Editor’s Note: The following contains spoilers for Don’t MoveDon’t Move, which hit Netflix last week, is an anxiety-inducing horror thriller about a grieving mother fighting for her life against a deranged serial killer. Directed byAdam SchindlerandBrian Nettoand produced bySam Raimi,Don’t MovestarsKelsey Asbilleas Iris, a young woman on the brink of suicide, who is kidnapped by Richard (Finn Wittrock), aseemingly kind stranger who injects her with a drug that leaves her unable to move or speak. As she struggles to survive, Iris finds herself trapped in a cat-and-mouse game with Richard but ultimately emerges victorious, taking him down andcoming to terms with her griefalong the way.
What Is ‘Don’t Move’ About?
When Iris returns to the site of her son Mateo’s death, she intends to end her life,still dealing with grief and the guiltof not watching closely enough when he accidentally fell off the cliff. As she steps closer to the edge, Richard approaches her and tries to talk her out of it, andthey’re able to connect over their experiences with grief and the fact that they both tragically lost someone to an accidental death.In Richard’s case, it was his girlfriend Chloe who died in a car accident he caused, which also left him incapacitated for months in the hospital.
Iris admits she hasn’t been able to cry since her son’s death, and Richard reassures her that, “Broken doesn’t have to mean hopeless.” His words resonate with Iris, and she decides against suicide, following him back down the trail to the parking lot, where she notices he’s parked right next to her, using his side mirror to prevent her from opening her car door. Just as she realizes she’s in danger,Richard uses a taser disguised as an umbrella to knock her out, kidnapping her and injecting her with a substance that leaves her completely paralyzed.
After Attempting To Escape, Iris Discovers Richard’s True Nature
While under the effects of the paralytic drug, Iris still manages to evade Richard multiple times, buthe’s relentless and determined to kill her.She nearly gets away thanks to an attentive police officer, but Richard violently murders him and continues driving. Her ability to speak has returned, and while her fingers are regaining sensation, she keeps Richard talking, asking him about Chloe’s death and when exactly it was that he “lost his mind.” He goes on to explain howChloe’s death allowed him to find clarity.After feeling disconnected all his life, the moment he watched Chloe take her last breath, he felt connected for the first time.
This Isn’t Just a Documentary With 94% on Rotten Tomatoes - It’s a Survival Thriller
Sometimes truth is more cinematic than fiction.
The months he spent confined to his hospital bed after the accidentmade him realize he hadn’t just felt God, but that hewasGod.This is also when we find out the last words Richard said to Chloe were simply, “Thank you,” which he previously refused to divulge during their first conversation on the cliff. It’s unclear how many other women Richard has killed since then, but he continues to chase the high of watching Chloe die, and this God complex will prove to be the root of his downfall.
Richard had thus far managed to conceal hisserial killing activitiesfrom his wife and daughter, but after finding out his family is on their way to the cabin Richard had intended to take Iris, he’s forced to change his plans. Instead, he drags Iris onto a rowboat to dump her body in a lake. As the boat comes to a stop and Iris realizes this may really be the end,she starts to cry, which Richard points out is her first time doing so since Mateo’s death.Despite nearly taking her own life just a few hours earlier, Iris now reckons with the reality of her impending death, but still won’t go down without a fight. Though her tears are a cathartic expression of misery, fear, and grief, they are also alast-ditch effort to earn Richard’s sympathyso that he would fulfill one final request: save Mateo’s toy boat that she had carried with her since his death.
Why Does Iris Thank Richard at the End of ‘Don’t Move?’
Iris takes advantage of this moment to attack, summoning all her strength tostab Richard with the knife he had tucked into the back of his pants. She’s able to grab his gun and shoot him, leaving him to bleed out in the water, but also a few bullet holes in the boat, which then sinks. Thankfully, Iris is able to make her way to shore, but so does Richard, who she finds gasping for breath near the water. Instead of killing him once and for all, Iris just stares down at him and says, “Thank you.” By doing so,Iris not only throws Richard’s last words to Chloe back in his face but gives him a taste of his own medicine.Richard previously admitted he’d never tried the paralytic drug on himself, and Iris tells him he’s “too chickenshit to make yourself helpless.” Now, lying helpless on the ground, Iris doesn’t do him the favor of putting him out of his misery, but insteadleaves him there to suffer as she, and all his other victims, did.
Earlier, Iris asked Richard why he didn’t just let her take her own life when he found her on the cliff, but by the end, it’s clear that he only talked her off the ledge so thathecould be the one to kill her.The idea of saving Iris from the brink of suicide just to turn around and kill her himself only fuels his God complex.If she was going to die, he wanted to be the one responsible. Now at her mercy, Iris proves to Richard that he is not, in fact, God, and just as fallible as anyone else. With her last words,Iris is alsothanking him for making her realize she wants to live.After talking her out of suicide, the trauma Richard puts her throughforces her survival instincts to kick in, and her final emergence from the water and into the sun symbolizes her rebirth and a renewed appreciation for life. To really drive this home, the film ends to the tune of Lesley Gore’s “You Don’t Own Me,” as Iris takes her life back, no longer held captive both literally by Richard and metaphorically, by grief.
Don’t Move
A grieving woman must escape a serial killer in the remote forests of Big Sur after being injected with a paralytic agent. With only 20 minutes before her body shuts down, she embarks on a desperate race against time, battling fear and her fading physical strength in this tense survival horror thriller.
Don’t Moveis available to stream on Netflix.
WATCH ON NETFLIX
