Summary
- The Next Three Days ending reveals the truth about the murder, proving Lara's innocence despite earlier doubt.
- The ambiguity surrounding Lara's guilt adds to the suspense and questions throughout the movie.
- The decision to make Lara's innocence unclear deviates from the original French film and could have added to the story's impact.
Even though the 2010 thriller has largely gone under the radar, The Next Three Days ending remains a memorable conclusion. Helmed by Paul Haggis, prison-break story The Next Three Days is an American remake of 2008 French film Pour Elle (aka Anything For Her) directed by Fred Cavayé. Russell Crowe and Elizabeth Banks star as husband and wife John and Lara Brennan — him a mild-mannered college professor and her a hot-tempered businesswoman — whose world is turned upside down when Lara is convicted of murdering her boss after a blistering argument and sentenced to life in prison.
While The Next Three Days mostly focuses on John's desperate attempts to free her from prison, ultimately leading to his daring prison break plan, there is still the lingering question of whether Lara is actually guilty. The ending to The Next Three Days addresses the question of Lara's innocence that hangs over the entire movie. However, it is debatable if the answer given is the right one for the story or if it added to the lackluster reception the movie received upon its release.
Where To Watch The Next Three Days
What Happens In The Next Three Days Ending
The Truth Of The Murder Is Revealed
Most of The Next Three Days takes place a few years after Lara’s conviction. John is still convinced of his wife’s innocence, while almost everybody else — the police, her lawyer, and even John’s mother — thinks she’s guilty. With all appeals exhausted, John consults ex-con/escape artist Damon Pennington (Liam Neeson) to devise a plan to break her out of jail. As the thriller progresses, John gets into all kinds of shady situations trying to prepare for the prison break. This includes buying a gun, securing fake passports to flee the country and even killing a couple of drug dealers for money.
Ultimately, he is able to break Lara out and the family flees to Venezuela together to start a new life. During The Next Three Days’ ending, another flashback reveals exactly what happened the evening Lara’s boss was killed in their workplace parking lot. A drug addict bludgeoned the boss with a fire extinguisher and stole her purse, bumping into Lara shortly after and leaving a smudge of blood on her coat. In the process, a button popped off the addict's coat and fell into a storm drain — a piece of evidence missed by detectives that may have proved another person was present that night.
As Lara is about to get in her car, she sees the fire extinguisher and sets it next to a wall, not noticing her boss’ body nearby. The flashback shows that all the evidence against Lara — the blood on her coat, her fingerprints on the murder weapon — was circumstantial, and she is innocent.
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The Ambiguity Made More Sense For The Story
Russell Crowe's John is driven by his unfaltering belief Lara isn’t guilty of murdering her boss, but Haggis peppers The Next Three Days with moments that cast doubt over her innocence. Early on in the thriller, a flashback shows how Lara could’ve killed her boss and at one point she even ‘confesses’ to John that she did commit the murder. As a result, when John does pull off the prison break and safely gets his family out of the country before they’re caught, the audience are left wondering whether he’s just helped a murderer escape. The final few scenes, however, address this lingering doubt.
Interestingly, the doubt over Lara’s innocence, at least until the ending, is something that deviates from the French film The Next Three Days was based on. In the original movie, the wife’s innocence is made clear from the get-go, but Haggis opted for ambiguity in his remake – hence why those final few scenes proving Lara isn’t guilty are so important. However, both stories might have missed a more interesting avenue for The Next Three Days to take as leaving Lara's innocence unconfirmed would have cemented the idea that it didn't truly matter to John, and he was going to save his wife no matter what.