Warning: SPOILERS lie ahead for No One Will Save You!
No One Will Save You director Brian Duffield explains the meaning of the film’s unexpected ending. The modestly budgeted sci-fi horror movie premiered on Hulu on September 22 and has received a largely positive reception despite its rather unusual format, which includes the movie only having a single line of dialogue. No One Will Save You follows Brynn (Kaitlyn Dever), a young woman grieving the loss of her mother who finds herself caught in an alien invasion. While it has stood out for its lack of dialogue, it has also garnered attention for its obscure ending.
In an interview with Inverse, Duffield explained what No One Will Save You‘s shocking ending means. It’s a bit of an unusual ending because it’s bleak and dark, but one that oddly sees Brynn happy. As a result, some question if the end is real or if Brynn is dreaming. While Duffield explained that the end could be interpreted any way, his personal take is that it is real, and taps into an important idea of humanity’s ability to heal and rebuild after tragic events. Check out his statement below:
For Brynn, it’s not a delusion or anything. I love Brynn. I love her as a character and what she goes through, and I don’t have the heart to be a douchebag, and she gets her kicked so hard in the movie that I wanted our girl to be okay. I think that’s thematically what the movie is about for me, is about how these life-altering things happen, and then you have to rebuild and figure it out. I know some people have been like, ‘Oh, is she dead or dreaming,’ or whatever. I think there’s material there to suggest everything, but I think for Brynn as a character, it’s a genuine experience that she’s having. You can interpret it [as a dream,] especially because of where she is beforehand, but I don’t know how much I believe you can heal in a dream. I like bleak horror endings, but I like Brynn more than those. I think every version of the ending, there isn’t a definite element of bleakness to it, but I think for me, the important part of the ending is that Brynn is in a good place.
What Happens At The End Of No One Will Save You?
As mentioned above, the ambiguous ending of No One Will Save You leaves lots of room for interpretation. For much of her life prior to the movie’s start, Brynn struggled with her loneliness and grief stemming from having accidentally killed her best friend when they were kids, and subsequently being shunned by her small town. When aliens invade the town and repeatedly try to capture her, they initially seem successful, until an odd twist in No One Will Save You‘s ending.
After the alien invaders capture Brynn and probe her mind, they ultimately let her go, seemingly empathizing with her and realizing they are alike. They are both considered outsiders and treated like monsters by those who don’t understand them, hence, Brynn is no longer a threat to them because they see her as one of them. Despite letting Brynn go, the aliens invade her whole neighborhood and infect the remaining townspeople with an alien parasite. One would think that, even if she’s free, Brynn would still be rattled by living in this apocalyptic world.
Instead, Brynn appears happy, as even though the neighbors are infected with alien parasites, it makes them politer and kinder to her. It’s genuinely the kind of world she longed to live in, even if she went down an unusual path to get there. One may find it shocking and worry about the aliens invading the rest of the world, but one must remember that this is Brynn’s story, not the world’s story. No One Will Save You‘s ending means there are many meaningful ways to interpret it, as it brings one woman’s story to the forefront and focuses on what’s best for her rather than what’s best for the world.
