'What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?' ending explained: All you need to know

Horror, thriller, drama film What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? is produced and directed by Robert Aldrich and starred Bette Davis and Joan Crawford. The plot depicts the story of an elderly former actress who, in an old Hollywood mansion, holds her paraplegic ex-movie star sister captive. Lukas Heller's screenplay is based on the 1960 novel What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? By Farrell Henry. The movie was critically and box office acclaim after the film's release and was eventually nominated for five Academy Awards.

Critics continued to praise the film for its psychologically influenced black comedy, camp, and development of the psycho-biddy subgenre in the years after its release. The film starred Bette Davis as Jane Hudson, Joan Crawford as Blanche Hudson, Victor Buono as Edwin Flagg, Marjorie Bennett as Dehlia Flagg, Maidie Norman as Elvira Stitt, Anna Lee as Mrs Bates and more. For viewers who failed to understand how the movie concluded, here is a look at What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? ending explained

What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? ending explained

"Baby Jane" Hudson is a spoiled and capricious child actress who performs with her father, who serves as her manager and accompanies her on stage as a pianist, in music hall theatres across the country in 1917. Her popularity is such that in her photo there is a line of porcelain dolls. Meanwhile, in her shadow, her timid older sister Blanche lives and is regarded by the haughty Jane with disdain. Their circumstances experience a turnaround as the sisters pass adolescence; Jane's performing style falls out of fashion, and her career declines as she descends into alcoholism, while Blanche becomes an admired Hollywood actor.

Blanche's career is cut short one evening in 1935 when she is paralysed from the waist down in a mysterious car crash that is unofficially blamed on Jane, who is found in a drunken stupor three days later. Blanche and Jane lived together in a mansion in 1962 that was bought with Blanche's movie earnings. Blanche's mobility is confined to her upstairs bedroom by a wheelchair and the lack of an elevator. When Blanche tells Jane that she plans to sell the property, Jane rightly assumes that once the house is sold, Blanche will commit her to a mental institution. She takes the phone out of Blanche's apartment, cutting it off from the outside world.

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A few days later, Jane was called by the police to inform her that Elvira's cousin had declared her missing. Taking Blanche with her, Jane panics and prepares to leave. An intoxicated Edwin casually enters the house before they can leave and finds Blanche tied to her bed. Edwin flees the authorities and notifies them. Later, because she was mad at Jane for insulting her at a party earlier that night, Blanche attempted to run Jane over.

What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? ending?

Jane blamed herself for all these years. The realisation, however, comes too late. Jane starts to dance before the rising crowd when the police arrive. Her delusion has taken over and she insists that, just as she did as a child, the throng involved is an audience and she is performing. The fate of Blanche isn't revealed. If she survived, it is up to the audience to decide.

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