We have to talk about No One Will Save You’s ending and what it means

I’d like to tell you exactly what No One Will Save You is about, but there isn’t a right answer. Director Brian Duffield’s alien abduction horror-thriller has no dialogue and multiple endings that contradict each other. The movie isn’t merely “open to interpretation”; it’s a litmus test made of blobs of body horror.

The director is in agreement. When Polygon spoke with Duffield at length about the film’s repeated contortions of reality and its surprise endings, he said, “I wanted to play fair, but at the same time, I wanted Reddit to have fun.”

OK, reader; let’s have fun.

Let me share with you two different interpretations. Neither are “officially correct,” but both, I feel, can be sufficiently supported with evidence. And in the comments, I’d like to hear your readings of this film. You don’t have to believe your reading is “correct,” but it’d be great if you were thoughtful, curious, and provided examples from the material that support the thesis. It’s sort of like improv or high school debate club: Let the analytical corner of your brain run free.

It’s probably obvious, but there are spoilers ahead!

20th Century Studios

This film is about two of the most important themes in modern society: grief and trauma.

The millennials’ dominant theme is grief. Born into the economic largess of the 1980s and early ’90s, then raised through multiple wars, recessions, techno bubbles, terror attacks, and multiple drug crises, millennials are the first generation in decades to face more financial challenges than their parents’ generation. As they near 40, millennials have a hard time affording rent, never mind owning a house. Many have also lost friends to the opioid epidemic, COVID-19, or violence.

To put it bluntly: Millennials are fucked, and unlike Gen Z, who were born into the shit, many millennials had just enough time in the ’90s to see the before times, when their boomer parents could afford to buy a four-bedroom home off a single income on a typical office paycheck.

No one will save youThis is about the struggles of the millenials.

Brynn’s home is decorated in a cottagecore aesthetic, which would be a hit on Pinterest. She can only afford this house because it’s been bequeathed to her by a wealthy parent. She doesn’t have any friends outside of the virtual world and she is despised by baby boomers. She doesn’t have any history of blogging, but she has been writing notes to herself for at least 10 years. It’s close.

Brynn carries a personal trauma from a climactic childhood moment that is borderline biblical, and the film offers her — in the place of talk therapy and fluoxetine — a healthy dose of Third Encounters through which she can learn to live with herself. Instead of the imminent threat of global warming, Brynn gets to experience the truth.

To quote every 30-something who had a Twitter account in the 2010s: “We live in a hellscape.” No one will save you agrees, but counters with an alternative creed: “Embrace the apocalypse with a dance and a smile.”

20th Century Studios

No One Will Save You is about aliens finding the Earth’s most naturally gifted killer

Brynn’s first killing of something looks accidental. The alien stalks her, ruining her home like a kid at a Pizza Hut. When she makes a play for the front door, the alien’s telekinetic powers hurl said door directly into her face. Her fate seems imminent as she falls to the floor. In a flash, the alien’s telekinesis lifts Brynn, turning her to face it.

Except, twist: Brynn had been holding on to a broken piece of a miniature model house, and the twirl throws her hand — and more pressingly, the sharp wood — directly into the alien’s soft noggin.

This isn’t Brynn’s only kill. It’s far from the only kill Brynn has made. The young woman is forced to fight increasingly powerful aliens in what looks like a video-game boss gauntlet. What was initially an accident, quickly turns out to be skill. A car is transformed into an incineration chamber, similar to the one used by Saw.

In the rare moments Brynn isn’t worrying about alien invasion, we see her processing aforementioned trauma. It’s not till the final act we learn what actually happened in Brynn’s childhood: She killed her best friend. In a common childhood spat, Brynn’s friend shoves her to the ground. Brynn, the little girl, grabs the rock and throws it at her friend’s head without thinking. Like that alien.

I’m not saying Brynn wanted to kill her friend. I’m not saying Brynn wanted to kill her best friend. But Frodo didn’t want to carry the Ring. Joseph Campbell’s classic story of the reluctant hero.

Nobody Will SaveIt has many emotional benefits. Brynn is able to say sorry to the vision of her deceased friend. Her apology to her self is a result of (what else?) an alien which she has killed. A collective hallucination of aliens forgives her. The tiny alien in her throat can be pulled out, allowing the woman to live. All of them are not the real ending.

For the final minutes of this film, we see Brynn — alive and free of alien control — suddenly friendly with everyone in her hometown. They’re just husks. The bodies of everyone except her have been taken over by aliens. Brynn is seen dancing with aliens and smiling, while UFOs fly into the distance.

Why would they rebuild Earth just to please a man who has murdered their own people? The aliens had accounted all losses even before landing.

No one will save you is about a powerful alien race that has traversed galaxies to find someone who didn’t get good at killing but was born good. Brynn, the natural killer of choice, is the best. They recreate the entire Earth in order to honour their Killer queen. Earth is a mere stepping-stone to total conquest of the cosmos.

Now it’s your turn. How do you feel about No one will save you’s ending(s)? Comment below.