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Marrowbone (2017)-- my take on the movie with spoilers!


PLOT SUMMARY: Jack makes a pact with his siblings that nothing will ever separate them. But a secret in the attic threatens to destroy the family. 


Marrowbone is one of those movies that delivers shocks and surprises. From the outside, it looks like a period drama. But that’s only the first scene.




MARROWBONE Movie Plot 

We are introduced to the Marrowbones- a family consisting of a mother and four children (three boys and a girl). They move into a new house, actually a manor, and as they enter, the mother tells them one simple thing- the minute they cross the threshold, they leave the past behind.

Immediately we are made curious as to what this seemingly ordinary family must have gone through. What exactly was the mother alluding to? Never a dull moment, the scene shifts to the introduction of Allie, a very important character in the movie as we find out later. Afterward, we are shown the mother to be on her deathbed, leaving her children with only a letter detailing the roles they must undertake.

Jack, the eldest, makes a pact with his siblings that nothing will ever separate them. In the next scene, the mother is buried. Jane is in the mother’s room arranging flowers when a shot flies out the window. She gazes out and sees a man with a gun.

Cut to six months later, and the mystery of the man with the gun is unsolved and vexing. Yes, it is a glorious tactic to leave the viewer curious but it only ends up frustrating us. Why leave such a turning point in the mundane lives of the Marrowbones in such an abrupt manner?

Before we are allowed to ponder, we are made to care for the family who is doing whatever it takes to stay together. Jack isn’t twenty-one yet and therefore cannot assume responsibility for his siblings.

The others go about their daily chores and you can see something is amiss. There is a major twist coming up. You can sense it by the way the mirror is always covered and that the ceiling appears to have an ugly splotch on it that keeps appearing.

Now that I know how it ends, I can see how a major hint was thrown in from the very beginning- None of the characters are shown with each other doing different things.

If Jane, the sister, is baking, we are not shown any of the others helping her out. If Billy offers to go get a mysterious metal box from outside, none of the others accompany him.
What is in the box? Money. Why is it there and how did they know it was not only money but blood money?

Occasionally, a thumping noise is heard from the attic. When that happens, the siblings rush off to a fort they made out of cloth and play loud music to distract themselves. There are also dolls that are made to look like them- another hint. Now, why would they make dolls that resemble them? Are they voodoo? Was it customary at that time to play with dolls that look like you? It was a creepy addition to this tale.

Allie only meets Jack whenever he goes out to sell cakes. She hasn’t met his family in months. The other siblings complain about having to stay trapped inside the house- another major clue!

Things start to get worse when Jack’s rival Tom not only makes a move on his girlfriend Allie but also guesses that something seems off about the Marrowbones. Because here’s another major clue- he has only ever met Jack.




MARROWBONE Ending Explained with Spoilers! 

Allie is given a book called ‘Four Storys’ that details the events of what happened to the Marrowbones. Turns out the man with the gun was the father who was turned in by Jack to the authorities because not only was he a fraud but was also abusing Jane. However, the father escapes and is out for revenge.

Jack tries to help his siblings and ends up falling off a ledge and hits his head. At this point, I thought that all of them were ghosts. I was only ¾ right. The father goes up to the house, finds the attic door locked where his three kids are unarmed and scared. He wastes no time in getting up on the roof and climbing down.

At this point, we are not shown what happens, but Jack awakens and rushes to the house. Without opening the door, he realizes what must have happened when he doesn’t hear a response from his siblings.

So Jack ‘loses’ it. Unable to take the trauma, he does one smart thing- and that is to block the door with bricks so that it can never open. He blocks the chimney as well. The father is trapped inside but survives on the meat from raccoon and rats that scurry in through the holes.

Jack is about to kill himself as well, but his mind has snapped and he enters the fort to find his siblings sleeping. When he goes down the staircase and sees the mirror, he can only see his reflection. Not wanting to bear the truth revealed by the mirror, he cracks it, covers it and removes all mirrors from the rooms.

Allie rushes to Jack who is still living in his delusions and terrified by the thumping in the attic. Jack pushes her away and she runs upstairs to find Tom whose things she had seen downstairs.

Tom is barely holding on with his throat slit. Allie realizes she’s not alone and calls for Jack’s help. Hearing her, and supported by his love for her, he gathers up his strength, picks up the gun and goes into the attic and shoots his father.

It seemed that was all that was needed for Jack to realize he needed help and that he was suffering gravely from multiple personality disorder.

Allie does get him help and devotes her life to helping him get better. Jack is trying too, though he is still fixated on seeing his siblings happy.

This was a thrilling watch and it held my interest throughout. The twists were well crafted and the characters compelling. A delightful watch if you like ‘twist in the tale’ movies.


Scare scale: 

Comments

  1. Darn twisted plot. I really had to seek Google for clarification... Sighs. Now it all makes sense

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  2. If the kids were hallucinations, how did they end up in the photograph?

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    1. they were real until the father found them

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    2. Didn't Allie take that photo when they were all in the field together?

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    3. Yes but the picture was taken 6 months ago before the father found them to try and kill them. 6 months ago Allie actually met the children together with Jack so she knew about them.

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  3. I liked the movie, guess I will have to watch it again as I am not at all clear on wether or not the kids were real

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  4. I liked the movie, guess I will have to watch it again as I am not at all clear on wether or not the kids were real

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  5. If the kids were hallucinations, how did they end up in the photograph?

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  6. How come the dad stayed still when jack put all the bricks on the door ? Doesnt make sense.

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    1. Jack locked the door when he left the other kids and the dad came in through the chimney, so the dad wasn't able to open the door while Jack bricked it up.

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  7. Allie isn't giving Jack the pills that the doctor prescribed , you can see it in the end when she putts them in the cupboard with all the other bottles , each one is marked with the month he's supposed to take them , and none of them are empty , she's letting him have the hallucinations so he can live with them forever.

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    1. The one who killed his children is the father. Am. I getting this correct? Where was Jack When his siblings were being killed by his father?

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  8. Good explanation, I definitely get it better now. One thing still irks me. Jack had no idea what was going on in the attic, he just assumes they were dead because of no response. What if the father had them at gunpoint in silence? Or had knocked them out? He thought it better not to check, and maybe fight the father, but lock the door and brick it up??? Also, bricking up a door would take hours. Surely the dad could've busted down the door in that time, or smashed a way out somehow. The house was made of rotting wood that raccoons scurry though!

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    1. The dad was severely injured, because Jack stabbed him in the throat, and then Billy attempted to fight him with that pipe or piece of wood or whatever. It's not easy breaking down a door when you're in the best of health, let alone when you've just been stabbed, climbed up a roof and into an attic, and then beaten three of your children to death. Pretty sure you'd be tired after all that, and he certainly sounded exhausted when Jack was outside the door, screaming for his siblings. You can see in lots of shots of the attic door from the inside ,that the dad later clawed off some of the wood with his fingernails/tools, but he wasn't strong enough to break out, and with very little to eat he only got weaker.

      Jack knew they weren't at gunpoint, because his dad left the gun by the tree, and there's no way Billy or Jane would have let Jack brick them up if they were still conscious. It's possible they could have still been alive, but unlikely, because of how cruel the father was. Jack had a horrible choice to make, but he was terrified, and it was obvious his father had already killed them. Opening the door would have likely only resulted in his death, so in the end he did the only thing he could, and left that monster to starve.

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    2. After Jack "finds" his imaginary siblings in the fort and walks them to the stairwell to go downstairs and "leave all this behind them" you can hear multiple people screaming over his head in the attic. And the (imaginary) sister said earlier in the movie that they had to listen to their father scream for 2 weeks while he starved to death. After being stabbed in the throat all he could do was make a croaking sound. I believe what we hear is his siblings screaming above him, trapped in the attic with this father. Jack smashes the mirror and stops hearing the screaming now going fully delusional, believing his siblings are safe with him now. This is the most horrifying part of the movie for me. Imagining his 3 siblings trapped in the attic with their monster father, left there by Jack to starve to death and suffer who knows what else. When we see the deceased siblings they are huddled together and covered by a blanket. If the father had murdered them I wouldn't have expected them to be laying like that.

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    3. You are correct. The father knew that Jack would only open the door if he knew his siblings were still alive. That's why he didn't kill them immediately. He probably tortured them and the screaming (for weeks) was their pain by the hand of their father. It's extremely twisted and a very good plot piece. It's too bad most people here seems to have missed this!

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    4. There are clearly windows in the attic and there is the chimney. Yes, they are nailed shut from the outside, but even a weakened person would be able to push a nailed board out from the inside. There is so much light leaking into that attic there is no way the father couldn't have escaped. He was still strong enough to kill Porter and tackle Allie. It's just too far beyond plausible deniability for the father to have really beeen in the attic alive that whole time. How many doves and racoons could really have come in there for him to eat and don't forget about the results of six months in a room with no bathroom.

      It only makes sense if the father was also one of the personalities. Perhaps he killed the siblings as he was dying of his injuries and Jack found the scene and walled it all in. Jack killed Porter and attacked Allie. She called out his good personalities and then the shooting of the father represented exorcising that bad personality that had been haunting him.

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  9. But why does he have an Allie doll too In the end? Did she die? Or wasnt even real?

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  10. Bcse she bacame a "family"member

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  11. Excellent write-up. Thank you, Palvi.

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  12. wow nice sharing its cool I really like it. Thanks.
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  13. I just watched the movie and it was great! But I noticed there were voices outside the attic door right when Jack arrives to save his siblings. What are those voices? I kept repeating it but still cant understand them.

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    1. It's Dad's rasping voice. I couldn't make out the words either.

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    2. I played it back with subtitles and he said “Jack, open the door.. if you dare” and that’s when Jack started yelling and came to the realization that his siblings were dead.

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  14. I was wondering whether Sam was Jane's child? A newspaper article mentions that Jane endured abuse by her father.

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    1. Good observation, I wouldn’t have thought of that. Now that you mention it, I remember in their mother’s letter to them after she died she said that Jane will be Sam’s mother now “as it was meant to be”. And when Tom uncovers their bodies, Jane was clearly sheltering Sam, probably a Mom instinct, so I bet he WAS her son.

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    2. I thought the same. Jane looks pregnant in the paper photo. She is even holding her stomach. She also says to Jack. You have Allie. I have Sam. And Billy has noone.

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    3. The father also has his arm around Jane's waist in the photo.

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    4. The scene when the siblings are hiding in the “fortress”, Jane has same sitting between her legs. Her legs are open and I think that was a nod to Jane being his birth mother.

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  15. Did anybody pick up on the fact that Sam was actually the sister's child? Subtle references were made at various times in the movie and it coalesced with the newspaper article reporting that the father had abused the daughter.

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  16. What was the mirror symbolise?

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    1. Jack didnt want any prove that he was alone.

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  17. So was the father a fraud or a serial killer? And how many people did he kill? And did the mother die from the abuse from their father? Their father was clearly evil. He got stabbed in the throat..how could he stay alive after that? Is the stain on the ceiling the father's urine or feces?

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    1. The stain was from the decomposing bodies of the children

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  18. The father is also one of Jack's personalities, so Jack killed his own siblings after an argument about the money (the first scene where Sam cries). That is why the money is so important - they are the root to all the evil.

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    1. No, it's not. The father is real. Did you watch the whole movie before came out with such conclusion?

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    2. I believe @Bjørn H. watched a different movie Lol. Loved the Jack character/actor Brilliant!

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    3. I think he is right that the father is one of Jacks personalities at the end of the movie. I think the father did kill them and he locked him in the attic but then he died in.there. At the end of the movie I believe that the girlfriend is talking to Jack not to the father and trying to make him snap out of the personality of his father. It all makes more sense. Nobody can survive for 6 months from one raccoon and a few rats or pigeons.

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  19. Thank you for this write-up! Only just watched this movie today and was blown away by the twists. I also agree with the comment regarding the screaming heard in the attic as Jack walks towards the large mirror. Is he making it so the siblings "forget their memory"? Were they still alive up there being murdered? Did they spend 2 weeks screaming? (Since the father's voice was raspy from his throat injury)
    I love Anya-Taylor Joy's character. Sad his siblings didn't survive so that they could all live together.

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  20. Actually the kids were blocked up in the room with the dad still alive. But Jack was so out of it he couldn't hear anything. So you hear them, especially sam, screaming and crying for Jack. Then he bashes the mirror and shuts it out.

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  21. Why isn't Jane in the family photo Allie took?

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  22. I watched this movie about 3 times, me and my sister got in a disagreement, there’s no way you can watch this movie once and figure it out, but I noticed the sister was pregnant at one point

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    1. Yes she was pregnant by her dad

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  23. How did the guy from the office know to tear down the brick wall

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  24. I did not understand one fact. If you help me understand I will be more than happy.
    When they leave a diary for Alice, which Jane sends, it says in the diary how Sam, Jane and Bill die, and how does Jane send this if she is already dead and this fact is exactly mentioned in the diary???

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    1. It was all written by Jack

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    2. because jack has janes personality

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  25. I just discovered this movie the other day and it was definitely a good twist! I usually pick up on some clues leading to something like that but I was actually surprised but then it also all clicked. What blew my mind is how they talk about the screaming for 2 weeks. Definitely had to be the siblings alive still and the father wanted jack to open the door. But I will say this WHYYYYYYY didn’t jack just take the gun his dad left at the tree, with him to meet his father and shoot him! And 2 why not tell your siblings to run to safe hiding spot not locked in the house where he knows that dad will look. Ugh and he should’ve taken billy with him! Billy and Jack could’ve helped each other. But it was a good movie and stayed on my mind for the last few days.

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