The movie subverts the viewer's expectations by depicting a troubled protagonist trying to mask their own guilt. To understand the film, it is important to distinguish the protagonist's perspective and point of view with their actual predicament. Although the film may leave more to be desired, it does a great job misleading the viewers while subtlety revealing it's cards.
The film centers around the point of view of the protagonist, who in actuality is severely delusional and has borderline personality disorder (although this is projected by the protagonist onto her imaginary caller, I will get to this shortly). The protagonist has an underlying repressed childhood trauma caused by accidentally killing her father in a house fire. As a coping mechanism she convinces herself to believe in alternate realities, those in which she is innocent victim. This is most evident when she blames her own mother for her father's death. She believes that her mother was responsible for the fire, thus resenting her even late into adulthood. The mother burdens this pain, despite being on her deathbed caused by brain cancer, as she doesn't want to cause her child's mental health to further deteriorate. However as we later to come realize, her mother is truly innocent while the protagonist was actually responsible for her killing her father. And deep down in her repressed shadow, she understands this.
As the protagonist returns to her childhood home, she notices a hidden basement, a chair in the center with her old toys, along with a box left behind by the past tenants. This is when her mental state really becomes FUBAR. She imagines the stairs leading to the basement to be smoldering in flames, symbolizing that she cannot let go of burning her house and father to ashes.
Recall that when she first arrives to the home she loses her phone. She uses the find my phone app, and it reveals to be in the same location and is switched to the MRI brain scan. This may appear to be leading to next events, but it just retreads past events. The transition from phone to brain scan is illusory. She has her own phone and is just calling herself, it is revealed that she requires the phone but did she never really lost it is all just in her head. Therefore, she is just calling herself repeatedly, this sets the narrative of the entire story. She is ultimately calling her own phone, and is just talking to herself. However, in her mind she believes that she is truly conversing with someone else in the past.
What does the person on the phone claim? SHE LIVES WITH HER MOTHER WITHOUT A FATHER (step-mother because she wants no blood relationship with her aside from her father), SHE HAS PERSONALITY DISORDERS, SHE CLAIMED THAT HER MOTHER TRIED TO KILL HER BY BURNING HER, SHE DESPISES HER MOTHER HOPING THAT SHE WOULD HAVE DIED. Sound familiar? It definitely should! The protagonist just substituted her mental image of her past self, onto her image of the past tenant of the house. They really only met once when the protagonist was a child. Yet being scared of her as a kid, ingrained the girl as a villain in the shadow of the impressionable kid. The villain is simply the shadow of the protagonist. Additionally, they share many similarities, since that is what the protagonist conceived of herself. Both can't drive cars, both use fire extinguishers as weapons (she explains to her mother how to use a fire extinguisher as a weapon which is the same method the girl in the past killed others), they have the same exact stencil outlining their hands leading to a perfect overlap. Further signifying that she is just interacting with herself.
Instead of coming to terms with her own past, she tires to undue her fathers accident by altering history. Yet no matter what occured the resulting outcome is set. She remains response for her fathers death, while her mother is responsible protecting her family. This is the only consistent in all the narratives she perceived. She realizes that she was infact the one that burned down the house yet repressed. The girl in the past is just her shadow, a projection of unwanted thoughts. She blames the other girl for killing her father, when in actuality it was her. While the mother was the one that saved her, and burdened herself with the pain. This is symbolized by the mother protecting the protagonist in the past and present by grabbing the blade hands on and talking out the villain. Thus saving her child from guilt and harm. Any supposed changes in the past were only temporary fixes and not consistent with reality. Aside from trivial things such as leaving behind time capsules, which may as well have been placed by the younger protagonist. Any big change is only superficial yet quickly deteriorated. The father may have "survived" for a while but ultimately died because of the protagonists decisions. The mother had terminal brain cancer, changing the past wouldn't have prevented this. Surprisingly she never made a change regarding her mother, such as getting an early screening etc. yet she still miraculously fantasized that her mother was no longer terminally ill. This reveals that the altered events never actually occured, and had no merit at all. It was all a figment of her wild imagination. She simply wanted a reality where her father was happy and she no longer had to scapegoat her terminally ill mother. But more importantly, she could begin to forgive herself. So what really happened in the end? The father died in the fire, maybe in that vary house considering its charred and dilapidated state. This resulted, in underlying trauma and personality disorder within the protagonist. The protagonist blamed the mother for their predicament thus resenting her all this time. As she returned to the house she is literally haunted by the past. By the time she realizes the truth, her mother passed on from brain cancer and was buried along with the father. She tried to have closure by spending time with her father and properly saying goodbye to her mother. However she is still struck with grief and untreated mental illness, thus showing her bound in the basement.
Or... You can be superstitious like the shaman mother and believe in supernatural phenomenon. You can believe that the girl in the past is actually cursed and able to talk with future spirits. You can believe that shes is a serial killer that got away with it while living in the house undisturbed. You can believe that the protagonist that convinced herself of being innocent of manslaughter is somehow perfectly sane and would perceive the rest of her past truthfully. You can believe that two girls that happen to be the same age with similar problems had conversations with each other decades apart. It's your call.
The film centers around the point of view of the protagonist, who in actuality is severely delusional and has borderline personality disorder (although this is projected by the protagonist onto her imaginary caller, I will get to this shortly). The protagonist has an underlying repressed childhood trauma caused by accidentally killing her father in a house fire. As a coping mechanism she convinces herself to believe in alternate realities, those in which she is innocent victim. This is most evident when she blames her own mother for her father's death. She believes that her mother was responsible for the fire, thus resenting her even late into adulthood. The mother burdens this pain, despite being on her deathbed caused by brain cancer, as she doesn't want to cause her child's mental health to further deteriorate. However as we later to come realize, her mother is truly innocent while the protagonist was actually responsible for her killing her father. And deep down in her repressed shadow, she understands this.
As the protagonist returns to her childhood home, she notices a hidden basement, a chair in the center with her old toys, along with a box left behind by the past tenants. This is when her mental state really becomes FUBAR. She imagines the stairs leading to the basement to be smoldering in flames, symbolizing that she cannot let go of burning her house and father to ashes.
Recall that when she first arrives to the home she loses her phone. She uses the find my phone app, and it reveals to be in the same location and is switched to the MRI brain scan. This may appear to be leading to next events, but it just retreads past events. The transition from phone to brain scan is illusory. She has her own phone and is just calling herself, it is revealed that she requires the phone but did she never really lost it is all just in her head. Therefore, she is just calling herself repeatedly, this sets the narrative of the entire story. She is ultimately calling her own phone, and is just talking to herself. However, in her mind she believes that she is truly conversing with someone else in the past.
What does the person on the phone claim? SHE LIVES WITH HER MOTHER WITHOUT A FATHER (step-mother because she wants no blood relationship with her aside from her father), SHE HAS PERSONALITY DISORDERS, SHE CLAIMED THAT HER MOTHER TRIED TO KILL HER BY BURNING HER, SHE DESPISES HER MOTHER HOPING THAT SHE WOULD HAVE DIED. Sound familiar? It definitely should! The protagonist just substituted her mental image of her past self, onto her image of the past tenant of the house. They really only met once when the protagonist was a child. Yet being scared of her as a kid, ingrained the girl as a villain in the shadow of the impressionable kid. The villain is simply the shadow of the protagonist. Additionally, they share many similarities, since that is what the protagonist conceived of herself. Both can't drive cars, both use fire extinguishers as weapons (she explains to her mother how to use a fire extinguisher as a weapon which is the same method the girl in the past killed others), they have the same exact stencil outlining their hands leading to a perfect overlap. Further signifying that she is just interacting with herself.
Instead of coming to terms with her own past, she tires to undue her fathers accident by altering history. Yet no matter what occured the resulting outcome is set. She remains response for her fathers death, while her mother is responsible protecting her family. This is the only consistent in all the narratives she perceived. She realizes that she was infact the one that burned down the house yet repressed. The girl in the past is just her shadow, a projection of unwanted thoughts. She blames the other girl for killing her father, when in actuality it was her. While the mother was the one that saved her, and burdened herself with the pain. This is symbolized by the mother protecting the protagonist in the past and present by grabbing the blade hands on and talking out the villain. Thus saving her child from guilt and harm. Any supposed changes in the past were only temporary fixes and not consistent with reality. Aside from trivial things such as leaving behind time capsules, which may as well have been placed by the younger protagonist. Any big change is only superficial yet quickly deteriorated. The father may have "survived" for a while but ultimately died because of the protagonists decisions. The mother had terminal brain cancer, changing the past wouldn't have prevented this. Surprisingly she never made a change regarding her mother, such as getting an early screening etc. yet she still miraculously fantasized that her mother was no longer terminally ill. This reveals that the altered events never actually occured, and had no merit at all. It was all a figment of her wild imagination. She simply wanted a reality where her father was happy and she no longer had to scapegoat her terminally ill mother. But more importantly, she could begin to forgive herself. So what really happened in the end? The father died in the fire, maybe in that vary house considering its charred and dilapidated state. This resulted, in underlying trauma and personality disorder within the protagonist. The protagonist blamed the mother for their predicament thus resenting her all this time. As she returned to the house she is literally haunted by the past. By the time she realizes the truth, her mother passed on from brain cancer and was buried along with the father. She tried to have closure by spending time with her father and properly saying goodbye to her mother. However she is still struck with grief and untreated mental illness, thus showing her bound in the basement.
Or... You can be superstitious like the shaman mother and believe in supernatural phenomenon. You can believe that the girl in the past is actually cursed and able to talk with future spirits. You can believe that shes is a serial killer that got away with it while living in the house undisturbed. You can believe that the protagonist that convinced herself of being innocent of manslaughter is somehow perfectly sane and would perceive the rest of her past truthfully. You can believe that two girls that happen to be the same age with similar problems had conversations with each other decades apart. It's your call.
