The Real Meaning Of The Netflix Movie

The Netflix thriller Faithfully Yours has all the twists and turns of the best suspense movies. Released in 2022 and directed by André van Duren, Faithfully Yours follows friends Isabel and Bodil as they embark on one of their supposed “girl’s trips,” which is a cover for their mutual marital infidelity. However, things begin to go awry when Isabel is seemingly killed, and Bodil is trapped in a web of her lies. Blending the sex and twists of the classic thrillers of the past, Faithfully Yours isn’t necessarily the most inventive film, but it isn’t without its deeper meaning.

Critic reviews were relatively mixed when it came to Faithfully Yours. Some praised its acting and challenging gender norms, while others criticized it for lacking imagination and doing little to advance the genre (via Rotten Tomatoes). Nevertheless, Faithfully Yours joins a growing list of suspense movies on Netflix and represents the preeminent streamer’s commitment to diverse original content worldwide. While the ending of Faithfully Yours seemed rather cut and dried, it went a long way to fulfill its themes about the status of modern relationships.

Is Isabel Still Alive?

Isabel Faked Her Death To Escape Her Husband

In one last twisting shock to cap off the ending of Faithfully Yours, it was revealed that Isabel (Elise Schaap) was alive and that her supposed “death” was an elaborate ruse. Perhaps the more subdued of the two friends, Isabel was aware of her husband Luuk’s (Gijs Naber) suspicions, and the faking of her death was a way she could frame Luuk to punish him for his suspicions, even if they were true. She planned to run away with Bodil’s (Bracha van Doesburgh) sister Yara (Hannah Hoekstra), who she fell in love with.

Despite being one of the more obvious plot twists in movie history, Faithfully Yours wiggles out of being clichéd by further delivering details that make little sense. It turns out that Isabel learned Luuk hired a hitman to kill Bodil, and Isabel paid the assassin double to spare her life. While the twist is somewhat confusing, it speaks to how Isabel feels about Bodil and how she will help her friend while helping herself. However, it seems the unintended consequence of Isabel’s plan was that Bodil became the prime suspect in her death.

Milan Was Spying On Bodil

Milan Always Knew His Wife Was Cheating On Him

In one of Faithfully Yours‘ many red herrings, Bodil’s loving and doting husband Milan (Nasrdin Dchar) was exposed as a voyeur. Unlike Isabel who knew Luuk was suspicious of her because of the tracking device he implanted on her phone, Bodil was under the impression she had pulled the wool over Milan’s eyes regarding her infidelity. However, when she discovered that he had secretly been filming her romantic trysts with other people, Bodil realized that her husband had also been lying.

Unlike many of the best Netflix movies of 2022, Faithfully Yours is undeniably pessimistic and that is seen through its dark twists. Milan is revealed to be somewhat dark and sinister because he harbors a dark secret that he likes to watch his wife with other people. While the film doesn’t shame individual sexual proclivities, the idea he keeps it a secret from his wife makes Milan’s reveal so pessimistic and dour, further proving the movie’s theme that everyone lies.

Who Is Zadkin?

The Mysterious Killer’s Identity Comes From A Book

For characters like Luuk and Bodil, their occupations are integral to who they are as characters, and Isabel’s husband is a novelist of some renown. Throughout the film, the mysterious figure known only as Zadkin makes secret moves on the dark web to hire a hitman. Zadkin, as Bodil remembered, is a character in one of Luuk’s books, pointing the finger of suspicion at him as Isabel turns up seemingly dead at the hands of an assassin and his effective use of piano wire.

Though Faithfully Yours is mostly a seductive thriller, it also exhibits many common murder mystery tropes as it integrates Isabel’s “murder” into the storyline. Writer characters are notorious in mystery fiction, and Luuk’s choice to use a pseudonym from his own work speaks to his own self-obsession. Nevertheless, Luuk affirms the film’s themes by lying. As a fiction writer, Luuk is tasked with dreaming up false scenarios, and he makes things up just like Isabel and Bodil did. His occupation as a writer is a subtle foreshadowing that he is the ultimate culprit in the end.

Luuk Hired A Hitman To Kill Bodil

Luuk’s Plan Went Wrong In The End

Further convoluting the plot of Faithfully Yours, Luuk is shown to be the villain in the end because he is the one who hired the hitman. However, he didn’t plan on having his wife killed, but he wanted Bodil removed because he viewed her as a bad influence. That choice speaks to who Luuk truly is, someone who doesn’t see his wife as an autonomous person and is somewhat sexist for blaming Bodil because he sees her as an evil temptress. Femme fatale characters are a staple of thrillers, but Faithfully Yours departs from its genre by eschewing the idea of the sexual woman as an antagonist.

The Significance Of Michael’s Lecture

Michael Foreshadows The Movie’s Theme

Michael (Matteo Simoni) is one of the few innocents, offering symbolic value to the story in the long run. The first time he is seen, he is presenting a lecture on the seductive power of lying, and how compulsive liars can often find themselves tangled in the web of their own deceit. That not-so-subtle piece of foreshadowing eventually comes true for Bodil just a few minutes later in the film, but it is nevertheless an attempt by the screenwriters to give the film depth. Michael recognizes lying for what it is, and keeps his nose clean throughout the film, even as everyone else crumbles.

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The Theme of Marriage In Faithfully Yours

Lying Destroys The Relationships In This Movie

Endlessly pessimistic, marriage is analyzed and dissected in Faithfully Yours and the results remain anything but pleasant. From the outset, Bodil is shown in her position as a judge, ruling against a father trying to maintain custody of his children, and she takes strange delight in slapping him down. The movie starts by showing such a dark moment in a relationship as a sign that the sanctity of marriage and the societal expectation of monogamy won’t be respected.

None of the characters in the film have a strong relationship. That is done purposefully to establish a tone of pessimism regarding marriage. While everyone pursues personal goals, others are harmed in a cyclical example of mutual injury. Even the lying expert, Michael, is drawn into Bodil’s web, and it threatens to consume him. Marriage as a symbol of unity is completely obliterated by Faithfully Yours‘ ending, and that was an intentional choice from the first scene.

The Real Meaning Of Faithfully Yours’ Ending

On the surface, the ending of Faithfully Yours affirms the film’s pessimistic ideas about marriage and how everyone, in their heart, is a liar. However, it is also a clever shift of thriller movie tropes while wrapping itself in a heap of clichés as armor. The film isn’t perfect, but the way it subverts gender roles is an intentional result of the movie’s familiar storytelling. While clunky reveals and a host of red herrings might have distracted, the ending of Faithfully Yours is Bodil’s transformation from someone who thought she pulled the strings, to someone who was a puppet.

How The Faithfully Yours Ending Was Received

Faithfully Yours Sits At 60% On Rotten Tomatoes

Neither critics nor fans were happy with Faithfully Yours. For the critics, the movie received a lukewarm at best response, sitting at 60% on Rotten Tomatoes. An example of this came from esteemed critic Roger Moore of Movie Nation, who criticized the movie for never getting into “riveting” territory, but still praised the ending as a “fine, flashy finish” for a “solid genre piece.” That was echoed by Joe Lipsett of Bloody Disgusting, who praised the movie for its “refreshing representation of society’s changing sexual norms.”

However, the audience was mostly relentless in bashing the movie, as it sits at a very low 27% rotten rating (via Rotten Tomatoes). Among the complaints were people who hated the ending, despite it trying to buck the norms of regular thrillers. One viewer felt the plot didn’t make sense and “the ending was a joke.” Another gave it a better rating, but said “It’s not too hard to figure out the ending.” While Faithfully Yours tried to do something different, especially with its ending, it seems to have fallen flat with most viewers.

Faithfully Yours

Faithfully Yours is a Dutch dramatic mystery-thriller that centers on two best friends who use one another as alibis to continue having affairs in secret. However, their years of careful secrecy begins to unravel when one of them goes missing.

Director

André van Duren

Release Date

May 17, 2023

Studio(s)

Millstreet Films

Distributor(s)

Netflix

Writers

Elisabeth Lodeizen , Paul Jan Nelissen , André van Duren

Cast

Bracha Van Doesburg , Elise Schaap , Nasrdin Dchar

Runtime

95 Minutes