MovieChat Forums > The Broken (2008) Discussion > Where the twist doesn't work (spoilers)

Where the twist doesn't work (spoilers)

posted 14 years ago by chrisrocknroll
5 replies | jump to latest

I went back and reviewed the scenes where she sees and follows herself along with the accident. I think a big problem with the twist that we're supposed to buy is she isn't acting anything like the dopplegangers in the car right before she crashes. She seems really emotional and upset by whatever just happened, like she's on the verge of tears. The she looks in the mirror, as though she's regaining her composure, and crashes.

So the problem is that she was acting human before the accident. A good twist shouldn't rely on deceptions born of inconsistency. The demeanor that she assumes once her memory returns in the bathroom is the one she should have been wearing in the car.

I think there was a really cool idea behind this movie, but it wasn't executed in a particularly compelling fashion. The mirror dopplegangers and the meditations on identity were ultimately only there as props while the movie pretty much existed solely to have a plot twist. Basically it was just: Exposition, Weird Crap, Plot Twist, Fin.

[–] autumnboyq 14 years ago

I noticed that too and agree. It didn't kill the movie for me but I DID notice it…

[–] merripen 14 years ago

I simply thought they made the duplicates too robotic - why not have them capable of acting normal? Isn't that a better movie?

[–] dking2011 14 years ago

The film kind of suggests they lack emotion, but the robotic movement is probably just a small period whilst adjusting to new 'life'. We see them acting perfectly human, albeit lacking full emotion.

I think we never saw the full picture for the obvious reason of suspense during the film. Then Gina's 'doppelgänger' forgot her memories after the accident.

If it is to be believed that doppelgängers have no reflection, then I can't explain the scene in the car before the accident as she is looking in her rear view mirror. This is the only real question I have about this movie.

I never considered it a major plot twist either, I thought it was pretty obvious. Good movie though!

[–] AMS-4 14 years ago

The film doesn't say that the doppelgängers don't have reflections.

[–] Leopardman4 14 years ago

The comments in this thread best reflect [!] my feeling of a failure in fair play in this movie - or consistency, as it has been called here.

The Mirrored are presented as surly and affect-deficient so that we can recognize them. But Gina McVey is distinct from them throughout the movie to provide a suspenseful feeling that the Body Snatchers (different movie, similar feeling) are closing in. Fair play breaks down because of the contradiction involved in Gina's manner. The Mirrored suffer from ADS (Affect-Deficiency Syndrome), and Gina does not; therefore, we assume she is not one of them and that she is threatened by them. And then - rabbit out of a hat! - she IS one of them after all: just a touch of post-traumatic amnesia... Myself, I've been forgetful at times, but I don't believe I have ever mislaid my Dominant Evil Side.

The mirror doubles are not, incidentally, the William Wilson figures represented in the head quote, although "WW" has an interesting passage that precedes the one quoted to begin the movie: "A large mirror--so at first it seemed to me in my confusion [says the narrator, who adopts the name William Wilson, the name of his nemesis, to tell the story]--now stood where none had been perceptible before; and, as I stepped up to it in extremity of terror, mine own image, but with features all pale and dabbled with blood, advanced to meet me with a feeble and tottering gait."