The film «Hunger» (2008): Meaning, ending explanation and plot

Title: Hunger (2008)

Director: Steve McQueen. Writers: Steve McQueen, Enda Walsh.

Cast: Michael Fassbender (Bobby Sands), Liam Cunningham (Father Dominic Moran), Stuart Graham (Raymond Lohan), Brian Milligan (Davey Gillen), Liam McMahon (Gerry Campbell).

Country: UK/Ireland. Runtime: ~96 minutes. Genre: Historical drama.

Setting: HM Prison Maze (H-Blocks), Northern Ireland, 1981 — during the IRA blanket/dirty protest and hunger strike.

Core themes: the body as a political weapon, moral choice, state power vs. resistance, the cost of convictions.

Plot and main characters

Hunger presents life inside the Maze Prison at the height of the Northern Irish conflict. The film avoids big speeches and follows routine, bodies, and spaces. It shows the protest from different angles: the prisoners, a guard, and finally Bobby Sands, the man who leads the 1981 hunger strike.

• Raymond Lohan (Stuart Graham): a prison officer who lives in constant fear of attack. He checks under his car for bombs, nurses bleeding knuckles, and participates in brutal corridor “washes.” The film shows his private fear and the violence of his job.
• Davey Gillen (Brian Milligan) and Gerry Campbell (Liam McMahon): new and seasoned IRA inmates sharing a cell. They refuse prison uniforms, wear only blankets, and smear excrement on the walls, refusing to wash as part of the “dirty protest.” Their daily life shows how the protest looks from the inside.
• Bobby Sands (Michael Fassbender): a commanding voice and the moral center in the second half. He plans a hunger strike to demand recognition as political prisoners rather than criminals.
• Father Dominic Moran (Liam Cunningham): a priest who challenges Bobby in a long, intense conversation about the ethics of starving oneself to death.

The first act is largely visual: trays of uneaten food, smuggled notes, beatings, and the extraordinary “dirty protest” textures on cell walls. Then comes a famous, nearly 17‑minute static shot of Bobby Sands and Father Moran debating the hunger strike. Bobby tells a story about mercy killing a foal to explain how personal experience can define a person’s moral line. He insists the strike is not suicide, but a political act where the only available weapon is his body.

After this, the film follows Bobby’s hunger strike day by day. His body wastes away; nurses tend to sores; his family visit; his breathing becomes shallow. In a parallel thread, guard Raymond Lohan is later assassinated, showing how violence continues outside the prison. The film ends with Bobby’s death after 66 days, followed by text noting the other nine hunger strikers who also died.

Meaning, explained simply

Hunger is not a courtroom where one side “wins.” It is a witness. The film asks a simple but hard question: when words fail, what do people use to speak? The answer here is: they use their bodies. The prisoners refuse to wear uniforms, smear their cells, and finally refuse food to say, “We are political, not criminals.”

Another simple idea: power meets power. The state has uniforms, batons, and rules. The prisoners have only their bodies and their willingness to suffer. The long talk with the priest makes this clear. Is starving yourself wrong? The priest says yes; life is sacred. Bobby says he is not choosing death for death’s sake—he is choosing the only form of protest left. In basic terms: he chooses pain to make the world look at a problem it wants to ignore.

The film also shows cycles. We see a guard’s cracked knuckles and a guard’s assassination. We see a prisoner’s wounds and a prisoner’s choice to die. No one looks heroic; everyone pays a cost. The style—long silences, close attention to bodies—turns the screen into a hospital ward and a courtroom at once. The message is very plain: violence does not vanish; it moves through people, institutions, and time.

Ending explained

The ending is quiet, unsentimental, and easy to miss if you expect a clear “resolution.” Here is what happens and what it means:

• Bobby’s decline: We watch his body fail: skin sores, shallow breath, difficulty moving. The clinical care does not mean the state has yielded; it means the system allows him to die under supervision. This contrast—care within control—is the film’s moral shock.
• The boy running (flashback): We see a young Bobby running cross‑country. It is not random. It connects endurance and choice. As a boy, he pushes through pain to reach a finish line. As a man, he uses the same will against the state. The run is a memory of strength that now appears tragic, because that strength leads to death.
• Lohan’s assassination: Earlier we saw the guard’s private fear; then he is shot in a car park. The film places his death alongside Bobby’s, to say: this conflict damages everyone. The “outside” is not safe; the cycle continues.
• The final moments: Bobby’s breathing slows, his eyes dull, the sounds fade. The screen cuts to text about the other nine hunger strikers. There is no triumphal music. 🕯️

So what does the ending “say”? A few plain answers:

• It is not about who “won.” It is about the price paid to be seen and heard. ⚖️
• Bobby’s death is both protest and message. By choosing to die, he forced the world to look. That attention changed politics afterward (public opinion, elections, later policy shifts), but the film refuses to count that as victory. It only counts bodies and silence.
• The boy running shows the same person at two finishes: one ribbon in youth, one hospital bed in 1981. The image links purpose to consequence—his will is admirable and devastating at once.
• The on‑screen list of names makes the ending collective, not just about Bobby. Ten men died. The story belongs to many.

If you felt confused because “nothing happens” at the end, remember: the act is the message. The camera simply stays to witness that act—no speeches needed. 🕊️ The meaning is: the human body can carry an argument when no one listens, but the cost of that argument may be a life. The film ends there, because that is the whole point.