Maybe I read too many of these, but I think the actual ending might be more cliched than the Hollywood one - [spoiler]In either case he loses Rita, they just left that part open in the movie. In the book killing Rita was meant to end the loop and create a single timeline, while in the movie Rita doesn’t know who he is and neither does the world. They rewrote the framing of the shots a few times just to give it a positive spin even though Tom Cruise returns to being just a failed PR guy and Rita remains the hero of the various battles instead of Keiji (Bill).
I find it interesting that Cruise actually pushed for the movie to be filmed lighter and more fun than it was written, and both Cruise and Blunt both pushed for removing as much exposition from the movie as possible. They pushed for the dark comedy aspect when it was written dark and dramatic, and it would have been terrible if it was a dark movie.[/spoiler]
And what it reminded me the most of was the amazing story in the Prince of Persia: the Sands of Time game which got ruined by its movie that contained exactly zero of the game’s story elements in it and draws from the far inferior sequels.
