‘All the Bright Places’ Director Brett Haley Explains Why He Wanted to Leave the Ending “Open to Interpretation”

Warning: This article contains major spoilers for All the Bright Places on Netflix, as well as All the Bright Places the book. If you don’t want to know how the story ends, save this article until after you watch the movie.

In Jennifer Niven’s bestselling 2015 novel All the Bright Places, readers meet the lead character, Theodore Finch, as he is standing on the ledge of a six-story building. He is contemplating whether or not to take his life. He is a teenager who is obsessed with death. He keeps a journal of suicide methods. He eventually uses one—sleeping pills—but regrets it immediately, has his stomach pumped and survives. At the end of the book—and if you didn’t listen to the spoiler warning at the top of this article, now is the time to do so—Finch sends a goodbye letter and is found drowned in a lake.

All the Bright Places the movie—which stars Justice Smith as Finch and was released on Netflix today—forgoes most, if not all, of Finch’s suicidal tendencies. “Justice and I did not approach him as a ‘suicidal character,'” director Brett Haley told Decider in a phone interview. “The ‘s’ word, suicide… I think it’s open to interpretation. I’m leaving it up to the audience to decide what happens to Finch.”

Instead, All the Bright Places the movie places more focus on Violet Markey, Elle Fanning‘s character who is grieving the death of her sister. Finch meets Violet when he talks her down off a bridge—the same bridge, we later learn, where her sister died in a car accident. Fascinated by her, Finch convinces Violet to be his partner for a school assignment to “wander” their home state of Indiana. They fall in love. But while Finch is helping Violet process her grief, Finch is dealing with dark moods and mental health issues himself. Instead of accepting the help Violet offers him, he disappears for days on end. His friends say it’s normal.

We’re never clear what, exactly, Finch is dealing with. He says he “goes blank,” and feels out of control at times. He confesses to Violet that his dad also got in dark moods, and abused him as a child. He goes to a catch-all mental health support group session after he gets in a fight at a school, but it doesn’t seem to provide him the clarity he’s looking for. He runs away, again, and this time he doesn’t come back. We never see a body, just Violet crying over Finch’s pile of clothes near the lake, the lights of a police car, and Finch’s funeral.

“There was a conscious decision, for me personally, to not focus on the ‘suicidal tendencies’ of Finch that were maybe in the book. This was my vision of the film,” Haley said, adding that he worked closely with The Post screenwriter Liz Hannah and author Jennifer Niven, who co-wrote the screenplay together. “We are dealing with Violet’s grief, and we are dealing with another character with an undiagnosed mental illness who is hiding it. People can put others in harm’s way because of unchecked mental illness, and that’s the conversation I was trying to have with the film.”

The reason he chose to shift the conversation away from suicide, Haley said, was in part because he wanted to be very careful “about romanticizing suicide or suicidal thoughts in any capacity.” Another Netflix project based on a young adult novel, 13 Reasons Why, came under fire for doing just that three years ago. The show, which features a graphic scene of Katherine Langford’s character committing suicide, was denounced by parents and mental health organizations for glamorizing teen suicide. The controversy eventually led to Netflix re-editing the scene and adding a content warning for viewers before each season.

Haley said he considered adding a trigger warning to All the Bright Places, but decided against it. “We discussed it with Netflix and we felt like we’re not at the level for that,” Haley said. “13 Reasons Why and our movie are very different things. We have done a lot of work with Netflix, who has been really amazing. We have talked to mental health experts who are at Netflix. We talked about it in pre-production, we talked about it on a script level, and we talked about it once we finished the film. It was decided that there was no need for a trigger warning, and I trusted their instincts on that.” (A representative from Netflix told Decider that those mental health experts were from the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention.)

In lieu of a trigger warning, All the Bright Places ends with a dedication to “those who have been impacted by mental health concerns, suicide, or grief.” It also directs viewers to a website, www.allthebrightplacesfilm.info, which hosts a video of Fanning and Smith urging viewers dealing with “grief and depression” to reach out for help if they need. The website provides links and phone numbers for Mental Health America, American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, and the Crisis Text Line. Haley also told Decider that “a roundtable with Justice and Elle and professionals” will be coming at a later date.

In other words: Many precautions have been taken to treat the ending of All the Bright Places with the care that many accused 13 Reasons Why of lacking. That includes making significant changes to the book—most notably, cutting Finch’s first attempt on his life, and the goodbye email he wrote before he was found drowned in the lake.

“Our goal for this film was to capture the spirit of Jennifer’s book, the emotion of her book, the spirit of Finch and Violet, their love story, and what those characters mean to the fans,” he said. “Is every scene included? No. Have there been changes? Of course. That’s just part of the process and I know that fans sometimes don’t know that. All you can do is try not to think about pleasing everyone, but pleasing yourself and the people you’ve surrounded yourself with on the filmmaking team, as collaborators.

“I think if you read, and I did, online discussions about the book, there is a discrepancy between fans of the book about Finch,” he continued. “Did Finch go into that water purposefully with the goal of ending his life? Or if it was an accident? We don’t want to say in the film, because we’re not there. We are not there in the book, and we aren’t there in the film. It’s up to the audience to decide. My answer is clear, but I’m also not going to judge anyone for their interpretation.”

When pressed for what that interpretation was, Haley said he’d rather leave it up to the viewers. “I feel very passionately about how I depicted Finch and how he tragically dies,” Haley said. “But I have to let go of this film. It’s not mine anymore. It belongs to the world. That’s scary, but it’s also exciting. I’m ready to let it go and I’m ready for people to interpret this film as they will.”

If you or someone you know needs help, call 1-800-273-8255 for the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline. You can also text HOME to 741-741 for free, 24-hour support from the Crisis Text Line. Outside of the U.S., please visit the International Association for Suicide Prevention for a database of resources.

Watch All the Bright Places on Netflix