Released in 2021, The Father Who Moves Mountains is a Romanian film that follows Mircea, a father who learns his son and his son’s girlfriend have gone missing after they headed to a mountain that was closed during the winter season. Mircea is an intelligence officer, and the local police call and inform him of the situation. He then heads the team, setting out into the snowy, dangerous mountains to find his son. It isn’t easy, though, as the last time anyone heard from them was a phone call that went ᴅᴇᴀᴅ.

The call came from his son’s girlfriend, who said they got lost in the mountains during a whiteout. The only clue was a large boulder that the girlfriend saw. Mircea has an idea of the area the call might have come from, but with no other leads, things look bleak. How far will this father go to find his son is the story that the film wants to tell. However, looking at audience reviews of the movie reveals that The Father Who Moves Mountains was less than satisfying. So, what was the message the filmmakers were trying to get across in this bleak ending?

What Happens In The Father Who Moves Mountains Ending

Mircea Never Finds His Son

The Father Who Moves Mountains does not have a happy ending. In fact, it didn’t have a clear-cut ending at all. The movie showed authorities doing what they could to help find Cosmin and his girlfriend, Daniela. It was Daniela who called the authorities and said they were lost during a trip to the Becegi Mountains. All she knew was there was a giant boulder close by, and they got turned around in the white-out snowstorm. She was begging for help and wasn’t sure how much longer they could last in the cold.

However, after long days of dangerous looking for them, the authorities called off the search, not willing to risk the lives of others and believing Cosmin and Daniela to be ᴅᴇᴀᴅ. But Cosmin’s dad, Mircea Jianu, was not willing to stop looking. A semi-retired officer with the Romanian Intelligence Service, Mircea ended up self-financing a team to keep looking and going to extremes to find his son from his first marriage. At the same time, Mircea’s current wife sat at home, pregnant and worrying about his safety.

Mircea then went to extremes, calling in favors from his past. He got trained men, survival gear, computerized search grids, and a helicopter. He turned this into a military-style search and rescue, but was ultimately no closer to finding his son. While Cosmin’s mother and Daniela’s family resorted to prayer, Mircea continued to search. Eventually, another distress call comes in, and Mircea sends the remaining helpers to that emergency, staying alone to keep digging. The movie ends with Mircea still digging, never finding his son.

What Happened To Mircea At The End Of The Father Who Moves Mountains

Mircea Never Gives Up And Keeps Digging Alone

The Father Who Moves Mountains ending never showed what happened to Mircea. He had done everything he could to find and save his son. However, he only got close enough to find a 30 to 40-meter area where the hikers’ cell phones were last seen. It was buried under snow. The military team that Mircea got to help ended up involved in a major accident when another avalanche roared down on them, injuring some and even breaking one man’s spine. The military leader pulled his men out for their safety.

Mircea began clearing out his financial savings and paying people from town to help him, but they made little progress. When a new distress call came in requesting help for someone else, Mircea wasn’t selfish enough to hold onto the men who could save them. He even sent his closest ally, Laurentiu, to help find that survivor, and Mircea was left alone, still digging. Before the movie ends, Laurentiu calls and says they have found the tourist, and he is coming back. It is ᴀssumed Laurentiu returned, and Mircea kept digging.

Why Audiences Hated The Father Who Moved Mountain’s Ending

They Wanted To Know What Happened To Cosmin & Daniela

The biggest complaint from viewers was that The Father Who Moved Mountains never showed or revealed what happened to Cosmin and Daniela. It ended with Mircea still digging, and audience members overwhelmingly felt that the film cheated them on that story, with a Rotten Tomatoes audience score of only 24%. People were frustrated that they watched the entire movie to see what happened to Cosmin and Daniela, and never got that answer. However, that wasn’t what the movie was about.

Regardless, the film was based on a true story, but it wasn’t a beat-for-beat retelling since director Daniel Sandu based it on a story he saw on the news in 2009 at the 24th Shanghai Film Festival. According to reports, these missing-person mountain accidents happen every year, and often, they are never found. This ending was sad, and it seemed like the film was cheating the viewers, but it was a realistic conclusion to the horrifying story of a father losing his son.

The Real Meaning Of The Father Who Moves Mountains’ Ending

The Film Was About The Father’s Obsession

The story in The Father Who Moves Mountains was not a story about rescuing Cosmin and Daniela at the last second. A movie like Taken is based on that idea. This is not an action movie with an uplifting rescue mission and a happily ever-after moment. The Father Who Moves Mountains was about a man who lost his son years after giving up his son and his previous marriage before moving on with his life. This is a film about Mircea, and while he isn’t the most likable character, he is a father with regrets.

There was a Peter Weir classic drama called Picnic at Hanging Rock that was also based on a story about a group of female boarding school students disappearing while on a picnic at Hanging Rock in Australia. That movie, too, ended with no trace of the missing women, and no one knows what happened to them. Interestingly enough, Picnic at Hanging Rock also angered audiences because it didn’t solve the mystery. However, also similar to The Father Who Moves Mountains, critics saw more than the mystery.

Of The Father Who Moves Mountains, The Hollywood Reporter film critic Deborah Young wrote:

“Almost imperceptibly, the story changes course, veering from a straightforward rescue drama to an inner journey testing the courage and determination of all concerned. The lengths to which Mircea is willing to go to find his son puts his own motivations into question. Guilt? Obsession? Ego? [Adrian] тιтieni … creates a portrait of compulsion that is almost monstrous at times, challenging our conventional ideas about paternal bonds and their moral outer limits, all the way to the rigorous ending.”

In The Father Who Moves Mountains ending, director Daniel Sandu doesn’t care about the viewers’ feelings — he cares about telling the story of a father’s obsession, guilt, and feelings of inadequacy despite his wealth and influence. Mircea is used to getting what he wants, but in this case, he has no one to blame for his son’s obvious death, and this is eating him alive. This is about the ᴅᴇᴀᴅly mountain that consumed this father, just as it had his son before him.