Dick
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I have thought this through over the years, immediately following my every viewing of the film (I also saw this on Broadway as a musical, but was too young to ask this question of myself), and have come to the conclusion after all these years that it does not have a happy ending. The heavy lifting of any identifiable character "arc" seems almost exclusively to be on the shoulders of the Eliza Doolittle character, even if pretty much forced upon her by her pompous phoneticist Henry Higgins. Following her eventual transformation, Eliza is able to rise from the bottom of the British caste system of the 19th century. That should be a good thing, right? Should be, yes, but for the unusual circumstances.
Higgins, on the other hand, is a wealthy boorish lout, and he doesn't change much throughout the story. He's a veritable misogynist, whose only interest (until the bitter end) is in proving he can transform a gutter snipe into a swan who could nearly pass for royalty with nary a trace of cockney in her speech, barely a hint of awkwardness in her poise. In her case, once her transformation is "complete," she is left in what must have seemed to her to be a terrible emotional dichotomy, able to outclass her friends and family and perhaps be shunned by them for it, yet in love with an upper class "gentleman" who at first serves as a father figure for her, then as a potential mate, who cannot give her what she really wants, which is true love. She'd have likely found that love eventually within her own Cheapside community, but by the end of MY FAIR LADY she is caught between two very distinct worlds. She can fool almost anyone into believing she is an elegant, proper Brit, but maybe you can't completely take the beggar out of the lifelong flower girl.
As for her "mentor," Higgins -- and his jovial pal Colonel Pickering -- for both of whom Eliza's fate hangs on a challenge between uncaring men, there is really no character arc at all, unless you count what I suppose is to be considered the former's "epiphany" about his feelings for the women he "created" as expressed in the musical's final song, I've Grown Accustomed To Her Face. I say, too little, too late. He had callously treated this fragile woman like a plaything for months in order to prove to his naysayers that he could mold her into an acceptable -- no, a classy -- lady with perfect diction and manner. This is not who Eliza was or fundamentally is, but it is who she has ostensibly become. How easily would she be able to simply slip back into her old neighborhood and profession, now that she has had a taste of quote The Better Life, unquote? Would she be happy to marry Freddy (Jeremy Brett in the film) and live happily ever after? Would she be happy to marry or live with Higgins, who is always going to be the selfish snob for whom any actual verbalizing of the affection he might have developed for his "pupil" would be nigh to impossible? This sort of man has been brought up since birth to be a sexist prick. From where will this poor women find fulfillment?
It doesn't matter to me one wit that Higgins is suddenly having a change of heart about Eliza after she decides to leave him. Oh, sure, now you realize what a gem she really is. Yeah, absence makes the heart grow fonder, etc. etc. He feels inexplicably (for him) lonely, and I've not a pinprick of sympathy for the man. And when Eliza returns to him in the very last scene, what does he say with his back turned to her, immovable pompous ass that he is? "Eliza, where the devil are my slippers?" Back in Victorian England, or even in 1956 when the musical first appeared, this might have suggested a generous turn of heart by Higgins and the suggestion that romance will ensue. Now, not as acceptable. Women are much more aware of their value to society and would hopefully not fall into such a bottomless trap.
My mind shouts, "Eliza, get the hell out of there and don't look back!" Even if these two have found love for one another, it is she who's always going to take the back seat, remain the proverbial slave, to Higgin's callous machismo. In contemporary terms, this could quite easily translate into wife beating and verbal bullying and in general the "Keep 'em barefoot and pregnant" mindset. So, no, I do not feel this film ends happily, or even (as most might proffer) hopeful. Bernard Shaw wrote a brilliant play and rightly left the ending up in the air, but from my (admittedly not consummate) knowledge of human relationships, I feel any union between Higgins and Doolittle would be doomed, and the one who would lose largest would, of course, be Eliza.
For me, I now recognize the story to be a human tragedy.
Higgins, on the other hand, is a wealthy boorish lout, and he doesn't change much throughout the story. He's a veritable misogynist, whose only interest (until the bitter end) is in proving he can transform a gutter snipe into a swan who could nearly pass for royalty with nary a trace of cockney in her speech, barely a hint of awkwardness in her poise. In her case, once her transformation is "complete," she is left in what must have seemed to her to be a terrible emotional dichotomy, able to outclass her friends and family and perhaps be shunned by them for it, yet in love with an upper class "gentleman" who at first serves as a father figure for her, then as a potential mate, who cannot give her what she really wants, which is true love. She'd have likely found that love eventually within her own Cheapside community, but by the end of MY FAIR LADY she is caught between two very distinct worlds. She can fool almost anyone into believing she is an elegant, proper Brit, but maybe you can't completely take the beggar out of the lifelong flower girl.
As for her "mentor," Higgins -- and his jovial pal Colonel Pickering -- for both of whom Eliza's fate hangs on a challenge between uncaring men, there is really no character arc at all, unless you count what I suppose is to be considered the former's "epiphany" about his feelings for the women he "created" as expressed in the musical's final song, I've Grown Accustomed To Her Face. I say, too little, too late. He had callously treated this fragile woman like a plaything for months in order to prove to his naysayers that he could mold her into an acceptable -- no, a classy -- lady with perfect diction and manner. This is not who Eliza was or fundamentally is, but it is who she has ostensibly become. How easily would she be able to simply slip back into her old neighborhood and profession, now that she has had a taste of quote The Better Life, unquote? Would she be happy to marry Freddy (Jeremy Brett in the film) and live happily ever after? Would she be happy to marry or live with Higgins, who is always going to be the selfish snob for whom any actual verbalizing of the affection he might have developed for his "pupil" would be nigh to impossible? This sort of man has been brought up since birth to be a sexist prick. From where will this poor women find fulfillment?
It doesn't matter to me one wit that Higgins is suddenly having a change of heart about Eliza after she decides to leave him. Oh, sure, now you realize what a gem she really is. Yeah, absence makes the heart grow fonder, etc. etc. He feels inexplicably (for him) lonely, and I've not a pinprick of sympathy for the man. And when Eliza returns to him in the very last scene, what does he say with his back turned to her, immovable pompous ass that he is? "Eliza, where the devil are my slippers?" Back in Victorian England, or even in 1956 when the musical first appeared, this might have suggested a generous turn of heart by Higgins and the suggestion that romance will ensue. Now, not as acceptable. Women are much more aware of their value to society and would hopefully not fall into such a bottomless trap.
My mind shouts, "Eliza, get the hell out of there and don't look back!" Even if these two have found love for one another, it is she who's always going to take the back seat, remain the proverbial slave, to Higgin's callous machismo. In contemporary terms, this could quite easily translate into wife beating and verbal bullying and in general the "Keep 'em barefoot and pregnant" mindset. So, no, I do not feel this film ends happily, or even (as most might proffer) hopeful. Bernard Shaw wrote a brilliant play and rightly left the ending up in the air, but from my (admittedly not consummate) knowledge of human relationships, I feel any union between Higgins and Doolittle would be doomed, and the one who would lose largest would, of course, be Eliza.
For me, I now recognize the story to be a human tragedy.
But I stand by my opinions of the scene/film. They are, after all, mine! 
