The Lost Patient is the latest psychological crime thriller that was released on Netflix. Based on a French comic book by Timothe Le Boucher named “Le Patient”. This psychological thriller revolves around a coma patient named Thomas, who wakes up three years after surviving a horrifying incident that took away the lives of his family members.
Thomas is often haunted by the memories of his past, along with a mysterious hooded man who often comes to haunt him, whom Thomas believes is the killer, but Dr. Anna (Thomas’s psychiatrist) still believes that there’s a lot more to what Thomas is saying and he is the only one who could unravel the mystery behind his family’s death.
Unlike any other movie, this movie does not rely on high-octane action or edge-of-your-seat thriller moments. Instead, it tries to unravel a murder mystery with a very psychological approach, it slowly takes us through the mind of Thomas, letting us into his world, and it tries to show reality through the eyes of Thomas.
Plot Of The Lost Patient
The story of The Lost Patient revolves around the Grimaud family, who got brutally massacred on an unfateful night, and the only survivor from this horrific incident was their son Thomas, who wakes up in a psychiatric hospital after three years of coma. After gaining consciousness, Thomas gets haunted by a mysterious man at night who makes an attempt to take his life. But to his surprise, he didn’t die, the next morning, he meets Dr. Anna and tells her everything about the last night’s incident, but she suggests that he must have suffered a panic attack.
She later explains to Thomas everything about his past. How his father and mother were shot and killed, his cousin Dylan was shot and got strangled to death, and he (Thomas) too was stabbed, but fortunately, he was rescued. Thomas, after listening to Anna, recalls that he had his sister along with him that night, to which Anna replies that the police were not able to find Laura. Anna suggests to Thomas that it’s still possible to know what happened to Laura if Thomas could recall what had happened three years back.
Thomas tries his best to recall his past. He partially recalls some of the memories of that night. He could remember an empty room that he was never allowed to enter. He recalls that same night, and he saw a guy walking outside their home wearing a black hoodie while their neighbor’s dog was barking continuously. He suddenly felt a bad vibe about this.
That same night while their family was having dinner, their phone kept ringing continuously, and certainly, her mother did not seem happy about it. It’s later revealed in the movie that the person who kept calling them was her mother’s boyfriend. Thomas’s mother had ended her extramarital relationship a long time ago, yet her lover kept calling her and making her life sad and depressing.
After having dinner, Thomas and her sister went for a walk. While walking through the road, they came across the same mysterious man whom Thomas had seen through the window. Later on, we see bruises on Laura’s body. It’s never clearly shown why or how she got bruises as she never reveals to her parents what happened, but Thomas assumes that the bruises on her sister Laura’s body might have come from that mysterious man in a black hoodie, whom he assumes her mother’s ex-boyfriend.
But who was the black hooded guy? How was he connected to Thomas and his family’s murder, what exactly happened that night? And where is Laura now? This forms the rest of the story for “The Lost Patient”.
The Lost Patient Explained
The Lost Patient tries to tell its story in various flashbacks where one narrative follows Thomas trying to look through his memories, trying to unravel the mystery of his family’s death, while the other narrative focuses on the present, where Thomas is now suspecting the hospital and its staff, as he now believes they are trying to hide something from him.
Thomas first gets suspicious of the nurse, who always acts strangely in front of him and often tries to peep inside his room in order to figure out what Thomas is doing. Thomas started to believe that the nurse knew something about his past that he did not know. But later, Dr. Anna clarifies that all she (the nurse) was trying to do was to look after him and to make sure that he does not get too mixed up with Bastein (a new patient) as by interacting too much with Bastein, Thomas was mixing up his memories, by creating scenarios of his past out of his imagination, that never really has happened.
Later, Anna asks Thomas to recall his memories with his cousin Dylan. Dylan and Thomas had a very complicated relationship. Dylan’s mother, who at that time was going through treatment, so she asked Thomas family, to take him in till her treatment gets over. But soon after he arrived in the family, Dylan did several things which angered Thomas and his sister Laura.
First of all, enters the forbidden empty room, and later on, he gets close to Thomas’s mother, getting all her care and attention. This makes Thomas jealous of Dylan because all this time, Thomas had been trying his best to get her mother’s affection and love but now its Dylan who is getting it, this realization made Thomas angry.
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What Was In The Empty Room in The Lost Patient
Towards the latter half of the film, Laura reveals to Dylan the secret of the empty room. She tells Dylan that her father has hidden a gun in that room, perhaps to kill someone, maybe to kill his wife’s ex-boyfriend, or maybe to kill everyone from our family.
This statement clearly indicates the kind of state in which Thomas’s family was living. But to ensure his father doesn’t kill anyone, Laura removes the bullets from the gun and hides it. The story soon shifts into the present, where Thomas’s mental condition slowly starts degrading as if something is making him worried and is haunting him constantly.
Who Was Laura? What Happened To Her?
Dr. Anna reveals to Thomas that Laura was an anti-social child; she was suffering from anti-social behavioral issues because of not getting enough love and care from her parents. It’s when Thomas finally starts to recall some of his early memories with Laura, and to everyone one’s surprise, Thomas’s early memories were from Laura’s gravestone. Yes, Laura had died years ago; she died when she was just four years old.
Her early death brought trauma and depression into the family, which affected Thomas’s father and her mother in a very bad way. They became paranoid and kept a gun at their home. The trauma from Laura’s death was so severe that they could not take care of Thomas properly, and they neglected him pretty much throughout most of his life, which ultimately resulted in Thomas developing several emotional and behavioral issues. After her sister’s death, Thomas soon became violent, he even injured her mother on one occasion.
For others, they could only see his violent behavior, but for him, it was a tool to get his parent’s attention. It then revealed in a twist that Thomas had two personalities, one was of himself, while the 2nd personality belonged to Laura. Laura was his violent side and was responsible for all the bad things that happened to Thomas’s family. He is the one who injured his mother’s ex-boyfriend, he is the one who told Dylan about the gun, and he (his violent side, which belonged to Laura) killed the neighbor’s dog who was making too much noise.
Who Was The Killer?
Finally, when Thomas’s parents gave more attention to Dylan and started loving him more. This made Thomas jealous, and one day, this jealousy turned into violence. He brought back the bullets which he had kept hidden and loaded them into the gun, and brutally shot his parents one by one, he first killed his father, he shot him in his head, he then went for his mother and shot her in her stomach and finally, he killed Dylan and later strangled him.
Who Was The Person In Black Hoodie
That night, after killing his family, Thomas wore a black hoodie and left his house, but after a few walking distances, the guilt of killing his family hit him, and he broke down emotionally. He later returns to his house, and unable to bear his guilt, he stabs himself.
So the mysterious person wearing a black hoodie was none other than Thomas himself. In order to cope with the guilt of killing his parents, Thomas disassociated himself and created an imaginary man wearing a black hoodie who he now thinks actually killed his parents.
Throughout the movie, Anna never reveals to Thomas that he is a real killer so that she can study and understand Thomas’s mind. Thomas was a mental patient, and his childhood tragedies created two personalities within him, with one of his personalities developing several violent tendencies.
The movie The Lost Patient is all about what could happen if you neglect your own child and don’t provide him with love and care that he needs. It’s a beautiful psychological thriller, which I believe everyone should watch once in their life. You Can Stream This Film On Netflix.
