anything but. And the lying leads to even worse problems when she starts seeing Jack and Frank.
Jack and Frank have a plethora of issues themselves. Jack frequently talks about his love of being a free agent with no responsibilities to anyone but himself. He does nothing to discourage Daphne’s drinking or smoking habits. And although Jack says Frank is his friend, he also calls him unreliable and volatile. Frank, for his part, lies to Jack about being involved with Daphne. When Frank realizes that Daphne is in love with both of them, he ignores her calls rather than talking to her about it.
Daphne says that her dad wasn’t involved in her life because he had another family. Billie mockingly talks about her own strained relationship with her and Daphne’s mom, and she refuses to attend Christmas dinner at their mom’s house.
A woman urinates on the side of the road (we see her squat behind a car door). Someone texts while driving. People neglect to wear seatbelts in a car. People nonchalantly joke about stealing, suffering and dying.
Daphne goes on quite the journey of self-discovery here—and in reality, she probably would have greatly benefitted from getting professional help. However, she eventually hits that moment of self-realization and really pulls herself together, finally learning how to be content with the doors that are open to her. And it’s really nice to see, especially considering what a mess her life has become.
What’s not so nice are all the things Daphne goes through to get to that point. For starters, we learn that she was sexually assaulted by someone she trusts. This was traumatizing for her—to the point where she quit her job and broke up with her steady boyfriend out of guilt and shame. And it doesn’t get any better for her from there. She gets involved with two guys at once (hurting both of them in the process), she struggles with a drinking and smoking problem, and she keeps the people who want to help her at a distance, preferring to hang out in her “suffer zone.”
And unfortunately, as viewers, we have to witness every moment of this. While sparing us the details of Daphne’s assault, almost nothing is left to the imagination regarding her carnal relations with Frank and Jack. Rough language abounds freely, and although nobody ever says it outright, it’s pretty clear that Daphne struggles with substance abuse.
So while I’m happy that Daphne finally gets her life together and finds a way to recover from her assault and gradually make things right with the people she loves most, this broken young woman’s journey toward emotional wholeness is fraught with reckless choices and explicit content.
Emily studied film and writing when she was in college. And when she isn’t being way too competitive while playing board games, she enjoys food, sleep, and geeking out with her husband indulging in their “nerdoms,” which is the collective fan cultures of everything they love, such as Star Wars, Star Trek, Stargate and Lord of the Rings.
