Mia begins to get lost in the spirit's carefully planned manipulation, dragging young Riley (Joe Bird) into touching the embalmed hand for way too long thinking he had been possessed by her mother's spirit. In the movie's most shocking scene, Riley smashes his head on the furniture and pops his own eye out.
She nearly kills her best friend's little brother by letting him hold onto the hand too long, and stabs her dad in the neck in a hallucinogenic fit. And then in the film's final moments, she realizes that she has been killed, and is now one of those spirits on the other end of the hand.
What Happens at the End of 'Talk to Me'? After Mia dies, she starts to wander the highway until she is teleported to the hospital. There, she witnesses Riley and her father healing from their wounds. Mia no longer has a reflection in the mirror, and no one can hear or see her.
Riley ends up severely injured and nonresponsive in the hospital, and Mia starts seeing the haunting visions of the spirits, including her mom – without touching the hand. The story crescendos to a violent, and utterly depressing, conclusion.
Max hears Mia struggling against Spirit-Max and he enters the room, just as Mia tries to stab the spirit and ends up stabbing her father in the neck with scissors.
TALK TO ME (2023) Breakdown | Ending Explained, Creepy Hidden Details & Film Analysis
What did the end of Talk to Me mean?
Mia's possession means that she died with a spirit in her, which is why she's now stuck in their realm, though it's still unclear why Riley was able to fully heal. Perhaps it was because the spirits wanted Mia all along and were using Riley to torment her into killing herself.
In the ending of Talk to Me, Mia unmistakably dies. While it's not clear when we see her wandering around the road right after the accident, her tragic fate is confirmed when she is transported to the hospital. She sees her dad and Riley alive and healed, ready to return home.
Riley's world is uprooted when her father gets transferred to a job in San Francisco. This move has a profound emotional impact on Riley; she is losing what is “home” to her – what she knows to be safe and secure. This event is considered a trauma because she experiences something overwhelming and can't process it.
Mia also uses the hand on her own to try to talk to her mom, who died after taking too many sleeping pills. When Mia's dad found her mom's body, she had been clawing at their bedroom door trying to get help, leading Mia to believe that her mom didn't commit suicide and instead took too many pills accidentally.
The results of the failure to grieve is Riley's slide into depression, because again, depression is a protective mechanism that buffers us against the unrelieved pain of loss.
Mia actually dies at the end of Talk to Me when she is pushed into traffic by Jade. However, the reason she becomes one of the lost spirits attracted to the embalmed hand is because she died while being possessed.
You can see the sister running down when you're in the cars PoV, she pushed Mia out of the way. Mia realized what was happening when the “water mom” said “we'll have him forever”. She let go, and Riley's sister pushed her into the street to save him, killing Mia.
But Riley isn't possessed by any old spirit. He's possessed, ostensibly, by the spirit of Mia's dead mother. The other teens try to sever the connection after 50 seconds, but Mia begs for more time to speak with her mom.
Mia starts to hallucinate her angry father attacking her - the real version of her father comes to see why Mia is screaming but she plunges a pair of scissors in his neck and let's him bleed out on the floor.
A24 confirmed the Talk to Me sequel on August 8, 2023, which shouldn't come as a surprise given that the first movie is the distributor's highest-grossing horror movie of all time at the US box office.
A24's summer horror hit "Talk to Me" is absolutely devastating, but the movie is even sadder when you know the true story behind it. Danny and Michael Philippou crafted a supernatural narrative for their debut feature film, but they also brought in a bit of real life experience.
Depression – In incorporating depression and how “Inside Out” makes this concept relevant to its plot, Riley goes into a depression in response to a traumatic event that occurred after she moves from Minnesota to San Francisco, in the process experiencing a lot of loss (e.g., her friends, her home, and a loss of her ...
In fact, Riley initially seems to be having symptoms of an Adjustment Disorder with Depressed Mood, where she has a hard time coping with her move, she withdraws from her parents and old friends, she misses school, and even tries to run away.
She wasn't unlike Riley's version of Joy—always trying to put a positive spin on things. Her being led by Sadness seems to imply that this is a mask and that Mrs. Anderson is actually depressed. Riley's journey with Sadness proves that this is not true.
When he finds Duckett and attempts to bring him home, Duckett stabs Cole and kills himself. Some time later, 17-year-old Mia is struggling with the second anniversary of her mother Rhea's suicide by sleeping pill overdose and her distant relationship with her father Max.
Daniel is the primary love interest in the 2022 horror film Talk to Me. He is a religious student and boyfriend of Jade, but also shares a brief history with Mia and is therefore at the center of a love triangle when mysterious supernatural forces causes deadly ripples through their friendship group.
