This was written on reddit, hence the formatting:
The ending of Sacred Deer essentially presents a Russian Roulette scenario to solve the morality issue that the Surgeon (Colin Farrell) has with killing one of his own family members. There are six plausible endings (though there could be many more potentially) that I'll discuss briefly as far as the Moral, Utilitarian, and Cinematic value associated with each.
The first two we can sort of throw out because the ending doesn't fit into a traditional Greek Tragedy format and instead have an "American" tinge to them. (e.g. Wind River has an American ending).
**One:** Colin Farrell kills his son voluntarily after he starts bleeding from the eyes (a sign of impending death), and then kills the perpetrator Martin (kid from Dunkirk, Barry Keoghan) after his Wife and Daughter recover. This ending assumes that Martin is not omniscient and can be killed without instantaneously causing the mysterious Pathogen again.
In my opinion this is the most clean ending and provides the most Moral value, but it does make the movie a revenge fantasy instead of a Greek Tragedy which invalidates various constructs throughout the film.
**Two**: Steven (Colin Farrell) shoots himself instead of continuing the Russian Roulette. At the very least the Son and Daughter die, unclear whether the Wife (Nicole Kidman) would die or not but if we take the Demon Child at his word she would eventually. While this ending is undoubtedly tragic it eliminates the "Divine" element of chance from the ending which seems to be one of the major underlying points, if a not entirely obvious one.
This ending provides the least Moral Value since the antagonist is not eliminated but everyone else is, it ties for least Utilitarian value (though it depends on your interpretation of John Stuart Mill).
The next four endings all fit into the tragic mold nicely without eliminating an element of randomness.
**Three:** Steven shoots Martin in the basement in the hopes that his Pathogen does not continue post death. This either results in just Martin dying or in his entirely family dying, but it is unknown which would happen unless you assume Martin is telling the truth (the movie does nothing to imply that he isn't).
If his entire family dies I think this is a fitting end for a Greek Tragedy and it also ties for least Utilitarian value. Regardless this is the other potential best Moral choice, because Steven does not know whether or not his family will die and is still taking an action that could theoretically save all of them. This seems like the third best cinematic choice, but it is difficult to make an ending work for it without just cutting to black.
The next three results are all directly tied to the Russian Roulette (one of them is the actual ending):
**Four**: Steven shoots his son (Sunny Suljic) randomly.
The son is, as far as the audience knows, already going to die at the point at which he is shot; since he is the only one that dies this provides the most Utilitarian value. However since Martin is still alive he will most likely use his power to torment someone else or Steven again, so it is not a particularly sound moral choice (though it would be if done intentionally) Since a random act of chance determines an ending where only one person dies you can infer that the randomness (i.e. Greek Divinity or whatever you want to input) is morally righteous or at least utilitarian. But since the son is the most pure/youngest person in the film it is also very tragic that he dies (but he was going to die anyway as far as we know). This is also perhaps the most obvious ending which is frequently what happens in Greek plays to assist in foreshadowing. However in my opinion this offers the least cinematic value out of the four viable endings, since the result is quite a bit less unsettling than if random chance results in more chaos. If for example DeNiro dies at the end of Deer Hunter instead of Nick (Walken) and Nick returns and has a happy life in America then it results in a happier, less tragic ending since he manages to save Nick's life.
**Five** Steven shoots his Wife (Nicole Kidman) randomly.
This is the second most tragic ending since the son will also die, and the wife acts in a self serving/self preserving manner in the film. Personally I think any act that pursues survival is morally righteous so I don't actually think the Wife is an evil character or anything (Martin is the only evil character in the film) though her presence makes more sense in a Greek Tragedy than a modern film. However she is older and thus closer to death, so theoretically her death is less unsettling than the death of a teenage girl. This provides the second least moral value and is somewhere in the middle in terms of utilitarian value. I'll discuss this more in the final ending but it is also extremely unsettling as far as anyone who believes there is inherently good in the universe in any way shape or form (i.e. the vast majority of people).
**Six** Steven shoots his daughter (Raffey Cassidy) randomly, Bob also dies since the pathogen has reached a terminal state. This is the most tragic ending other than Steven shooting himself, because the daughter is younger than the mother. Also since random chance is the deciding factor and results in the worst situation we can infer that the universe is some uncaring husk of horrors in which all is nothingness and emptiness; with no moral compass to guide us and no Zeus to help out either. I really like this ending and if the director/writer/whomever made three endings out of the Russian Roulette and then just picked whichever one people liked the best I can sort of respect this not being the result that you end up with. However it certainly causes the most cognitive dissonance in the audience and would probably propagate more discussion than the present ending. This ending provides the least moral value and ties ending #5 for Utilitarian value (in the middle).
While I do very much enjoy the ending setup for this film it does seem like once a character starts bleeding from the eyes a medical cause could be ascertained since you can't psychologically decide to start bleeding from your eyes (though most likely a cure could not be found before all three characters died); and since we grounded the entire film in that frame of reference it should at least be addressed in the film somewhere.
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