Why did Max have surgery in the Don’t Make Me Go ending?
Don’t Make Me Go, the next charming drama on Prime Video starring John Cho and Mia Isaac, is directed by father-daughter team Max and Wally.
Written and directed by This Is Us’ Vera Herbert, the film is guaranteed to make you laugh, cry and everything in between.
After its world premiere on June 13 at the Tribeca Film Festival, Don’t Make Me Go was made available on Amazon Prime Video on July 15 of the same year. It follows a father and daughter on a fun and educational road trip across the country.
This road trip dramedy grips viewers emotionally due to Cho and Isaac’s charming chemistry, which makes the horrifying ending all the more heartbreaking. Isaac contrasts Cho’s character, a rigid and possessive father named Max, with her feisty and occasionally difficult adolescent.
Don’t Make Me Go warns viewers not to expect immediate disappointment. You can hear Isaac say in voiceover, “You’re not going to like the end of this tale.” And no doubt the third act sends the audience into a loop.
Don’t Make Me Go: Wally discovered Max’s cool and funny side
The road trip Wally was to take turned out to be a major turning point in her life. Having always been raised by her father Max, she was familiar with his rigor, caution and restraint.
However, Wally understood that her father was more than just her father; He was also a person during this trip to New Orleans to host Max’s college reunion.
Annie, Max’s casual dating partner, was introduced to her. She also learned from Guy, one of Max’s acquaintances, that he was a wonderful musician and an adventurous guy during his college reunion. Wally wondered why he had become so uninteresting these days. The answer? Fatherhood.
She asked him why he wasn’t pursuing his musical love. He warned her that being an artist is unstable and almost always ends in failure. To be a good parent, he needed stability and a reliable source of money.
Wally responded by advising him to live a life of opportunity. She wanted Max to return to the self he had before he made any commitments.
Don’t Make Me Go was a bittersweet conclusion to Max and Wally’s road adventure.
Max and Wally traveled to New Orleans, Louisiana by car. The college reunion was there, and Wally’s estranged mother was supposed to be there too.
Max, who left her when Wally was a toddler, wanted to introduce Wally to her mother so that she would have some relatives when he died. Max had found out about his terminal illness.
However, when Nicole, Wally’s mother, did not show up for the reunion and Max found out she had moved to a residence near Tampa, her trip to Florida was extended.
Wally’s mother declined to meet her daughter because she had already moved on and started a family of her own, adding even more heartache to the already pathetic storyline of Don’t Make Me Go.
Wally confronted Max and laid the entire incident at his feet, angry and utterly heartbroken at the turn of events. They had an intense, heartbreaking emotional conversation. Although there was only a 20 percent chance the surgery would be successful, Wally persuaded him to do it anyway because the alternative was certain death. It’s all good after all, isn’t it? Not correct.
With his daring twist in the finale, Don’t Make Me Go took a risk.
“Don’t Make Me Go” ruthlessly “took a risk” if that was the central theme of the story. Viewers watched as Max and Wally’s relationship evolved and went through ups and downs throughout the film as the poignancy of the former’s impending death grew.
Finally, towards the end of the film, there was a glimmer of happiness and hope when Wally urged Max to show off his singing skills during a karaoke session. Wally was fine until he passed away immediately.
She was eventually diagnosed with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, meaning her heart was swollen and unable to pump blood.
At the beginning of the film, Wally was observed under stress with dizziness and sweating. They were all signs of her unidentified illness, which eventually caught up with her on the tepid end.
The final scene of Don’t Make Me Go showed a very upset Max having his daughter’s funeral and then sitting alone with her bag still packed from the trip.
“My dad taught me a lot of things in life, but I ended up teaching him something — to take risks,” Wally was heard saying in a voiceover.
Max underwent the procedure that saved his life as a result of the lesson he learned from his daughter. A year after his surgery, the film sees him living with Annie, his former lover-turned-girlfriend.
“Maybe that story didn’t convince you that it’s good. However. Whatever you decide, “Again Isaac’s voice came. Wally has remained adamant in supporting her father’s decision to make positive changes in his life.
The narration states that viewers should interpret the conclusion of Don’t Make Me Go for themselves. One point that stands out, however, is that there are no clear directions for this journey and that life is unpredictable. To experience life fully, one should take risks.