Hugh Reilly: It’s all about the trip, not the destination

Spoiler alert: this column contains information which may ruin your day. It’s your choice: you can keep reading and risk having your day ruined, or stop now and spend all day wondering what might have happened. So what’s it to be?

There’s an anecdote about a couple who were going to see The Mousetrap soon after it had opened in London’s West End. The whodunit was already famous for its surprise denouement and the fact that, at the end of each performance, the audience was requested to keep the identity of the murderer secret. Unfortunately for the couple, they failed to tip their taxi driver. So as they entered the theatre, intending to sit for two hours in a state of feverish anticipation as the mystery unfolded, the disgruntled cabbie yelled at them: “The policeman did it!”

I warned you there’d be information you may not wish to know – although you should thank me for saving you £20 on a theatre ticket – but the question is: did the cabbie really wreck the couple’s evening? According to new psychological research by the University of California, he actually did them a favour, because surprise endings are overrated.

Volunteers for the study read a selection of stories which involved unexpected plot twists. Sometimes the readers were told the endings of the stories in advance, sometimes they weren’t. What emerged was that the readers enjoyed the stories much more when the burden of anticipation and surprise was eliminated from the equation. It appears that, far from spoiling the plot, knowing the ending allows us to concentrate more on the quality of the story.

That probably explains why I’ve been able to watch Gone with the Wind over and over again for my entire adult life and never get bored. The reason I hang around for the whole 238 minutes has very little to do with what happens in the end. Whether Rhett stays with Scarlett or not – and he doesn’t, OK – isn’t the point. The point is that however often I watch it, it’s always brilliant.

The more I think about it, the more I agree that the joy of anticipation has been hugely overhyped. Knowing how the Second World War ended – and if you don’t, I’m not telling you – didn’t spoil Downfall for me. However, if I’d spent the whole time biting my nails over whether or not Adolf and Co were going to escape to a comfortable retirement in Argentina, I wouldn’t have had the time or the energy to be nearly so enthralled.

Besides, it’s a tough task finding any surprises in popular culture these days. I’m wondering if our preference for knowing what happens in a story has been fed by watching modern film trailers, which seem to exist for the sole purpose of telling us Exactly What Happens in 60 seconds or less, then following it up with a throaty voiceover telling us to come and see the slightly longer version of what we’ve just seen.

To make everything even less suspenseful, you can usually tell who’s going to win and who’s going to lose simply by looking at the cast list. Then again, maybe that’s a good thing too. My six-year-old got terribly upset when Han Solo got encased in carbonite at the end of The Empire Strikes Back. “Is Han going to die, mummy?” he winced, begging me for reassurance. “Of course not, love,” I replied. “Han is played by Harrison Ford, and Harrison Ford never dies. I think it’s in his contract. Anyway, this is just the Empire striking back. The next film is called Return of the Jedi, so they’ll all be returning, don’t worry.” And he instantly relaxed.

I suppose I’m glad I saw The Sixth Sense without already knowing the ending, but because it’s a genuinely good film, I can watch it again and again and still enjoy it. In fact, that’s probably the best measure of the quality of any entertainment, so there’s no harm in telling you: Bruce Willis is a ghost. Oh, and while I’m here, you know what happens in Mosquito Coast and What Lies Beneath? Harrison Ford dies.

You’re welcome.