Chloe, the main character in this film and Diane’s daughter is a healthy young girl who has been said to be disabled since birth and suffers from various diseases such as asthma and diabetes. However, she is working hard to go to college. Her mother, Diane, is devoted to supporting Chloe while believing in and cheering for her daughter more than anyone else.

These two Sherman mothers and daughters seem to be supporting each other and living hard despite their difficulties.

It is the impression one gets at the beginning of the film. However, there lurks the mother’s distorted love for her daughter.

Psycho-thriller with a tingling sense of tension

This film is directed by Aneesh Chaganty, who also directed SEARCH (2018). The Search was a rather tricky film that attracted much attention because it takes place on a computer or smartphone screen. This film was not such a tricky film, but a full-fledged suspense mystery and a psychological thriller. There is a solid story framework, and the story progresses in about 90 minutes, with thrills from the middle to the end of the film.

Chloe receives medicine from her mother as usual, but one day, Chloe feels uncomfortable with the medicine Diane gives her. Her mother is lying to her. And about a life-threatening drug? I couldn’t help but feel sad and scared as I watched the anxiety of not being able to trust her only family, the only family she had always trusted.

Then she starts to research the drugs herself, but she is disabled, and in a wheelchair, so it is difficult for her to sneak around or pick up things from high places. And she doesn’t have a smartphone. She tries to look things up on her home computer, but the internet could be better, and she can’t connect. I called the pharmacy, but I couldn’t easily ask Diane about it if she found out. From here to that? s quite overprotective, and Diane’s creepiness begins to emerge.

In previous depictions, Chloe seemed very independent, applying her own medicine, giving herself injections, and studying well. However, after investigating the medicine independently, Chloe and the author, who is watching the film, realize for the first time that her mother is managing everything.

We cannot help but admire and root for Chloe, who calmly thinks about what to do in such a situation and discovers the drug’s identity through her power, intelligence, and energy.

And the horrifying fact that it turns out to be true.

As the story progresses, horrifying facts are hidden.

This fact, which I will not reveal because it would be a spoiler, has led Diane to take away Chloe’s freedom to keep her daughter by her side the entire time. As these facts come to light, Diane locks Chloe in her room and removes anyone in her way. Her unusual obsession with her daughter is chilling. It is where the film’s portrayal as a psycho-thriller begins to come to the fore.

It is evident at the film’s beginning when Diane, at a parent-teacher conference, expresses no concern about her disabled daughter leaving home. While the other parents shed tears and express their concerns, Diane smiles with a relaxed smile on her face.

But Diane’s smile is already eerie; every time she smiles, I feel creeped out and scared. Was this because she was playing the role of a “good mother who trusts her daughter with all her heart” or because she thought, “I am taking away her freedom, and there is no way I can leave her?”

Perhaps Diane was somewhat under the delusion that she was a mother who supported, understood, and cheered on her disabled daughter as if it were a fact. The lie has become so commonplace that even the person telling the lie seems to have forgotten that it is a lie.

I felt this way when I heard what Diane said to Tom, the driver who had listened to what had happened to Chloe.

‘Do you have any idea what we’re going through? Helping a carefree, healthy person is only counterproductive.”

If you want to help, believe what your mother says!”

It may have been an act to make Tom believe her, but it seemed to be Diane’s “real” intention to me. I feel Diane herself half genuinely believed that “I am a devoted mother to my disabled daughter,” even though she was disabled. I felt like I saw the depth of darkness in Diane’s heart, believing the lies she told herself.

What is a mother’s love? It makes you think about

Diane repeatedly tells Chloe, “You know what?

Everything you did was for your good.

I am sure many mothers worldwide have uttered the same line.

Mothers and children often feel that what they do for you is not for them at all. Even though Diane and Chloe’s example may be extreme, are we not really doing it for ourselves when we say “for you”? I want to think about and reflect on this.

The large scar on Diane’s back indicates that she must have been a victim of abuse as well. Unable to build ordinary parent-child love, she abuses her child, believing it to be “true love.

In the last scene, Chloe’s revenge against Diane is described. Chloe, who is intelligent and kind, has chosen to hurt others because she knows what she has been subjected to. It made me sad to feel the cycle of abuse.

There are few brutal scenes, and even those who are not good at horror can enjoy this film. This work was especially recommended for those who like works depicting the horror of human beings and those who want to experience thrilling tension.