5 Reasons 'Big' Had The Most Depressing Happy Ending Ever

If it's been a few years since you've seen the little-kid-becomes-Tom Hanks movie Big, let's briefly recap: A 13 year-old makes a wish on a Zoltar machine at a carnival to be bigger, and he wakes up in the body of Tom Hanks. He then runs away from home (calling his Mom and saying he's been kidnapped), becomes a big-shot at a toy company, gets a girlfriend, learns valuable life lessons, then at the end gets turned back into a kid again.

The final scene is his adult girlfriend watching the now-young Josh walking away, wearing an adult's business suit.

And that's when things would go to shit. See, the cops are going to have a lot of questions here, and a whole lot of lives are going to get ruined.

Why?

When Josh went back to being a kid again, an adult named Josh Baskin dropped off the face of the earth. This wouldn't be a problem if he was a nobody, but in his short time as an adult, he did quite a lot to get remembered. He leased an apartment, got a job, and then by virtue of his kiddish nature and his skills on the giant piano, he climbed the corporate ladder to an executive-level job in a matter of weeks. He made friends, acquaintances and business contacts along every step of the way.

Above: Networking.

As far as those people are concerned, he just disappeared, with no warning. Didn't somebody go looking for him? There must have been a police investigation, during which time the cops surely noticed there was already a missing Josh Baskin in the area (a kid) who was reported as found right when the adult Josh Baskin disappeared.

Now, we're not saying they would be able to just put two and two together and decide it was all a magical conspiracy, but it would certainly raise questions. Between looking for the adult Josh and following up with the kid Josh, they'd have to talk to his friends, family, coworkers, etc.

Frankly, his tailor earned some jail time.

In their investigation, they'd definitely notice some weird connections between the two Josh Baskinses; specifically the fact that they both spent all their time hanging out with the same obnoxious ginger kid.

Oh yeah, this doesn't set off any alarm bells.

Which brings us to...

So, it won't take long for the cops to connect the dots between this missing adult and the kidnapping, since he had assumed the identity of the kidnapping victim for whatever sick reason. That's going to lead to some hard questions for everyone who worked with him during this six-week ordeal and apparently didn't bother to inquire about all of his suspicious behavior. Some of these people visited his home, after all. They didn't wonder about the kidnapped child who was apparently there?

Or about his en suite trampoline.

Specifically, we're talking about Josh's adult girlfriend, Susan. She even had a "sleep-over" at the home of the now-missing guy the cops are pretty sure was holding young Josh prisoner. Then -- get this -- she dropped Josh (aka the missing child) off less than a block away from his house, in broad daylight, for the whole neighborhood to see.

A very confused Susan would be in a police interrogation room within 24 hours. If anyone is going to get pinned for this crime, it's her. And unfortunately, the jury probably isn't going to believe it when she says he looked older.

Of course, even if she winds up behind bars...

Let's go back to young Josh again. He's been magically returned to his prepubescent state so he can go back to regular kid stuff like playing boring-ass 80's computer games and trying to hook up with girls who are a foot taller than he is. But let's skip ahead to an hour after Josh returns home and all the welcome-back hoopla has died down. Then comes the first big problem for Josh when his mom asks "Where were you?"

Obviously he can't say he turned into an adult overnight due to a magic spell. If she was the type to believe that, he wouldn't have had to leave at all. So let's look at the facts, as Josh's family sees them:

A. Josh was kidnapped on the way to school by a strange man who then barged into Mrs. Baskin's house, insisted he was her son, flashed her, and left;

We're counting at least three felonies in this scene alone.

B. The strange kidnapper allowed Josh to write letters and was willing to sing lullabies over the phone to placate Josh's mother;

C. For six weeks, he kept Josh somewhere that was "a lot like camp" (according to Josh's letter) and then returned him home, unharmed, never saying word one about ransom.

Otherwise known as "every parent's secret dream".

That might be the freakiest kidnapping we've ever heard of. What was the kidnapper's motivation? Josh is going to insist during hours with his counselor that he was not molested (and they're going to ask, over and over). So was this man just insane, but still responsible enough to keep Josh safe and console Mrs. Baskin? What exactly is the neighborhood watch going to say at their next meeting to warn parents about this crazy criminal who's been known to snatch kids off the street, entertain them for more than a month, and then send them home with an oversized suit and corporate work experience?

Josh's mother will certainly never feel safe again, and the perpetrator will never, ever be caught. But Josh knows there's an even bigger danger out there...