A Perfect Ending

A Perfect Ending

Year: 2012

Runtime: 110 mins

Language: English

Director: Nicole Conn

DramaRomance

This intimate drama centers on Rebecca, a woman grappling with a deeply personal secret. She decides to confide in a stranger, revealing a truth she’s long concealed from her friends. While the encounter doesn't unfold as she anticipates, Rebecca embarks on a journey to find resolution and a satisfying conclusion to her situation.

Warning: spoilers below!

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Timeline & Setting – A Perfect Ending (2012)

Explore the full timeline and setting of A Perfect Ending (2012). Follow every major event in chronological order and see how the environment shapes the story, characters, and dramatic tension.

Time period

Location

Hotel room, Westridge family home, Art gallery, Funeral

The narrative unfolds across a luxury hotel room used for discreet meetings, the lavish Westridge residence that houses the family’s public image and private tensions, and an art gallery where Rebecca and Paris’s bond unfolds. A funeral scene later anchors the story in the cycle of life, loss, and renewal. These locations together reflect themes of performance, wealth, and emotional exposure.

🏨 Hotel 🏠 Family Home 🖼️ Art Gallery ⚰️ Funeral

Last Updated: October 01, 2025 at 12:22

Main Characters – A Perfect Ending (2012)

Meet the key characters of A Perfect Ending (2012), with detailed profiles, motivations, and roles in the plot. Understand their emotional journeys and what they reveal about the film’s deeper themes.

Rebecca Westridge (Barbara Niven)

Rebecca is the matriarch of the Westridge family, a blond, poised wife who embodies the 'perfect' suburban image. Beneath the polish, she feels emptiness in her marriage and seeks genuine satisfaction. Her cancer diagnosis becomes a turning point, pushing her to redefine happiness beyond appearances. She makes a courageous choice to move toward truth and, ultimately, a new sense of self.

💎 Wealth 🗝️ Power 💔 Vulnerability

Paris (Jessica Clark)

Paris is a young, compassionate escort and artist haunted by a past tragedy. She carries a quiet, introspective ache and a desire to heal. Through her connection with Rebecca, she begins to confront her own history and find a path toward peace. Her journey mirrors Rebecca’s search for meaning beyond social roles.

🎨 Art 💄 Sex Work 🕊️ Healing

Mason Westridge (John Heard)

Mason is the patriarch hiding a melanoma cancer diagnosis from his family. His illness exposes the cracks in the family’s carefully constructed prosperity and tests loyalties. His decisions and the revelation of his condition drive critical family confrontations. His absence and fragility catalyze Rebecca’s shift toward authenticity.

💼 Wealth 🧬 Illness 🕰️ Secrets

Jessica Westridge (Kerry Knuppe)

Jessica is the Westridge daughter who senses the imbalance in her family’s dynamics. She questions her place in the family business and challenges the status quo when she learns about the stock-share dispute. Her youthful perspective provides a counterpoint to the adult world of wealth and secrets. She ultimately seeks truth for herself and her mother.

👧 Family 💼 Heir 🧭 Identity

Valentina (Morgan Fairchild)

Valentina runs a discreet escort service and represents a bridge between Rebecca’s desires and social taboos. She is connected to Shirin through family ties and provides the framework for Rebecca’s exploration. Her presence highlights themes of power, choice, and the commodification of intimacy. She remains a catalyst rather than a central protagonist.

💼 Business 🗝️ Secrets 🧭 Influence

Shirin (Mary Jane Wells)

Shirin is one of Rebecca’s lesbian best friends who offers frank, supportive counsel. She encourages Rebecca to explore a different kind of happiness and introduces the possibility of healing through openness. Her perspective helps anchor the emotional core of Rebecca’s transformation.

👭 Friendship 🧠 Insight

Sylvie (Rebecca Staab)

Sylvie is Rebecca’s other best friend, providing companionship and solidarity in the face of social expectations. She stands as a counterpart to Shirin, helping to reveal the complexity of Rebecca’s friendships. Her presence reinforces the theme that support networks can enable personal change.

👭 Friendship 💬 Secrets

Mourner (Ruth Connell)

A mourner present at the pivotal funeral sequence, representing the communal processing of loss and the acceptance of change. The character underscores the film’s meditation on mortality and continuation beyond grief.

⚰️ Grief 🕊️ Community

Last Updated: October 01, 2025 at 12:22

Major Themes – A Perfect Ending (2012)

Explore the central themes of A Perfect Ending (2012), from psychological, social, and emotional dimensions to philosophical messages. Understand what the film is really saying beneath the surface.

💔 Affair

The film probes how romantic longing can disrupt conventional marriage. Rebecca seeks genuine connection beyond her choreographed, appearance-driven life, while Paris bears the weight of a painful past. Their liaison acts as a catalyst for Rebecca’s awakening and challenges the boundaries of fidelity. The dynamic exposes the fragility of surface perfection in pursuit of happiness.

🕯️ Mortality

Mason’s inoperable melanoma casts a long shadow over the family, forcing confrontations about truth, illness, and legacy. The diagnosis destabilizes the façade of the perfect family and accelerates pivotal choices about care and honesty. As disease tightens its grip, the film explores how people respond to the threat of loss. The funeral that closes the arc underscores the inevitability of mortality and transformation.

🦋 Transformation

Rebecca’s journey moves from guarded perfection to risking vulnerability and self-definition. She begins to value authentic happiness over maintaining appearances. Paris’s arc shifts toward healing, letting go of guilt, and embracing new beginnings. The ending imagery of a butterfly and an art show signals personal growth and renewed purpose.

🎭 Facade

The story repeatedly stages social performance—wealth, marriage, and gender roles—while characters hide deeper desires. The ‘perfect’ family image masks loneliness and competing aspirations. This facade provides the tension that drives the plot and invites a re-evaluation of what constitutes a fulfilling life.

Last Updated: October 01, 2025 at 12:22

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Explore Movie Threads

Discover curated groups of movies connected by mood, themes, and story style. Browse collections built around emotion, atmosphere, and narrative focus to easily find films that match what you feel like watching right now.

Movies about late-life self-discovery like A Perfect Ending

Quiet stories of personal reinvention and emotional truth found in the twilight years.If you appreciated the journey of self-discovery in A Perfect Ending, explore these other moving dramas. This thread gathers movies about characters finding new truths and liberation later in life, sharing a similar intimate, bittersweet, and cathartic feel.

introspectivemelancholicliberatingcathartichopefulquietintimate

Narrative Summary

The narrative pattern follows an individual, often settled into a life of quiet desperation, who is prompted by an external event or an internal crisis to confront a hidden truth. Their journey is introspective and often involves a transformative relationship or experience that leads to a poignant, but ultimately liberating, resolution.

Why These Movies?

These films are grouped by their shared focus on a specific life-stage awakening, a deliberate and intimate pacing that allows for deep character study, and a tonal balance between the melancholy of loss and the hope of newfound freedom.

Cathartic drama movies with bittersweet endings like A Perfect Ending

Stories where difficult truths lead to a poignant but satisfying sense of resolution.For viewers who valued the emotional resolution in A Perfect Ending, this section highlights similar drama movies. Find stories about characters grappling with secrets and difficult truths, culminating in a bittersweet but ultimately satisfying and cathartic sense of closure.

catharticemotionalbittersweetpoignantintimatemelancholichopeful

Narrative Summary

The narrative arc is defined by a central character's quest to resolve a deeply personal conflict or secret. The path to closure is often messy and emotionally challenging, involving sacrifice and acceptance. The ending acknowledges loss and pain but leaves room for hope and personal peace.

Why These Movies?

Movies here share a core narrative drive towards emotional resolution, a focus on the healing power of confronting painful truths, and a distinctive bittersweet tone that makes the conclusion feel authentic and deeply affecting rather than simplistically happy.

Unlock the Full Story of A Perfect Ending

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A Perfect Ending Summary

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A Perfect Ending Summary

A Perfect Ending Timeline

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A Perfect Ending Timeline

A Perfect Ending Spoiler-Free Summary

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A Perfect Ending Spoiler-Free Summary

More About A Perfect Ending

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