The sequel 365 Days: This Day has a twist ending that left the 365 Days series reeling as a huge revelation re-contextualized the rest of the movie’s action. The controversial erotic romance 365 Days was infamous for many things, but twisty storytelling was not one of the original movie’s strong suits. The tale of a woman held captive by a mafia don until she falls in love with him, the original 365 Days was a thoroughly predictable affair that essentially offered a sexually charged re-telling of Beauty and the Beast that substituted a dreamy criminal mastermind for the titular beast.
However, the sequel to 365 Days, 365 Days: This Day, has more than made up for the original movie's decision to feature precious few shocking revelations. 365 Days: This Day features a couple of twists worthy of M Night Shyamalan which add some welcome over-the-top absurdity to a series that was already teetering on the edge of ludicrous by the ending of the first movie. Unlike the original 365 Days however, 365 Days: This Day's ending requires an explainer to make sense of the sequel’s convoluted action.
The original 365 Days ended with Laura, the heroine held hostage by Massimo, falling in love with her captor. However, just when the happy couple was ready to drive off into the sunset with a baby on the way, a devastating car crash in the closing moments of 365 Days appeared to leave Laura dead. 365 Days: This Day immediately reveals that this ending was a shameless fake-out death. Laura is in fact alive and makes a full recovery, although she does lose a pregnancy that she never told Massimo about - with this theme of deceit rearing its head many times throughout the plot of 365 Days: This Day. Here's 365 Days 2's ending explained in detail.
What Happens In 365 Days: This Day’s Ending
Massimo and Laura get married, then proceed to fight a lot. Massimo returns to his old controlling ways, and when Laura sees him cozying up to his ex Anna at a party, she runs off with their gardener, Nacho. However, that wasn’t actually Massimo who was with Anna; it was his hitherto-unmentioned identical twin brother, Adriano. Also, Nacho isn’t a humble gardener but rather the son of a rival mafia don, Don Matos. However, like Netflix’s earlier erotic thriller Deadly Illusions, the ending of 365 Days: This Day continues to pile on more unlikely twists after these myriad revelations. It then transpires that Don Matos engineered Laura’s car crash at the end of the original 365 Days because he wants to threaten Massimo into handing over control of his family business to the more malleable Adriano. Massimo refuses, leading Anna and Adriano to take Laura hostage, prompting Nacho and Massimo to team up and save her.
How 365 Days: This Day’s Changes The Book’s Ending
365 Days: This Day's ending is largely faithful to its source novel. In both the book and the movie adaptation, Anna and Adriano take Laura hostage, Nacho and Massimo attempt to save her, this leads to a stalemate, and in the ensuing gunfight, Laura, Anna, and Adriano are shot. However, 365 Days: This Day then follows the fine tradition of I Am Legend and Jurassic Park by changing the book’s ending since, in the original novel, Laura is still pregnant at this point. This results in Massimo being forced to choose between saving the life of Laura or the life of his unborn child in the opening of the third book in the series, a very ethically-charged, morally difficult issue that Netflix was wise to write out of this otherwise-goofy romance saga.
What Does 365 Days: This Day’s Ending Mean For Laura and Massimo?
The odds of Laura and Massimo reuniting and living happily ever after in the third 365: Days movie are pretty good despite 365 Days: This Day’s bloody ending. After all, Laura isn’t pregnant, unlike her book counterpart, meaning there are less likely to be complications when Massimo and Nacho get her medical treatment. That said, in the third 365 Days book, Laura runs off with Nacho, and Massimo becomes a full-on Wuthering Heights-inspired antihero, killing her dog and taking her hostage all over again after she recovers from her gunshot wound. As such, the fact that Laura’s actor has been confirmed to return for a third 365 Days movie should be confused with thinking it will be smoothing sailing for her character going forward.
What Does 365 Days: This Day’s Ending Really Mean?
There are many ways to read into 365 Days: This Day’s ending. Like so many viral successes, the 365 Days sequel and its bizarre ending lend an insight into the sort of stories that resonate with audiences. On its surface, the glossy, goofy erotic sequel is a throwback to the slick, silly, sexually-charged thrillers of the 90s, and there’s a recurring theme of miscommunication that defines the plot of 365 Days: This Day which wouldn’t be out of place in a Joe Eszterhas script. Much like Amazon’s equally steamy The Voyeurs and, bizarrely, Netflix’s Christmas rom-com Love Hard, the ending of 365 Days: This Day highlights how much lies and deceit can sow the seeds that will kill even the most passionate love affair.
Yet 365 Days 2 may have panned out very differently if Laura confronted Massimo when she saw him with Anna. She would have immediately realized it was Adriano and, while learning her husband had a secret identical twin that he (and everyone else in his life) had never mentioned would have taken some adjustment, this would likely have stopped her from fleeing the scene with Nacho. Conversely, had Nacho been honest with Laura about his family’s mafia connections from the beginning, the heroine might have chosen to stay with him over Massimo but never got the chance because of the relentless deception and double-crossing at the core of 365 Days: This Day’s story. Much like so many Bond girls betray 007 to keep the franchise feeling unpredictable and elicit sympathy for the otherwise almost super-powered secret agent, the 365 Days series (and in particular 365 Days: This Day) allows its romantic leads to constantly lie to each other solely so the story can still keep adding absurd twists and unlikely contrivances to keep audiences guessing.