Many people will walk away from Bring Her Back thinking it’s primarily a story about grief. That makes sense. Piper and Andy are dealing with the loss of their father. Laura is still reeling from the death of her daughter. Grief is present in nearly every frame. But it’s not the film’s core idea.
To get to the heart of Bring Her Back, you have to look past the premise and into the film’s narrative architecture—especially its opening and final moments.
The Formula Of Modern Cinema
Modern cinema has become formulaic in that 90% of widely distributed films follow the same plot structure. The opening scene introduces a core emotional or thematic problem. Then the ending serves as a final statement—positive, negative, or a mixture of both. Even if the broad formula is the same, there’s plenty of room for artistry and uniqueness in what the story is about and how it unfolds (especially stylistically).
Take No Country For Old Men. The opening features a monologue from Sheriff Bell about his early days on the job, his reverence for the “old-timers” he worked with, and the time he caught a killer. The story that follows has little to do with Bell. It’s a showdown between two younger men: Llewelyn and Anton Chigurh. Bell tries to keep up, to save Llewelyn and stop Anton, but he can’t. He was too slow, too old. And afraid. The end of the film picks up with Bell in retirement. At breakfast, he tells his wife of a dream he had, a dream where he saw his dead father ready to guide him into the afterlife.
Beginning: Bell’s young, confident, and capable. Ending: Bell’s old, defeated, and feels he no longer has a place in the world. That’s the core idea. Everything that happens in-between is part of destroying Bell’s sense of self.
There are a million ways for Bell to have this realization. All you have to do is change the variables. Instead of being a sheriff, Bell could have been a high school teacher. Llewellyn and Anton his students. Bell’s a doctor, Llewlyn’s his student, and Anton’s a patient. Bell’s a chef, Llewelyn’s a food critic in to review the restaurant, and Anton’s another chef who has a grudge against Llewelyn. Doesn’t matter what variables you go with, the point of the story can stay the same—Bell realizes he’s past his prime.
A lot of people miss the main theme of No Country, even though it’s right there in the title, because they get so caught up in the insanely intense game of cat-and-mouse between Llewelyn and Anton. The same thing can happen in Bring Her Back. It’s easy to get lost in Laura’s plan to resurrect Cathy. That anchors viewers to the idea of grief rather than to what the film is actually about.
Bring Her Back Explained
What’s the first (real) scene in Bring Her Back? Piper, at a bus stop, hears some girls her age chatting. She tries to talk to them but they don’t handle it well. Andy shows up and the two walk off together, with the girls clearly giggling about Piper. Piper asks Andy, “They didn’t like me, did they?” Even though he’s literally watching one of the girl’s imitate Piper’s blindness, he says, “Nah, nah, they liked you.” She says, “No they didn’t.” And he says, “They did, they did!”
And at the very end? Piper has escaped from Laura and hitched a ride to safety. We hear the final portion of the voicemail Andy had left her before his death. There are big tears in Piper’s eyes. This is the full voicemail.
Hi, Pipe. I know you think that Dad was great, but he, uh, he hurt me bad. But only when you were asleep, or when you weren’t home. He couldn’t see how much he hated me. And I lied because I didn’t want you to know how ugly the world was. And when I was eight, I hit you. And I regret it more than anything, Pipe. [Something] I’ll never do it again. But I just need you to understand that bruise on your face right now wasn’t me, it was her. She’s bad, Pipe. She’s hateful and just like dad she’s not going to let you see it. I didn’t tell you then but I’m telling you now Pipe, there’s something wrong with Laura. She kidnapped Oliver and you’re in danger. You’ll probably not f***ing listening to this, but…I love you, Pipe. Grapefruit.
When we contrast beginning to end, what do we see? Initially, Piper’s in the dark about the behavior of people. That’s because Andy tries to protect her from the realities of the world. He’s a physical embodiment of her innocence and ignorance. His death signifies the loss of both innocence and ignorance. She becomes fully aware of just how horrible the world can be.
There’s a version of the story where Piper’s incapable of facing that reality and succumbs to Laura drowning her in the pool. That would be the negative version of the story. Hereditary is a good example of the negativity winning. The Philippou brothers went with the bittersweet mixed bag. The ending is positive in that Piper survives, but negative in that she suffered a great loss to gain this understanding of the world and the strength to navigate it. A truly upbeat conclusion would have had Andy survive, too.
So the main theme is about truth. With that in mind, re-watch Bring Her Back and you’ll see how truth is the primary motif, not grief. Almost every scene has some moment where a character can be honest or duplicitous (they’re often duplicitous).
At the very end, the truth comes out. Laura stops being delusional about her daughter’s death. And Oliver finally escapes the spell and reverts to his true self—Connor Bird.
One Last Bit Of Nuance
Bring Her Back explores the two extremes of truth—honesty and dishonesty. It’s often difficult to be honest, especially when it can hurt someone’s feelings and we want to protect them, but dishonesty can be even more problematic and devastating.
In the last shot, Piper hears an airplane flying overhead. This recalls an earlier conversation when, hearing the same sound, Andy said it was their dad going to heaven, that you “catch a plane” when you die. What was Piper’s response? “You don’t have to make everything nice for me, you know?”
As much as Bring Her Back is about truth and the problems that develop when people avoid the truth, Piper, at the end, finds comfort in Andy’s white lie. I think that’s a really cool inclusion. It adds something I think a lot of movies lack: dimensionality.
Dimensionality is a key difference between beginners, professionals, and serious artists. A beginner can tell a one dimensional story: truth is good. A pro delivers a solid two-dimensional story: truth is good, dishonesty is bad. Serious artists go three-dimensional: truth is good, dishonesty is bad, except when it’s not.
One of the reasons Parasite is so powerful is because Bong Joon Ho told a three-dimensional story where each character was good, bad, and in-between, depending on the scene and context. That’s what gives the plot depth and makes the characters feel dynamic.
I’m not saying Bring Her Back is on the same level as Parasite. Most of the plot is two-dimensional. But that final bit with the airplane adds a moment of thematic three-dimensionality that I think is worth giving some praise. I wasn’t huge on Talk To Me, but I think Bring Her Back shows the Philippou brothers are developing in a promising way.
Wait, Are You Not Going To Talk About The Videotape And Weird Ritual?
Honestly, I don’t think that stuff really matters. It’s more about the plot than the theme. You’ve probably heard the term suspension of disbelief. That refers to someone’s ability to accept the concepts of a story. If you can’t suspend disbelief, you’ll spend the whole film going “That’s not possible. That couldn’t happen.” Imagine someone who tries to watch Back to the Future and can’t suspend disbelief about time travel so thinks the movie is dumb.
Fantastic stories often find some way to earn suspension of disbelief. Back to the Future tells us Doc Brown is a genius mad scientist. We can accept that kind of person inventing time travel. so we suspend disbelief. All that’s normally needed is some simple concept or snippet of dialogue.
That’s the function of the videotape scenes. It confirms that supernatural spells exist in this world. And there’s a group who figured out soul transference. Here are the steps:
- Cast this spell that transfers the soul of the recently deceased into a temporary host
- Find a new permanent host.
- Have the temporary host eat the original body.
- Kill the permanent host in a way that mimics the original death.
- The temporary host vomits the soul into the new host.
- The person is brought back to life.
The chalk circle creates a space for the spell to exist and keep the soul in the temporary host. That’s why Oliver starts to revert when he leaves the circle.
There’s probably something to be said about the use of cameras to record the ritual. Especially as it relates to the idea of truth and reality. But it feels more like a momentary thought as opposed to a fully-formed statement.
Does Bring Her Back Have Any Connection To Talk To Me?
Eh. I mean, there isn’t not a connection. Both rely on the existence of a spiritual world that’s accessible via our world. So it’s possible they share the same universe. But it’s not like there’s a meaningful overlap between the events of the two movies.
Cast
- Andy | Billy Barratt
- Piper | Sora Wong
- Laura | Sally Hawkins
- Catchy | Mischa Heywood
- Oliver | Jonah Wren Phillips
- Wendy | Sally-Anne Upton
- Phil | Stephen Phillips
- Written by | Danny Philippou, Bill Hinzman
- Directed by | Danny Philippou, Michael Philippou
