The new Netflix movie, Don’t Move, features an eye-catching premise: A killer injects a woman with a paralyzing drug, rendering her basically motionless. How, exactly, does one outrun a killer if you can’t move? Well, you’re going to have to watch the movie to find out.
Directed by Adam Schindler and Brian Netto, with a screenplay by T.J. Cimfel and David White, Don’t Move was produced by Sam Raimi and Zainab Azizi via their production company, Raimi Productions. The film stars Kelsey Asbille, best known for her role as Monica Dutton on the Paramount series Yellowstone, and Finn Wittrock, known for his roles in American Horror Story and The Big Short.
Even though Don’t Move is a fairly straight-forward thriller without much dialogue, you still may find yourself confused as you watch. Or maybe you’re just impatient to know how the movie ends. Either way, Decider is here to help. Read on for a breakdown of the Don’t Move plot summary and the Don’t Move ending explained, including why Iris says “thank you.”
Don’t Move plot summary:
The movie opens with our protagonist, Iris (Kelsey Asbille), sneaking out in the early hours of the morning to go on a hike. She takes a toy boat with her. She hikes to the top of a tall cliff, where there is a memorial for a little boy. We assume this is her son, who died falling from the cliff, and that the little toy boat belonged to him. Iris approaches the edge of the cliff, as if to jump off. But she’s interrupted by a fellow hiker, who introduces himself as Richard (Finn Wittrock).
Richard manages to talk Iris off the ledge by telling her about his dead girlfriend, Chloe, who died in a car accident. Richard tells Iris that he and Chloe were arguing in the car just before the crash, and that Iris doesn’t want to know the last thing Richard said to Chloe. Iris steps away from the cliff and hikes down the mountain with Richard.
In the parking lot, Richard has parked his car weirdly close to Iris’s. She tries to squeeze by, but Richard suddenly attacks her with a taser-disguised-as-an-umbrella. When Iris comes to, her hands and feet are bound by zip ties, and she’s in Richard’s backseat. Iris manages to free herself using a pocketknife from her pocket. She even stabs Richard in the leg and makes him crash his car. But Richard’s not worried. As he explains to Iris, he has injected her with a drug that will soon leave her entirely paralyzed for an hour. She has about 20 minutes before she will be completely paralyzed. First, she will lose her fine motor skills, like gripping and finger movements. Then she will lose her gross motor skills. Her legs will give out. Her breathing will become labored. Finally, she will lose the ability to use her voice.
Iris flees into the woods. As she loses movement of her body, she manages to fling herself into a river, where she is able to float away, temporarily escaping Richard. Iris washes up on a lawn, where she is discovered by an old man (Moray Treadwell) who is mowing the grass. Though she cannot move or speak, she manages to communicate with the old man by blinking once for “yes” and twice for “no.” He takes her into his house to call the police. Before he can, Richard knocks on his door. Richard tries to convince the old man that he lost his wife, who maybe catatonic. The old man does not trust Richard, and does not reveal where Iris is hiding. Richard kills the old man, and burns down his house, not aware that Iris is also inside.
Iris manages to grab the string to adjust the blinds, which lets Richard know she is still in the house. He collects Iris, puts her in the old man’s truck, and drives away. Richard gets a call from his wife and daughter (because, apparently, he has a wife and daughter!) who inform him they are coming up to the cabin to visit him. Now Richard has to figure out how to explain this all to his family.
At a gas station, Iris manages to unbuckle her seatbelt. She is unable to leave the car before Richard comes back, but she is noticed by another woman. Later, when Richard is trying to tow his car from where he crashed in the beginning of the film, we find out that the woman from the gas station called the police and reported the truck as suspicious. A cop (played by Daniel Francis) pulls up to question Richard as a result. Richard tries to tell the cop that Iris is his alcoholic wife, who crashed their car while drunk driving. The cop clearly does not believe Richard—especially not after he spots a syringe of the paralyzing drug on the truck dashboard. So Richard kills the cop.
By now, Iris has regained her voice and some movement. Richard reveals to her that when his girlfriend Chloe died in that that car accident, he felt something for the first time in his life. His last words to Chloe, after the crash, were “Thank you.” He spent two months unable to move in the hospital, and after he recovered, he began paralyzing and murdering women in the same way. Iris tries to stab Richard with the drug, but is unable to move her thumb to push in the syringe.
Richard rows a boat with a still-mostly-paralyzed Iris out onto a lake, intending to kill her and dump the body. But Iris is able to muster enough energy to attack Richard, stabbing him with a knife and shooting him with a gun. He falls into the water. Iris relaxes on the boat, thinking that it’s finally over, and that now she can wait for the drug to wear off. Then the boat begins to sink. As it turns out, she shot holes in the boat. Uh-oh!
Don’t Move ending explained:
Iris takes a deep breath before she sinks completely underwater. For a moment, we think maybe she drowned. But, no—Iris bursts to the surface of the lake. She has regained enough movement to swim to shore. After she does she, she sees Richard, who is dying, also drag himself to shore. She towers over him. Now he’s the one who can’t move! She tells Richard “Thank you,” echoing his last words to Chloe. Then she leaves him there to die. With that, the movie ends.
What does it mean? Maybe it just means Iris just isn’t in the mood to save the guy who kidnapped her and tried to torture and kill her. Or maybe it means that Iris is like Richard—unable to feel anything until she witnessed his death. Personally, I think it’s a little bit of both. Iris said at the beginning of the movie that she wasn’t able to cry after her son died. But she cried out of fear in the boat, when she thought she was going to die. She says “Thank you,” to Richard for helping her feel again. She’s not going to save him, of course. Nor did she catch the murder bug. But at least now she knows she doesn’t want to die. That’s something to be thankful for.
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