Irresistible, is a 2006 film, starring Susan Sarandon, Sam Neil & Emily Blunt, set in Australia. We also see some small appearances from William McInnis (Jimmy) and Georgie Parker (An office worker, who offers unsolicited advice to Sophie).
Sarandon stars as Sophie Hartley, a children's illustrator, who is struggling since the death of her mother. From the start of the movie, it is clear that something is wrong, as the eerie music and constant checking on her surroundings and the general scatteredness of Sophie's character set her up to look as though she may be slowly moving into some kind of psychosis.
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Sophie is now convinced that Mara is behind everything and starts to stalk her, turning up at her art exhibition and then she is caught in Mara's house, in their daughter's bedroom. One of the children's games has disappeared, and Sophie searches the house for it. When she finds some of her missing photographs in the bin, she knows she was not the one that put them there. She then decides to look around Mara's home, once she leaves with her stepdaughter. Sophie finds the missing game in Mara's house, but it doesn't do much. No one believes her that Mara has been taking her belongings and she has an AVO put on her.
Craig tells the judge that Sophie is exhausted, and she is angry that he did not defend her. Sophie continues to investigate, with things breaking down to the point that Craig sends Sophie off to a cottage for a few days to have a break, only for her to ring and have Mara answer the phone. She races home hysterical, and Craig takes the children, leaving a distraught Sophie alone.
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She also finds a birth certificate listing herself as the mother and father unknown, along with a letter addressed to Marla, telling her that her birth mother does not want to make contact with her. Everything is finally clear to Sophie, Mara is her daughter!
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Through a flashback, we see that they grew up together in an orphanage, and we come to realise through the visuals, that Kate was really Sophie's daughter. Now it all makes so much more sense, through the flashback, we are shown the two girls dancing together, holding hands, like sisters.
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The movie moves into uncomfortable territory, as it is evident that Sophie and Craig's (Sam Neil) marriage is on the rocks, and the divide between them only grows as Sophie's mental health declines and Craig finds himself increasingly attracted to his younger work colleague Mara (Emily Blunt), who has declared she is happily married (To Jimmy- and they have a daughter) while longingly staring at Craig close up, as they work together.
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Sophie starts misplacing things, (Elly's stuffed Quoll goes missing as well, but Craig keeps insisting it will turn up) hearing noises inside their home, and even their youngest daughter Elly, tells Sophie, that she saw someone in her bedroom.
Sophie tries to get her work done, illustrating a book for children, that is about a hard subject for her, something from her past, that she does not want to address. The book is causing her a lot of stress, and she seems to be putting it off and not happy with any of her illustrations.
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But is Sophie really imagining it all? I had no idea what this movie was about when I sat down to watch it, and it took at least 45 minutes to start to piece things together. I thought that it was quite a clever move really, because you are taken along for the ride with Sophie, as your brain is trying to scratch an itch it can't reach, as you wonder if Sophie really is losing it.
Craig has a work party, and he asks Sophie to come along, and encourages her to buy a new dress for the event. Sophie is reluctant, but does anyway, and turns up feeling self conscious, only to find that Mara is wearing the exact same dress.
The women exchange pleasantries, and Mara goes off to change, later leading Sophie to the dance floor, and dancing rather close, as Sophie fumbles her way through the dance. The two then go off for a walk to the beach together, where Sophie talks bout leaving New York at her father's will, because she had a 'wild youth,' and Mara affectionately touches Sophie's face, but it feels awkward and uncomfortable, as the woman have only just meet, and Mara continually pushes affection onto Sophie through subsequent meetings. Mara tells Sophie about her mother who was killed in a fire, and she wonders what that must have felt like. Sophie feels uncomfortable with he topic of conversation and suggest they go back to the party.
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Craig later goes along to a garden centre to get a gift for Sophie's birthday, with Mara's help. Mara guides Craig towards a beautiful, strange ceramic owl piece. It is too heavy for Craig to carry himself, so Mara helps him get it back to the house.
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The piece is put in Sophie's Art studio, and next time she goes out to paint, she notices some wasp coming in through a window. They land on her owl piece, and as she lifts the head off, a swarm of wasp attack her (I think they stole this from The Crush) and she ends up in hospital.
Sophie knows something is wrong at this point, but she isn't sure what is going on. Before her trip to hospital, she had begun to notice a blue car on the street, and even her father had remarked about what a nice car it it. But no one knows who owns it.
When she returns home, she has a conversation with her elderly neighbour who remarks about what a nice new car she has. Sophie tells her, that it is not her car, but her neighbour replies, 'But I've seen you get out of it,' and tells her that she has seen a women, who looks like her, wearing her clothes, get out of the car and go into her house. Sophie runs off to investigate, only to find the very dress the neighbour mentioned to be missing. Now she is starting to piece things together.
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Sophie has the locks changed, as she is now convinced that someone has been coming and going in and out of their home, only for Mara to show up the next day in the very dress that had gone missing.
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Sophie is getting her children's names mixed up, accidentally overdosing a sick child at this point, and it isn't looking god for Sophie.
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Spoiler Alert: Don't read any further unless you want to know how this movies ends!!
After the AVO, and Sophie and Craig's fight, Sophie is then put on supervised visits with her two daughters, but on a visit to the beach, we learn that Sophie had another daughter, when she was 18- that she gave up for adoption...and there you have it... everything starts to make perfect sense! (Or does it???)
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Sophie heads home, only for her nosy neighbour to inform her, that her cat, 'Ginger Tom,' hasn't been seen all day. Sophie starts to panic and goes looking for him in the neighbourhood, only to follow Ginger Tom to- you guessed it- into Mara's house.
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Sophie sneaks in, and manages to get herself locked in the basement, and off Mara goes to seduce Craig. While Sophie is locked downstairs, she start rummaging around, looking for clues. She finds some of her missing photographs and in a triumph move, she finally finds the stuffed Quoll that's been missing for a better part of the movie.
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She also finds a birth certificate listing herself as the mother and father unknown, along with a letter addressed to Marla, telling her that her birth mother does not want to make contact with her. Everything is finally clear to Sophie, Mara is her daughter!
While Craig and Mara are getting busy, Craig receives a call from the school, as no one has turned up to pick up the girls, Mara tells Craig not to miss his meeting and she goes to pick them up. She takes the girls to her house, and we are shown the girls walking past the blue car from earlier, in their garage. Mara tells them it is her husband's car.
The girls start dancing to music, and Sophie manages to cruel out through a tunnel, after ripping open a ducted area, and Mara sees her through the grate in the kitchen floor. She turns the music up, and stomps on the grate to force Sophie back into the basement. Mara heads downstairs to finish things with a bottle of wine and a lighter.
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Sophie asks Mara what it's like to be scared she would abandon her again, and Mara falters, reliving her pain. Mara smashes the bottle of alcohol in her hand and drops the lighter, starting a fire, the two women get into a fight, and Ginger Tom escapes the basement.
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Marla catches on fire, and Sophie goes back to save her. By now, both Craig and Jimmy are back, and they find the women in the basement and help them to safety.
Sophie wakes up in the hospital, and starts to confess the truth about Mara to Craig. He tells her he already knows, since he was given the birth certificate in her belongings by a nurse, and he tries to confess his tryst with Mara.
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Sophie doesn't want to dwell on the past, and the two reconcile. Sophie goes home, but goes back to see Mara to ask her permission on the book she has been working on, as it is about giving a baby up for adoption.
Sophie apologies to Mara for being a coward and not meeting her years ago, when she wanted to. Mara burst into tears, as Sophie declares to a nurse who demands to know what she is doing the room, that she is her mother.
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Now. Here's the interesting part...
It looks like everything has wrapped up, and Sophie and Mara will move forward in their relationship- but we cut to Mara in bed, and Jimmy has asked her if she has taken her medicine. She assures him she has, and tells him she is just doing some filing.
Then we see her cutting up pictures of Sophie's daughter, and we are shown pictures of Mara and Kate. The lady who was supposedly her mother, killed in Kosovo. It turns out that Kate and Marla were the same age, and in Kosovo together.
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This would explain Mara's over familiarity with Sophie, as she lured her to the dance floor and constant kisses on the check. Treating Sophie like an older version of Kate.
BUT...I feel like there are so many unanswered questions we are left with. I had to watch the ending three times to make assure I understood it, as the ending relied heavily on the visuals. Once I understood and googled what the ending I meant, I was left with the why?
I feel that this is the question that will linger in audience's minds. The movie, when first released in cinema's meet with mixed reactions, as many were not a fan of the ending.
I thought it was quite clever to leave the ending open to interpretation, relying on visuals, and badly photoshopped visuals clues. I had to let it all simmer in the background for a while, then it hit me! Did Mara kill Kate, because she died in a fire...the same way she tried to kill Sophie, and her odd remark made to Sophie on the beach about burning to death.
It would make sense, that she had killed her best friend to take what was hers, considering that Kate had promised to share everything forever with Mara. BUT...why did Mara try to kill Sophie, and try and seduce Craig? Was she after Craig, and killing Sophie was her plan all along? That means, she wasn't really after a mother.
Then, once Sophie assumes Mara is her daughter because of the birth certificate and letter, then Mara just decides to switch her plan, and pretend to be Sophie's daughter? Now she has switched her anger and target, not to Sophie, but her daughters?
She seems genuinely broken over Kate's death, and I guess the only real clue is, again her remarks on the beach the night of the party, where she says someone hurt Kate, here in Australia, and that is why she went to Kosovo in the first palce.
The date on the letter addressed to Mara, is 1998, suggesting that Mara had tried to contact her birth mother only a few years before Kate left Australia. So could both the girls have tried to contact their mothers, at the same time, both receiving rejections, and then, Kate and Mara had gone to Kosovo, only for Kate to be killed three years later.
This would imply, Mara had not started the fire, and was purely after revenge, but upon hearing Sophie utter the words, 'I'm her mother', decided to switch up her game, and take what she had always wanted for herself. A mum.
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At the end of the day, we are left to realise that hurt people hurt people, and that Mara is far more complicated and traumatised than we imagined. Hopefully in some cinematic universe Mara got her healing and the Hartley family all lived happily ever after.
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