Separation-- My take on the movie with spoilers!

 PLOT SUMMARY: After the death of his wife, Jeff finds that his daughter still speaks to her mother who will do anything to take care of her.

When two people decide to separate, they are sometimes unaware of the problems they bring upon those people who are involved with them; these are mostly kids.

Unfortunately,  divorce can adversely affect children, especially when the parent are always feuding over them.

Separation is about what happens to Jenny after her parents decide to separate.

SEPARATION Movie Plot

When the movie begins, we see Jeff showing off his comics and drawings to his babysitter Samantha. Meanwhile, the girl Samantha is in charge of is in the attic, climbing precariously over junk. She falls, manages to catch the beam but then slips. Looking around, you will notice that her toys are creepy looking.

Turns out Jeff and his wife Maggie created comics, and subsequent puppets from the characters known as the Grisly Kin.

Jenny was forced to play with the puppets instead of having regular toys after an important deal fell through, leaving Jeff unemployed for quite some time now and causing Maggie to take up a job with her father.

As soon as Maggie returns, she hears Jenny crying and berates Jeff for being so careless. Samantha insists it is her fault and she is right. She was too busy reading comics rather than make sure Jenny didn't go into the attic all alone.

Maggie leaves in a huff, taking Jenny with her to the hospital. Jeff is left behind.

Turns out Maggie has also filed for divorces, citing that Jeff endangered Jenny's life. She is ready to give Jeff money and go their separate ways provided she gets sole custody of her daughter.

Jeff declines the offer although his lawyer advises him to take the deal.

He wants to talk it out and they plan to meet at a cafe. Of course, Jeff ends up at the wrong cafe. However, he meets up with a friend Connor who has his own comic books publishing house. He offers Jeff a job when he cribs about his divorce. He's on the phone with Maggie and bragging about his friend wants to resurrect his characters The Grisly Kin. Connor shakes his head as he is speaking, stating that the job doesn't entail republishing outdated characters but was for inking.

Jeff thinks he's too good for that job and declines.

Maggie makes fun of Jeff and tells him that she intends to take Jenny far from him because he's an irresponsible father who can't land a job. They are fighting when Maggie tells him that only reason she's taking Jenny is because she is hers.

Thats when a car hits her and Maggie dies on the spot. It's a hit and run.

In the next scene Jeff is sprawled on the couch at the funeral while Jenny is painting the wall with chunky sauce and using fried as a paintbrush. She has also regressed to the point of talking about herself in the third person.

Jeff grows tired of her shenanigans and scolds her. She makes a fuss and leaves in a huff. Samantha comes over to smooth things over but stays with Jeff as he deals with Maggie's father Paul who comments on the family photo he put up.

He then gives an eulogy about Maggie

when suddenly a candle falls and the painting burns from one side- Jeff's side. His face melts. Samantha puts off the fire right on time.

Jeff tries to bond with Jenny but she's still talking about herself in the third person. He asks why she's talking like that but she refuses to say anything.

Soon enough, Paul insists that Jenny comes stay with him as Maggie wanted to take her away from him. He also lets him know that he suspects Jeff of being behind Maggie's hit and run.

Jeff refuses to let him take custody of Jenny but Paul is affluent and so Jeff realizes he needs to find a job quick. He goes to Connor and asks for the inking job that doesn't do justice to his talents but one he still takes up for the money.

Throughout it all, Samantha is a sympathetic ear while Jenny gets visited by something eerie that stands in the corner of her room. Jeff has nightmares about one of the puppets he created, the mime one, who consorts its body and walks on ceilings.

The next morning, Jenny confesses she's being visited by something and Jeff tells her to befriend it. He thinks Jenny has made up am imaginary friend to cope with her grief and no amount of spending a whole fun day with her is going to change the fact that she misses her mother.

So that's what Jenny does, befriend her imaginary friend that isn't so imaginary. Basically, Jeff has invited a malevolent spirit in his house but he isn't aware of it just yet.

It is when he goes into his studio and finds all his work smeared with paint that he gets angry with Jenny and wonders if it was a good idea for his daughter to have an imaginary friend.

He goes to the office because he doesn't have the time to make more. At the office, he meets Alan who is working on a comic of his own and wants to add "darkness" to it. He sees some of Jeff's artwork that he accidentally made and inserted into his inking work. Alan is impressed and hires Jeff to work with him and create more "dark" comics.

Samantha is so happy for him. Jenny keeps seeing a woman in a mask that is supposed to be her mother. She plays with it and then talks to her father about how he was ready to give her up after her mother died.

Jeff gets curious about his daughter's imaginary friend and discusses it with Alan after Jenny makes the same drawing of a dark creature as him, but in pink of course.

Alan comes up with a theory that when people die, especially when they are angry, they become malevolent and are hardly the person they once were.

For some reason Jeff begins to believe that his wife is back from the dead because she desperately wanted Jenny with her, and that she needs to be pacified.

At home, Samantha is babysitting Jenny who wanders about in the attic. Samantha opens the door only to see a tall woman with a mask. Jenny asks Samantha to play with her but she gets frightened.

When Jeff returns, she talks to him about Jenny hating her. She seems pretty composed for someone who has encountered a ghost.

Samantha had previously made a comment about her becoming part of their family and then laughed it off, now she makes an attempt to kiss Jeff which he rebuffs.

Samantha leaves, embarrassed while Jeff changes the lock on the attic door which changes in the very next scene.

Jenny keeps talking to her mother who is desperate to take her daughter.

Jeff tries to talk to Maggie's spirit and apologizes and for awhile, she goes away.

However, when Jeff and Alan present their comic to Connor, he doesn't find the ending believable, claiming that a malevolent spirit wouldn't simply go away because you apologized. He expects there to be a sequel.

Jeff and Alan exchange an uneasy look. Uh-oh.

Jeff rushes home to Jenny.

SEPARATION Ending Explained with Spoilers!

Meanwhile, Paul has received information about the hit and run driver and, no surprises here, it is Samantha.

Paul tries to call Jeff and obviously can't get through. He now understands why Jenny kept getting hurt and almost died because of her peanut allergy. It was because Samantha wanted Jenny to be her next victim. Paul goes in search of Jenny and now that Samantha learns that the old man knows, she pushes him off the stairs.

Jeff finally comes over and confronts Samantha after Paul barely is able to hold up his phone and show him the picture of Samantha's driver's license. He now sympathises with Jeff after the custody hearing wherein Jeff said he knew he was irresponsible but couldn't let Jenny lose both parents and was willing to go the extra mile for her. He had agreed to move closer to Paul so Jenny could have a grandfather in her life too.

While Samantha confesses to her demented plan to have Jeff all to herself,  Jenny is in the attic again, being beckoned by Maggie in a mask and cloak and trying to get her daughter to jump so they can be together again.

Jeff gets rid of Samantha then races to help Jenny. He tries to reason with the ghost to no avail, and then as Jenny falls, wraps his arms around her. The sky is red and the environment thorny as they fall. Somewhere along the lines Maggie senses Jeff has reformed and lets them both land safely.

They live happily ever after. Or do they?

A short scene shows the puppets in Jenny's room coming alive. So...Maggie is still there? And since Jeff has left the family photo is her room, the one Maggie hates, is she going to spare it this time or try to destroy it again?

The movie received generally negative reviews because of the portrayal of women as evil beings. Maggie was seen as a cruel mother who was willing to kill Jenny. Samantha was a killer and was willing to kill a child too. The men in the movie were seen as being supportive.

Honestly, that was not how I saw it. Maggie had to take up a job offer because Jeff couldn't get it together and regretted not being able to spend time with her daughter. When she found Jenny hurt, she grew extra protective of her. She was a mother who was constantly worried her child may get hurt and that her husband wasn't up to the task to ensure her daughter's safety because he was chasing a dead dream.

Jeff finally pulled himself together for the sake of his daughter. He could have turned Jenny against Maggie but he remains constantly supportive.

Samantha was clearly a psycho. Just why didn't Maggie go after her. After death, did she also not know Samnatha was behind her death? Or did she which is why she tried to suffocate Samantha with satin sheets? But then why let her go?

Maggie probably became one of the puppets of the Grisly Kin because she must have helped create it and that was her "darkness" avatar.

The movie isn't really so bad as per the critics reviews. Yes, the ending is a bit rushed but otherwise not a terrible movie to watch when you have nothing else planned for the day.

Scare Scale: 2/5