Talk to Me | The Definitive Explanation

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What is Talk to Me about?

Talk to Me (aka the scary movie with the hand) is, like a lot of modern horror movies, especially from A24, a metaphor. In this case, the metaphor is grief and the resulting depression. What we witness on screen with Mia and the ceramic hand is a defamiliarization of an inability to work through the grief and trauma of her mother’s unexpected passing. Ghostly possession causing Mia to suck Daniels toes? Actually a metaphor for the way in which people lost in grief might use physical intimacy and promiscuity as a distraction. Ghostly hallucinations result in her stabbing her father in the neck with scissors? Represents the way unprocessed grief can cause us to lash out at family members and ruin those relationships. 

The Babadook, a fellow Australian film, is also a defamiliarized look at the grieving process. Except that movie has a glass half-full conclusion. Both Talk to Me and Smile (2022) look at the half-empty journey, as in what happens when we let grief, depression, and denial consume us. 

Movie Guide table of contents

Cast

• Mia – Sophie Wilde
• Max – Marcus Johnson
• Jade – Alexandra Jensen
• Riley – Joe Bird
• Sue – Miranda Otto
• Daniel – Otis Dhanji
• Hayley – Zoe Terakes
• Joss – Chris Alosio
• Written by – Danny Philippou | Bill Hinzman
• Directed by – Danny Philippou | Michael Philippou

The ending of Talk to Me explained

Recap:

The ending of Talk to Me begins with Mia having a full on break after finding out that her mom, Rhea, committed suicide via overdose. Despite her father’s honesty and attempts at comfort, Mia doesn’t believe him, especially when the ghost of her mother tells her its not true. Back in her bedroom, a ghost version of Max attacks Mia. Hearing her struggling, the real father breaks into her bedroom to see her spasming on the ground. When Max tries to help her, she, still struggling against the evil spirit version of her dad, stabs him right in the neck with a pair of scissors. 

Mia continues to listen to ghost Rhea, who tells her the only way to save Riley is to put him out of his misery, to set him free. When Mia appears at the hospital, there’s a brief reconciliation with Sue, who had earlier accused Mia of being on drugs and giving Riley drugs. Sue apologizes and tells Mia she’s family. Alone with Riley, Mia’s spirit vision kicks in and she sees the ghost that’s in possession of Riley’s body—a terrifying, gleeful old man. Mia flees with Riley in a wheelchair. 

Jade had gone to meet Mia at her house, discovered Max, then hurried back to the hospital. She’s in time to catch sight of Mia pushing Riley towards the highway. On the edge of the highway, Mia is about to push the wheelchair over a ledge and into traffic. Much like with the injured kangaroo from earlier in the movie, Mia can’t take a life. Instead, she throws herself off the ledge.

She wakes up on the road, a bit beat up but seemingly okay. Back in the hospital, Mia catches glimpses of various events. Riley fully healed. Her dad wandering down the hallway. Except she realizes she has no reflection. And time has skipped oddly. The light disappears altogether and she’s left in darkness. Until she glimpses a light that could be at the end of a tunnel. Heading towards it, she ends up back in the world, as one of the spirits called forth by the embalmed hand. 

Meaning

The end of Talk to Me has two levels. There’s the literal level, as in what everything means within the world of the film. Then there’s the metaphorical ending, as in what all of it represents and says about real life. 

Literal:

On the literal level, we’re told two things through dialogue. First, that the ghosts can imitate people as a manipulation tactic. In the opening scene, Duckett tells his brother Cole that their father had been speaking to him. Then Duckett jams a knife into Cole’s chest then into his own head. That foreshadows what we can expect for Mia—that a spirit will imitate her mother, drive her crazy, then Mia will hurt someone else or herself or both. 

The second thing we’re told is that if you die while possessed that the spirits get to claim your soul for eternity. 

Those two pieces of information essentially explain what’s happening and why. The spirits have Epstein-like interests so want Riley’s soul. That’s why the spirit in possession of him keeps bashing Riley’s head into things. When that stops working, they try to convince Mia, by imitating her mother, to do their dirty work for them. She won’t actually be saving Riley but actually condemning him to eternal damnation. 

The third crucial bit of info is that the possession slowly fades. So Riley just has to survive long enough. We even hear Jade, on the phone with Mia, say that Riley seemed better. Which coincided with the spirits working extra hard to manipulate Mia because their time was running out. 

With regard to Mia, it’s unclear if she was fully possessed or not. There’s an argument to be made that because she only went over the 90 second time-limit by a few seconds that she still has  a window to the spirit world but isn’t necessarily possessed like Riley. But then she did have that whole thing where she saw the spirit sucking Daniel’s toes except it was her. That seems to imply the spirit did take over her body. All we really know is that she still had some sort of connection that allowed her to see what she saw. 

Either way, she ends up in limbo. It’s very different from the world Mia saw when the little girl “showed her” Riley’s soul. That world had a lot of bodies and was very bright, very chaotic. But where Mia is looks like the Upside Down from Stranger Things.  You could argue she’s there because she took her own life or because she was possessed.

Lastly, the room Mia appears in looks to be somewhere very different than Australia. We don’t know where she is or when she is. If its days later, months, years, decades. There was mention of another hand that was on a completely different continent. So maybe that was the hand being used? Regardless, Mia’s fate is sealed. A ghost in limbo forever. 

Metaphorical:

So what does all that really mean? The horror genre, all the way back to its early days in Gothic Literature, has always been a great way to explore the darker side of the human condition. That was often as speculative fiction similar to sci-fi, where monsters would serve as euphemisms for complex ideas. Like in Frankenstein, the whole thing is about the morality of science and if there are some lines science shouldn’t cross and how will individuals and society react. In the 21st century, the horror genre has been exploring the encounter with the monster as a manifestation of some internal struggle. It Follows is a metaphor for anxiety. The Babadook is a metaphor for grief. Hereditary is a metaphor for how a family deals with genetic mental illness. M3gan dovetails both, as it’s speculative about technology while also being a metaphor for resisting transitioning into parenthood. Knock at the Cabin is about coming to terms with death. Lights Out is about dealing with a bipolar parent. 

Talk to Me is Mia’s grief turning to depression and denial and ultimately driving her to take her own life. There’s a realistic version of this story where the hand is just drug use, and Riley’s possession is him ODing but surviving. We then watch Mia breakdown and that leads her on this self-destructive path where she pushes everyone away: Jade by trying to sleep with Daniel, her dad by having some big blow up fight with him, then, ultimately, herself, by jumping into traffic. 

What horror allows you to do is take a realistic story like that and blow it up into something fantastic and unique and terrifying. 

The Babadook is similar in that the titular monster represents the mother’s grief after the loss of her husband. All the dramatic monster movie stuff simply represents the ways in which her grief causes her to neglect her child and the process through which she finds some sort of closure and is able to put being a mom ahead of her pain. 

The representation is complex. But the actual meaning is pretty straightforward. Especially in Talk to Me. Mia doesn’t process her grief. Has no outlet for it. And that unprocessed grief can cause a downward spiral in which you end up hurting those around you, which causes you to feel even worse, which can lead, eventually, to a total implosion. Meaning the ultimate lesson of Talk to Me is a push for people who have suffered something awful to find some form of positive therapy. Rather than an overreliance on loved ones to the point of it turning toxic and self-medicating

The themes and meaning of Talk to Me

The struggles of dealing with grief

How do you process grief? It’s something that is very hard to answer. Which is probably why it’s such a fascinating topic for horror filmmakers. Talk to Me shows the worst case scenario, when someone can’t process grief and it turns to depression and mania that ultimately hurts others and takes a life. As bleak as that is, it’s one of the powerful things about art because it gives those who watch it a blueprint of what not to do. You don’t want to end up like Mia. In the narrative world, this is called a cautionary tale. 

Personally, I lost my dad when I was 20, my mom when I was 25. Only child. Thinking back on the first year after each, I can see the ways in which I was like Mia. All the negative manifestations of my grief. But I can also see the forks in the road. The points where I actively made choices that let me move forward in a healthy way and continue living to the best of my ability. Part of that, no joke, is because movies like The Land Before Time, Bambi, and The Lion King let me know that it would be awful but that there was a way through. A next chapter. That I could be okay. They gave me perspective.

With Talk to Me, it’s a movie that can and will rattle people as they realize they’re a lot like Mia. That they have this trauma that they haven’t dealt with. It’s the kind of movie that will inspire someone to seek help. And also remind people who have grieved and have done the work that they’ve come a long way. So even though it’s a glass half-empty kind of movie, that can be exactly what someone needs to see. If Lion King is the yin, then Talk to Me is the yang. The do and the don’t. Both are important. 

Peer pressure

When we first meet Riley, his friend is trying to get him to smoke a cigarette. Riley is shocked by this. The friend says at first that he just sells them, doesn’t smoke them, but then lights one up and tries to get Riley to smoke. After 14 years old, Riley is at the point of losing his youthful innocence and facing the pressures of trying more adult things. 

Mia, Jade, and Daniel are 17 and facing their own versions of that. Especially when it comes to romantic physicality. Mia dated Daniel but only ever held his hand. Now Jade’s dating him and they haven’t kissed. Both of them feel that pressure and desire to do more but neither knows how to go about it. 

Mia also needs to have an adult conversation with her dad about her mother’s death. But keeps avoiding the issue, running away rather than facing her emotions and fears. 

All of those dynamics come into play with the severed hand. It’s a form of peer pressure that Mia and Jade are initially skeptical of and even mock but then actively pursue. You can easily view it as a metaphor for drug use. Especially as it has an “out of body” effect similar to a drug. Riley wants to do it to prove to his friend that Riley isn’t some baby. Jade uses it as an excuse to see Daniel. When Daniel lights the candle, says talk to me and I let you in, what does the possessing ghost say? It comments on Daniel’s sexual interests in Jade and Mia. 

Lastly, with Mia, the hand serves as a means of escape. She can get away from the grief and depression that consumes her. But the way these things go is that the person who gives into peer pressure often turns into the peer who pressures someone else. Jade is the only one who doesn’t play the game. And is the only one who doesn’t want Riley to do it. But Mia pushes for it, enabling Riley, then endangering him. 

Accepting the truth

By the end of the movie, Mia is torn between what’s real and what’s not real. The crux of this gets back to her mom’s passing, whether it was accidental or purposeful. If it was on purpose, there’s the fear that maybe she had something to do with it. Maybe she wasn’t good enough? Maybe she didn’t do enough? And also the pain of believing that her mom maybe didn’t love her as much as Mia thought she had. Even if she knows that’s not true, there’s part of her that struggles with it. 

Which is why Mia’s so seduced by the ghost pretending to be Rhea who says all the things Mia wishes were true: that Max is lying, that the note is fake, that Rhea would never leave Mia on purpose and wants nothing more than to be with her, that it was all an accident. That would allow me to preserve the memory of her mom and the idealized version of her mom. Rather than having to accept the truth that her mom was more complicated and flawed than Mia ever knew. 

Mia’s inability to face the truth causes her to fall victim to the manipulation of the ghosts. 

Why is the movie called Talk to Me?

The obvious answer to this is it’s a reference to the ritual of someone the spirits that is the foundation for the entire movie. You light a candle, you say “Talk to me” then “I let you in.” I Let You In also would have worked as a title but maybe was too similar to Let the Right One In and the American remake Let Me In. 

Talk to Me as a title also gets at the core dynamic of the possession—the conversation between the living and the dead. What do the dead have to say?

But this has another level to it. Mia misses her mom. So when Rhea’s spirit suddenly talks to Mia through Riley, it causes Mia to desperately try to keep the conversation going. You can read Talk to Me as referring to the plight of the child mourning a parent. 

That’s not all! Max, Mia’s dad, is desperate to get Mia to talk to him. He calls her and she hangs up. He wants to spend time with her so she spends all her time at Jade’s house. We see how Mia’s inability to share her feelings with anyone, her denial of grief, only sets her on a path of self-destruction. Framed this way, the title isn’t only a child wishing they could talk to their deceased parent but the plea made to someone who won’t process their grief. Talk to me. Let it out. Don’t bottle it up until there’s a meltdown. Talk. Talk talk talk. 

Important motifs in Talk to Me

The severed, ceramic hand

The film’s main motif. The hand has meaning in terms of its function that differs from what it represents to the characters.

Functionally, it serves as a medium through which people interact with the spirit world. But the characters in the film use it the way they would use alcohol or drugs. It’s something done at a party for laughs and entertainment. Despite the fact it’s incredibly dangerous. So as a motif, the hand can represent the way in which teenagers often take risks for the thrill of it without fully comprehending what’s at stake—until something horrible happens. It’s a means of connection but a forbidden one that doesn’t seem to be good for anyone involved. 

But then for Riley, the hand is a motif for peer pressure. And for Mia, it embodies her spiraling into depression and inability to face the truth of what happened to her mom. 

The kangaroo in the road

While driving Riley home, Mia pulls up to a kangaroo that’s seemingly been hit by another car and is in the middle of the road, mortally wounded. Riley encourages her to put it out of its misery but Mia can’t do it. 

This raises interesting talking points. Someone might see this as an act of compassion. That Mia is the kind of person who doesn’t want to hurt another living thing. If that’s the case, there’s a tension with the fact that by the end of the movie she takes her own life, ending up hit by a car just like the kangaroo. You could read this as someone who can’t hurt others but sadly has such low self-esteem that they won’t extend the same compassion to themself. If she had gone to therapy or found healthy outlets for her grief, then maybe things would have gone differently for her. 

Someone else might see abandoning the kangaroo in the road as an act of a child. That the adult thing to do is to suck it up and grant the kangaroo mercy. By driving away, Mia was running away. The same way she ran away from her problems for the last two years. 

Questions & answers about Talk to Me

What happened to the brother at the beginning?

While the camera angle made it seem like Duckett stabbed Cole in the heart, it was way less lethal. Cole ended up being okay but he’s definitely emotionally scarred.

What’s written on the hand?

You know how people write things on bridges and the stalls of public bathrooms? Or how kids write on their desks or the front cover of their school books? That’s what’s going on with the hand. It has a bunch of names and random phrases. There are a number of different languages. What we can take away from this is that the hand has traveled far and wide and that it’s probably mostly been used by younger crowds who want to sign it the way they would a yearbook.

On one finger, someone wrote “I want to see you”. 

Will Riley be okay?

Yeah. We’re told the possession wears off. He just needed a few days.

Did Mia have to jump into traffic?

No. Like with Riley, it seems she would have been fine. She probably jumped because she felt so totally overwhelmed by everything that was going on and the guilt of what happened with Riley and her dad and feeling like she had no way back to a normal life. 

What happened to the kangaroo?

I assume it tried bouncing across the street but hopped in front of a car. 

Who was going to split Riley open?

It seems like one ghost in particular liked Riley and entered the house when Mia was first possessed. It then seemingly pursued them until Riley used the hand the next night. At which point, it possessed Riley then manipulated Mia into letting Riley go past the safety time. We can assume it was the old man that Mia sees at the end of the movie. 

Why did Mia suck Daniel’s toes/foot?

In the movie, it seems Mia going over the time limit meant that ghosts could still sometimes control her body. So the one ghost takes over and seizes the opportunity to suck Daniel’s toes. Why would the ghost want that? Probably because the filmmakers thought it would get the biggest reaction from the audience.

Metaphorically, you could argue this represents the self-destructive way that depression can sometimes manifest as seeking physical intimacy from people you shouldn’t—like your best friend’s boyfriend. 

Was Mia’s dad, Max, alive?

Mia tricks Jade to go to her house so Mia can get access to Riley. When Jade gets there, she finds Max holding his neck from where Mia struck him with the scissors. He seemed alive. But we don’t see Jade call 000. We don’t see an ambulance arrive. The next time we see Max is when Mia’s in the spirit world and catching glimpses of the aftermath of everything. He’s just walking down the hallway of the hospital. That might be because medics got to him in time and he’s recovered and leaving. It might be that she’s seeing his spirit go off to a different, better part of the spirit world than the limbo she’s stuck in?

But because Max was alive when Jade got there, it seems safe to assume he lived. 

Now it’s your turn

Have more unanswered questions about Talk to Me? Are there themes or motifs we missed? Is there more to explain about the ending? Please post your questions and thoughts in the comments section! We’ll do our best to address every one of them. If we like what you have to say, you could become part of our movie guide!