Sorry for the bad taste pun but it was that or “end of the road”. Yes, Tom makes it to the end of his journey, literally. This is very spoilery about his past and how the ending plays out, so if you’re just after my review it’s here.
Though initially we are led to believe that it is Mary who, as an old woman, is diagnosed with and dies of cancer, it is actually Tom who is ill. Although when they meet the doctor she talks about treatments and time left, she never says it is she who is unwell, we just assume it. Presumably she actually dies of a heart attack, as Tom finds her in their garden lying dead on the ground. When Tom ends up in hospital after a bus crash on his long journey, the medic sees his records and discovers he has cancer in three places: liver, lung and kidney, the same three we heard about in the hospital room with Mary.
Tom refuses to come back to the hospital though, as he knows he has very little time left before he dies and he has to get Mary’s ashes to Cornwall. Finally we know why he is so desperate to keep going, and why he is in such pain and indeed so taciturn with people who want to help him. The physical pain must be unbearable.
During the film we also see flashbacks of young Tom and Mary with a baby girl, at Christmas. The great horror that first sends them away from Cornwall in 1952 is their daughter Margaret’s death, on Christmas Eve 1951, just before her first birthday. Mary always refuses to go back to Cornwall, until she changes her mind but is too old to make the journey.
When he finally reaches Cornwall (but not yet Land’s End), Tom visits the churchyard and finds Margaret’s grave, and leaves behind a framed photograph of her with her parents. (In a sentimental film this is genuinely heartbreaking — “Our baby” is engraved on the headstone.)
He has one more journey to complete, to Land’s End itself. When he gets off the last bus there is a crowd of people waiting for him, who have been following his journey on social media. Tom is unaware and unconcerned by them, and walks past them onto the stone pier, struggling even to make it along to where he can scatter Mary’s ashes. But manage it he does, and after scattering them into the water the screen goes blank.
Young Mary is on the back seat of a 1950s bus. Old Tom walks towards her up the aisle, and she asks him if he’s ready. He sits next to her and the bus trundles off.
The credits are quite moving, with the made-up social media posts that mention Tom and his journey flashing up.
I have read some negative comments about The Last Bus, but I must say I thoroughly enjoyed the movie and can’t stop thinking about it. I thought the acting was amazing, and my heart bled for Tom! The underlying issues/messages are what made the movie so enthralling. Maybe some people who didn’t like the movie do not have the ability to be empathetic or understanding of situations they have not experienced.
I totally agree with you – it was a beautiful movie.
I’m a widower of five years, and a decade or two younger than the fictional Tom and watched with little knowledge of the plot. I found it very poignant and I recognised the lengths that Tom goes. Some of the criticisms have picked at the realism of the journeys sewn together… but its a film, an idealised version and missing the point. When you’ve lost your partner you do wish to revisit points and places in your shared past in sometimes strangely obsessive way – trying to remember when previously you would have had another person to help prompt as they’d been there too. Every bit of the shared life – the sad along with the good – as every bit of that time with your partner was precious. My wife of thirty years died in the far north of Scotland too (and both of us from further south originally)… no buses. but did drive, walk and cycle special places to us with some of her ashes in small old tea tins – including getting to Cape Wrath (not Lands End – or John o’Groats – but still north-western-most point of mainland Britain).
What a lovely, and moving, post Tim – thank you for sharing it.
What was it he found in his daughters grave and put beside the picture frame , A very sad but brilliant film.
The remains of the toy rabbit…
My guess it was the remnants of a stuffed toy animal.
Just watched the last Bus Timothy Spall is an amazing actor in this beautiful gentle film .