Summary

• The Next Three Days ending reveals the truth about the murder, proving Lara's innocence despite earlier doubt.
• The ambiguity surrounding Lara's guilt adds to the suspense and questions throughout the movie.
• The decision to make Lara's innocence unclear deviates from the original French film and could have added to the story's impact.

Even though the 2010 thriller has largely gone under the radar, and Elizabeth Banks star as husband and wife John and Lara Brennan — him a mild-mannered college professor and her a hot-tempered businesswoman — whose world is turned upside down when Lara is convicted of murdering her boss after a blistering argument and sentenced to life in prison.

While The Next Three Days mostly focuses on John's desperate attempts to free her from prison, ultimately leading to his daring prison break plan, there is still the lingering question of whether Lara is actually guilty. The ending to The Next Three Days addresses the question of Lara's innocence that hangs over the entire movie. However, it is debatable if the answer given is the right one for the story or if it added to the lackluster reception the movie received upon its release.

What Happens In The Next Three Days Ending

The Truth Of The Murder Is Revealed

Most of The Next Three Days takes place a few years after Lara’s conviction. John is still convinced of his wife’s innocence, while almost everybody else — the police, her lawyer, and even John’s mother — thinks she’s guilty. With all appeals exhausted, John consults ex-con/escape artist Damon Pennington (Liam Neeson) to devise a plan to break her out of jail. As the thriller progresses, John gets into all kinds of shady situations trying to prepare for the prison break. This includes buying a gun, securing fake ports to flee the country and even killing a couple of drug dealers for money.

Ultimately, he is able to break Lara out and the family flees to Venezuela together to start a new life. During The Next Three Days’ ending, another flashback reveals exactly what happened the evening Lara’s boss was killed in their workplace parking lot. A drug addict bludgeoned the boss with a fire extinguisher and stole her purse, bumping into Lara shortly after and leaving a smudge of blood on her coat. In the process, a button popped off the addict's coat and fell into a storm drain — a piece of evidence missed by detectives that may have proved another person was present that night.

As Lara is about to get in her car, she sees the fire extinguisher and sets it next to a wall, not noticing her boss’ body nearby. The flashback shows that all the evidence against Lara — the blood on her coat, her fingerprints on the murder weapon — was circumstantial, and she is innocent.

What Does Lara's Innocence Mean?

The Ambiguity Made More Sense For The Story

Russell Crowe's John is driven by his unfaltering belief Lara isn’t guilty of murdering her boss, but Haggis peppers The Next Three Days with moments that cast doubt over her innocence. Early on in the thriller, a flashback shows how Lara could’ve killed her boss and at one point she even ‘confesses’ to John that she did commit the murder. As a result, when John does pull off the prison break and safely gets his family out of the country before they’re caught, the audience are left wondering whether he’s just helped a murderer escape. The final few scenes, however, address this lingering doubt.

In the original movie, the wife’s innocence is made clear from the get-go, but Haggis opted for ambiguity in his remake

Interestingly, the doubt over Lara’s innocence, at least until the ending, is something that deviates from the French film The Next Three Days was based on. In the original movie, the wife’s innocence is made clear from the get-go, but Haggis opted for ambiguity in his remake — hence why those final few scenes proving Lara isn’t guilty are so important. However, both stories might have missed a more interesting avenue for The Next Three Days to take as leaving Lara's innocence unconfirmed would have cemented the idea that it didn't truly matter to John, and he was going to save his wife no matter what.

The Real Meaning Of The Next Three Days Ending

Confirming Lara's Innocence Cements The Movie As A Love Story

The ending of The Next Three Days may have been better left as ambiguous in the eyes of some viewers, though the proof of Lara's innocence actually s the core message of the movie. There are plenty of crime thrillers that playing on uncertainty over whether a character is guilty or not. The Next Three Days breaks from this formula right at the end because the movie isn't trying to create moral questions. Lara's crimes are an important narrative tool, but they're not the most important aspect when it comes to the themes of the ending. Instead, the final moments reveal that the film is about love, devotion, and trust.

While it may not be the most typical or formulaic one, The Next Three Days is, at its core, a love story rather than a crime film.

While it may not be the most typical or formulaic one, The Next Three Days is, at its core, a love story rather than a crime film. Most love stories start with the couple meeting and falling into a romantic relationship, but The Next Three Days approaches the topic from a different perspective. It's an examination of two soul mates several years into their partnership. John's belief in Lara is unwavering, even when she doesn't believe in her own innocence. He knows, deep down, that Lara could never have been guilty. The ending of The Next Three Days then proves that his unconditional belief in her wasn't misplaced.

The title of the original French movie is Pour elle, or Anything for Her, which also speaks to the core themes of sacrifice and devotion in the 2010 remake.

The ending of The Next Three Days tries to prove that true love can indeed conquer all. Granted, there are a few holes that can be poked in its execution — the wider world still believes Lara is guilty, the couple have still lost the idyllic life they'd led prior to her being accused, and John himself is now a criminal due to busting her out of jail and fleeing the country.

These technicalities aside though, John and Lara both end the film having the thing that matters the most to them, each-other. While The Next Three Days ending may have deviated somewhat from the tone set by the rest of the movie by confirming Lara's innocence, it still cements the core message director Paul Haggis was trying to convey with the story.