Spoilers ahead for Midwinter Break.
Actors Ciarán Hinds and Lesley Manville have had long and wildly successful careers, and luckily for cinephiles they've been paired for the new drama film Midwinter Break. The book to screen adaptation features the pair as a married couple as they take a vacation to Amsterdam. During it their relationship is tested, and the story ends with a controversial ending that leaves their fate as a pair unknown. And I had a chance to speak with both actors about what they thought happened after the movie ends.
Midwinter Break is a meditation about marriage and trauma, and the issues in Stella and Gerry's relationship end up bubbling up throughout their titular trip. As you can see in the video above, I had the chance to speak with the movie's stars, where I asked if they thought there was hope for the fictional couple after the final scene in the airport. Manville offered her perspective, telling me:
Well, I think that the audience don't know that and they are left wondering. But for me, I love films that do that. That you walk away and it, and it's not just all right that's that done. Because the film has tied it all up with a nice, neat ending for you. This film makes you go away and question and, and not just what is gonna happen to this couple, but what questions, your own thoughts about what you think should or shouldn't happen.
The star of The Crown (streaming with a Netflix subscription) doesn't offer any concrete answers about whether or not Stella and Gerry's marriage survives the events of Midwinter Break. But that's how she likes it; she loves movies that leave the audience thinking after they leave the theater.
When Gerry and Stella are in the airport trying to get home, things reach a breaking point. Manville's character tells her husband that she wants to break-up, largely thanks to a near-death experience she had while pregnant, and a promise she made to God to devote her life to faith. Manville addressed this in our conversation, saying:
Should Stella give up on her long held belief that she should be leading a more devout life? Should she try and let that go? Because it's not a terrible marriage.
This is the biggest question of Midwinter Break: will Stella abandon her marriage and dedicate her life to God? Unfortunately for folks who like clear endings, we may never know.
While I asked Ciarán Hinds about Paul Dano's work in There Will Be Blood, he also weighed in on Gerry and Stella's fate in Midwinter Break. As he put it:
But by the end, when they've actually said to each other why it's not working, and it's been quite open and harsh with each other, but the need is there when they have that look at the end. I just think, I don't know. I think that Gerry going like 'Oh, please make it work.' Well, I don't know about Stella. I can't say if she's going like, 'Is this worth bothering?' I don't know. And I think that's the way they'll always be. And we'll never get the same moment of the two people in sync maybe, but at different times they might be feeling the same thing.
Points were made. Although it's also clear that neither of the movie's stars know for sure what happened to their characters after the movie ends. That's ultimately up to audiences to decide.
Midwinter Break is in theaters now as part of the 2026 movie release list. We'll just have to wait and see what folks think happened to Gerry and Stella following their vacation to Amsterdam.
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