In the movie Bucking Fastard, inseparable twin sisters Jean and Joan Holbrooke share an intense bond, speaking in unison and doing everything together in an isolated Irish suburb. Their lives get complicated when they become infatuated with their next door neighbor, a limousine driver named Gareth Mulroney, who engages in passionate threesomes with them while planning to marry another woman named Gladys. When Gareth rejects their marriage proposals and obtains a restraining order, media attention explodes in the tabloids.
To escape the chaos, a kindly widower neighbor named Richard Westmoreland offers them an unused apartment in Dublin. City life brings new trials, including invasive selfies, tabloid leaks of naked photos, harassment from their lecherous landlord Mr. Evans and a forklift driver named Brendan who cuts a piece of Joan's hair to break their identical appearance.
A social worker named Timothy attempts to teach them independence, and a visit to their parents results in rejection. Seeking refuge, they move to their Aunt Louise's farm in the Irish countryside.
Jean and Joan Holbrooke escape their complicated reality by pursuing a mythical tunnel to the Orkney Islands.
Their bond fractures slightly when their sync is broken during the exhausting excavation process.
The sisters mistake a commercial tourist cave for their dream destination and try to marry a guide who resembles Gareth.
The story leaves their ultimate fate ambiguous as a security guard traps them inside the cavern.
During their stay on Aunt Louise's farm, Jean and Joan meet an aging shepherd named MacFarlane, who introduces them to a local cave featuring a tunnel started two hundred years ago by a madman trying to reach the Orkney Islands. After rescuing a fox named Cupid from a cruel public health official, the sisters become deeply obsessed with the legend of the tunnel. They spend two long years continuing the excavation of the underground passage.
The intense physical labor takes a heavy toll, eventually causing Jean to slip out of sync with Joan for the first time during a moment of frustrating digging. Shortly after this fracture in their lifelong synchronicity, Cupid the fox vanishes into a small hole in the rock. The sisters follow the animal and break through into a vast, elaborate tourist cave complete with modern electric lights, iron railings, a narrow gauge railroad, and stunning stalactite formations.
Mistaking this commercial subterranean attraction for their mythical land of fulfilled love, they spot a tourist guide who bears a striking resemblance to Gareth, and he smiles warmly at them. Convinced they have found their destiny, they return briefly to Aunt Louise's farm to bury their everyday clothes, put on their wedding dresses, and march back down into the cavern to joyfully marry the guide. They wander through the underground attraction searching for him, but a security guard for the tourist site abruptly intercepts them and stops them from leaving by the front entrance, effectively trapping them inside the cave as the story concludes.
What does the ending of Bucking Fastard mean?
One reading of the ending of Bucking Fastard is that it explores the dangerous power of shared delusion and the desperate need to escape harsh societal rejection. The twin sisters cannot cope with a world that judges, exploits, and isolates them, so they retreat into a literal and figurative fantasy underworld. Their obsession with the Orkney Islands represents a yearning for a pure, untainted space where their intense and unconventional desires will not be mocked or thwarted by the law, the press, or normal people.
The underground cave system serves as a physical manifestation of their psychological interior, dark and labyrinthine. When Jean falls out of sync with Joan during the digging, it symbolizes the gradual fraying of their codependent identity under the weight of time and reality. Finding the tourist trap instead of a mythical paradise highlights the tragic irony of their quest; they seek an eternal, untouched romantic haven, but instead stumble into a commodified, modern tourist attraction run by the very society they tried to escape. One interpretation of the final image is that by being trapped inside the cave by security, the sisters are permanently locked within their own fantasy, forever separated from the real world that rejected them, leaving the true resolution entirely open to the viewer.
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Bucking Fastard ending FAQ
Who are the main characters in Bucking Fastard?
The main characters are Jean and Joan Holbrooke, twin sisters whose extreme closeness defines the narrative as they navigate a hostile world, toxic neighbors, family rejection, and an obsessive quest for love.
Why do Jean and Joan dig the tunnel?
The sisters become obsessed with an old local legend about a madman trying to reach the Orkney Islands, viewing the tunnel as a mythical pathway where their romantic desires and need for eternal love can be fulfilled.
What happens to the sisters' identical appearance?
Their identical appearance is broken when Brendan, an employee of their Dublin landlord, assaults the sisters and cuts off a piece of Joan's hair, causing deep distress for both of them.
Is the cave they find actually a magical land?
No, the cavern they discover is a commercial tourist cave equipped with modern electric lights, iron railings, and a narrow gauge railroad, though the sisters mistake it for their mythical paradise.
How does the movie end?
The film ends with the sisters wearing wedding dresses inside the tourist cave looking for a guide who resembles Gareth, only to be stopped and trapped inside by a security guard as they try to leave.
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