In 2015, David Farr wrote and directed a psychological horror thriller starring Clémence Poésy, David Morrisey and Laura Birn named The Ones Below. It is a British film about two couples who are expecting a child. One of those couples has a child, the other loses the baby.
What ensues is a game of deceit, murder, abduction, jealousy, callousness, and an ending that leaves many of us baffled by its dark, utter complexity and meanings. Clocked at 87 minutes, it is a chilling tale of the darker sides of human nature, of relentless ambition and the selfishness that humans have over defenseless children. Let’s explore the meaning behind this movie’s conclusion.
The Ones Below Plot
A couple named Kate and Justin are expecting a child. They live in a nice area, and the story kicks off with them living their day-to-day lives. One day, new neighbors move in, Teresa and John. As it happens, Teresa and John are also expecting a baby.
Kate and her husband invite the new neighbors in for dinner to get to know each other. As they dine, Kate and Justin tell their neighbors that it wasn’t within their plans to get a child. That it took them a decade to change their minds, and after that, they got pregnant rather quickly. Teresa and John have a different story, they have had fertility problems, and Teresa is angry at Kate for getting pregnant so easily.
As it turns out, Teresa becomes angered that Kate is chugging glasses of wine during dinner, she hides her anger and invents a fake headache to leave, on her way out, she trips and falls and due to that fall, she loses the baby boy she was going to name Peter.
Kate and Justin try to console Teresa and John, but they end up having a fight who blame Kate and Justin for what happened. She angrily tells Kate that she doesn’t deserve to be pregnant. A few days later, Justin and Kate get notice that their new neighbors have left and will come back when they are happy about Kate and Justin’s baby. .
Kate eventually has a baby boy named Billy, when Kate’s mom visits them to meet the new member of the family, we can tell that Kate’s mom is very distant, toxic and emotionally unattached. And Kate is offended by her mom’s lack of interest in her new grandchild. Few days pass by and then Teresa and John come back and they seem to be ok and the animosity seems to be gone.
Teresa even goes as far as to offer to babysit baby Billy so Kate can take some rest. Kate goes to a graveyard to lay some flowers at her brother’s grave, who died by suicide. Teresa leaves Kate and Justin’s place with baby Billy. Then, we see how John and Teresa took over baby Billy, they seem to be a couple with a new child.
Kate and Justin receive an invitation from John and Teresa to join them for dinner. Kate brings the baby monitor, from which she hears the sound of an adult breathing. Convinced that there is someone else present in their apartment, she hurriedly rushes upstairs, only to discover that the bath is overflowing.
As the days go by, Kate becomes increasingly suspicious of Jon and Theresa’s behavior. One day, Kate entrusts Billy to Teresa’s care, then secretly returns upstairs to observe her actions. To her shock, she witnesses Theresa taking pictures of Billy and attempting to breastfeed him.
Appalled by what she sees, Kate decides to break into Theresa’s flat to investigate further. Inside, she finds a camera filled with photos of Billy and John and Teresa together in public, along with a fully furnished nursery adorned with a framed picture of John and Teresa cradling a baby, presumably Billy.
Later, Kate confronts Justin and together, they forcefully enter John and Teresa’s apartment, only to discover that the photos have been wiped clean from the camera and the picture in the nursery has been replaced.
The Ones Below Ending Explained
Kate, on the brink of a complete breakdown, implores Justin to find a new apartment. They locate a suitable place, and Justin works remotely until the day of the move. However, their plans are abruptly disrupted when Justin receives an urgent work summons, leaving Kate with the task of scheduling the moving van for the following day.
As he arrives at the office, Justin soon realizes that there is no emergency meeting. Meanwhile, an email from Kate, expressing profound remorse, greets him. Rushing home, he is met with the tragic sight of Kate’s lifeless body in the bathtub. Apparent suicide. The unimaginable event takes an even more horrifying turn as Justin discovers their baby unharmed but abandoned, submerged in a nearby canal. Overwhelmed with grief, Justin decides to leave their shared home, as do John and Teresa.
A subsequent flashback unravels the truth: John and Teresa, deceitfully tampered with the milk Justin handed to Kate when he departed. The drugged beverage subdued her. Later, disguised in Kate’s attire, Teresa callously cast an object, resembling a swaddled infant, into the canal. The devastating bundle, it is later revealed, was their beloved cat.
The concluding scene transports us to John and Teresa’s new residence in Germany, where they establish a life with their child, whom they have named “Peter.” In the end, Teresa and John’s animosity made them murderers, abductors, and sociopathic people who in revenge for an accident, motivated by jealousy decided to destroy the lives of a happy couple.
