The new psychological Australian horror film from director Daina Reid,Run Rabbit Runhas been a hit on Netflix since it landed on the streamer earlier this year in June. Fans of the hitHBO seriesSuccessionwill recognize Sarah Snook as a recently divorced mom named Sarah, who must come to terms with a haunting event from her past when her daughter begins manifesting an alternate personality. Dark truths that have haunted her since childhood come back to roost through her daughter, but this story may not have been entirely clear to viewers.
The movie ends on a cliffhanger that left some fans scratching their heads and wondering what happened. Did the film end on a dark note with the implications of a shocking fate, or did the events not play out as they appeared? Is Sarah an innocent victim of circumstance, or is she a monster with a convincing mask? The answers to these questions may not be clear, but it’s here that we take a crack at explaining the alarming conclusion toRun Rabbit Run.
What Happened at the End of Run Rabbit Run?
The premise ofRun Rabbit Runfollows Sarahas she tries to manage her daughter Mia after she begins claiming to be Alice, the reincarnated sister Sarah lost as a child. Allegedly, she went missing, but it’s hinted throughout that this isn’t the case. When these delusions begin, Sarah takes Mia to her childhood home, hoping it will remedy things. Unfortunately, nothing changes, and Mia becomes more insistent that she is her mother’s long-lost sister.
It’s revealed that Alice and Sarah did not have a good relationship as children. Sarah regularly bullied her sister, locking her away whenever they played hide and seek, as revealed by “Alice,” who admits to resenting her sister. Eventually, we find out that Alice didn’t go missing at all. What happened was that the sisters had gotten into another of their many fights, which ended with Sarah hitting Alice over the head with a rabbit trap, causing her to bleed. Scared and panicked, Sarah pushed Alice to her death off a cliff and never told anyone.
Related:Sarah Snook Didn’t Know Succession Would End with Season 4: ‘I Was Very Upset’
As Sarah struggles to snap her daughter out of whatever trance she is in, she appears to hallucinate, fooling the viewers into believing that she killed Mia the same way she did Alice, although it’s later revealed that she did not attack Mia. However, it’s heavily implied that one of them killed Pete, Mia’s father, and Sarah’s ex-husband.Run Rabbit Runends with Sarah watching as Mia walks hand-in-hand with the apparition of a young Alice. It’s unclear what becomes of her, but the belief is that Mia was led to her death. It’s not clear whether this was a dream Sarah was having or not.
The Film’s Key Themes
Before exploring what happened inRun Rabbit Run’s ending, it’s important to examine some key themes. Throughout the movie, Mia wears a crude rabbit mask, the very same one she wears on the film’s poster. A few things can be interpreted from this imagery. InMashable’s talk about Run Rabbit Run’s ending, the mask is connected to the famous Lewis Carroll storyAlice in Wonderland.Alice’s name alone can be seen as a connection, but the connection of spiraling as the truth of what happened coming back to haunt Sarah can also be alluded to. In this case, the rabbit hole is her repressed trauma and painful memories.
However, a more simplistic meaning could be that the mask mirrors Sarah’s need to present herself as a calm and emotionally secure mother for her daughter as she goes through this change. The film’s producer, Anna McLeish, describes it best when she notes society’s perception that moms need to be able to juggle children and be the well-behaved ideal mother who has their faculties in order. With this in mind, the explanation of the movie’s ending can be seen as ironic as Sarah’s sanity comes into question the more she hallucinates. Mia, as Alice, is a symbol of Sarah’s composure and could symbolize Sarah losing her grip on reality as her trauma threatens to pass onto her daughter.
Related:Every Horror Movie Releasing in September 2023
What Really Happened?
There is one more theme very significant toRun Rabbit Run’s ending. Rabbits often represent birth and fertility. With that in mind, the rabbit that lures Mia at the end ofRun Rabbit Runcould very well be Alice reborn to punish Sarah for mistreating and murdering her by leading Mia to the same fate. At the same time, it’s also reasonable to believe that this ending was in Sarah’s head.
According toDigital Spy’s explanation of what happened to Mia and Alice, Alice’s return could have been a manifestation of the guilt Sarah has been carrying her whole life, meaning she was never really inhabiting Mia. However, there is a small flaw in this logic. It doesn’t explain how Mia could have followed the rabbit while Sarah was asleep. Unless that was a dream. Unfortunately, this theory being correct could mean that Mia and her father did not survive this movie after all.
There is a moment where Mia is missing, and her parents desperately search for her, only for her to have been hiding. But there is also that instance in which Sarah hurts Mia in a scuffle, the same way she hurt Alice before her death. What if that was Mia’s death under the same fate as her aunt? That would also indicate that Sarah killed Pete as well. Seeing Mia get led away could have been a conjuring of Sarah’s mental breakdown.
The cliffhanger endingis ultimately open to interpretation. Either a reborn Sarah killed her niece in revenge, or her involvement was an imagination born of guilt and Sarah’s view of herself as a monster. She’s carried the truth of what happened to her sister for so long, and now she is scared that Mia will somehow inherit her trauma. Sarah can never escape what she has done, a curse she desperately wants to keep from Mia.
