“Don’t Move” ending explained by star Kelsey Asbille

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When Don’t Move begins, main character Iris (Kelsey Asbille) is already living in the middle of her own personal horror movie. Did she finally run away?

Iris is a grieving mother, ready to commit suicide due to the overwhelming despair of losing her son.

After visiting her young son’s mountain sanctuary, she approaches the edge of a cliff, her anxiety growing as the camera pans down to reveal a huge drop.

Then a man appears who says his name is Richard (Finn Wittrock) and coaxes her back from the edge by talking about his tragedies in her life and telling Iris that “broken doesn’t have to mean hopeless.”

Thanks to Richard’s inspiring words, Iris steps away from the edge of the cliff and follows him down the mountain.

But the image of a hero saving a struggling mother is quickly shattered once they reach their cars, parked side by side. Before she can safely get into the front seat, Richard tasers her, ties her hands and feet, and throws her into the back seat of his car. He then gives her a paralysis drug that will leave her unable to move or speak within 20 minutes.

For most of Don’t Move, Iris is drugged and unable to move or speak.

The drug was “a metaphor for talking about the kind of loss and grief she was going through,” Kelsey Asbille told TODAY.com. The film is about “trying to overcome what makes you feel stuck and paralyzed.”

Richard makes it clear that he’s done this to women before, kicking off the rest of the Sam Raimi-produced thriller, which follows Iris as she desperately tries to survive—and finds the will to live—while trying to escape Richard.

“I think this story is about loss and survival,” Asbille says. “There comes a point for Iris when she decides not just to survive, but to live. That’s really what she walks away with at the end.”

“Up there she’s ready to be with her son, but I don’t think she’s ready to die. The film is a conversation she has with herself to live and choose life,” she continues.

Asbille says one of the film’s directors, Brian Netto, asked her if she believed Iris would have jumped that day if Richard hadn’t “rescued” her.

“I think it’s important that she has to go through the arc,” she says. “Richard says in the car: ‘You wanted to die.’ And I think it really changes her life.”

What happens to Iris at the end of “Don’t Move”?

After many horrific scenes where he was on the verge of death and escape, Richard received a call from his wife saying that she and their daughter would be coming to his cabin in the woods that weekend.

Not only does this reveal more of Richard’s backstory, but it also interrupts his plans to torture Iris, instead leading them to the lake where he plans to kill Iris once and for all.

Little does he know that Iris is gradually regaining her ability to move. Zip is tied to his boat in the middle of the lake. She lures him closer, pretending to finally admit defeat so she can surreptitiously grab the knife tucked into his pants and plunge it through his neck into his face.

“I’m not sorry,” Iris says at the same time.

But Richard is still alive, so Iris starts rocking the boat to throw him overboard. As he falls, his gun flies through the air and she desperately grabs it, but she is still tied to the boat and slowly regains her body’s movement so he can begin to climb back onto the boat.

Once Iris reaches the gun, she sends a barrage of bullets at him to ensure he can’t come after her again.

In her haste to kill him, she pierces the small boat with gunshot holes. Just when it seems that Iris has survived her killer, the boat begins to sink.

She dove under the water and for a full 30 seconds the audience felt as if they had been punched in the stomach, believing that Iris had died after such a hard fight.

But not so fast. The iris floats to the surface, apparently freed from its knots underwater.

Asbille says she agrees with the movie’s decision to save Iris because it gives her full closure.

“I think what’s beautiful is that there’s an arc,” she says.

“The most important thing for me was that she had to go through a whole emotional experience and internal struggle,” she adds.

Why does Iris thank the serial killer at the end of the film?

Iris rushes to a nearby dock, recovering from the last near-death experience she had. Soon she hears Richard rise to the ground nearby.

She approaches his body, riddled with wounds, blood pouring from his mouth, and leaves him the same two last words he said to his dying friend Chloe: “Thank you.”

Asbille says this farewell message is twofold.

“I think there’s a genuine aspect to it because she ends up saving herself, literally and figuratively,” she says. “And then, I’d also like to believe that maybe there’s a little bit of – I don’t know if I can say this on the TODAY show – ‘fuck you’.”

Leaving Richard to die with the knowledge that she has won, the film’s final shot consists solely of Iris taking a deep breath and looking ahead as Lesley Gore’s “You Don’t Own Me” begins to play, drowning out Richard’s hard last labor. breathes.

Asbille says one of the film’s editors’ wife came up with the idea of ​​using “I Don’t Belong to You” as Iris’ final shot.

“I thought it was a great final moment and song for the film,” she says.

Asbille says she wanted to convey a powerful message with Iris’s latest image: “Keep Moving.”

“I think when you go through grief like this it feels almost impossible to come back from it and you’ll have days like this where you feel almost like ‘don’t move’ but you keep fighting and you keep moving. ” she says.