Bird Boxtakes place in a post-apocalyptic hellhole where trusting the wrong person can end in disaster, but its ending is so uplifting that it almost seems too good to be true. The numbers don’t lie.People love post-apocalyptic moviesin which survival is less about escaping the monster and more about surviving human nature. There’s just something interesting about watching people fight for their lives against supernatural odds. Just look at classic zombie movies likeNight of the Living Deador indie hits like28 Days Later. Maybe people just like seeing how terrifying situations bring out the worst in characters.
Or maybe there’s something hopeful about seeing them put through hell and somehow able to come out the other side swinging. Either way,Bird Boxdelivered both and had 45 million viewers on the edge of their seats only one week after its release. The movie adaptation of the popular novel performed better than expected. Its plot twists, high drama, and high stakes went on to secure the viewership of 44 million more households in the three weeks following. Still, many people walked away perplexed as to how a movie so gripping could have such a simple ending.
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What isBird Boxabout?
Bird Boxis aNetflixmovie that follows one family’s desperate fight for survival in a world taken over by a sinister entity driving anyone who sees it to suicide. Malorie Hayes (Sandra Bullock) starts this journey as a heavily pregnant artist. Her sister Jessica (Sarah Paulson) takes her to the hospital for an appointment with her OBGYN. The day starts off simply enough with the sisters cracking jokes as Dr. Lapham (Parminder Nagra) confirms the baby’s health. Things quickly take a turn for the worse, though, when they realize the strange sickness wreaking havoc in Europe has finally landed in the United States. Jessica contracts the illness and leaves Malorie to fend for herself after she steps in front of a speeding truck.
Luckily, Malorie finds herself at the mercy of good samaritans who help her into a house where she sets up camp alongside many others – including the owner Greg (BD Wong). The movie’s title comes from how birds in a box serve as a warning when the entity is near. Once the supernatural element is temporarily out of the way, however, the dark side of humanity begins rearing its ugly head. Something horror fans have seen time and time again withTV shows likeThe Walking DeadandAll of Us Are Dead. Malorie, Tom (Trevante Rhodes), and Douglas (John Malkovich) are the primary protectors of this safe haven. But all it takes is one wrong move, and it all comes crumbling down, ending with Malorie and Tom fleeing into the wilderness.
Is there aBird Boxsequel?
Critics weren’t exactly falling over themselves with praise forBird Box. In fact, many of them found the story and its ending lackluster. One critic for RogerEbert.com even went so far as to tear down the screenplay, characters, and dialogue. However, that didn’t stop the 2018 movie from performing so well it broke Netflix records. More people watchedBird Boxin its first twenty-eight days of release than any other movie on the platform that year. Naturally, the streaming service decided to keep the story going. While somesequels likeGlass Onion: A Knives Out Mysteryreceive overwhelming praise, others tend to fall through the cracks.
This was one of those times when the follow-up just didn’t capture the same magic as the original.Bird Box Barcelonawas released in 2023, but there’s a reason why no one really cared about its ending as much as the first. It didn’t have half the cultural impact of the original movie or the book it was based on. It didn’t even reawaken theBird Boxchallenge that took social media by storm back in 2018. While the sequel came and went without making much of a peep, there was still plenty of interest in understanding the first movie’s ending.
How doesBird Boxend?
When the gang reluctantly allows Olympia (Danielle Macdonald) into their safe haven, she and Malorie become the two pregnant residents. Olympia later makes the mistake of extending that same courtesy to the wrong person. Gary (Tom Hollander) turns out to be one of the weirdos forcing people to look at the entity. He gets half of the household killed before Tom takes him out. Meanwhile, Malorie is forced to take responsibility for her own newborn as well as that of Olympia in the wake of the other woman’s death.
WhereThe Last of Uswas heartwrenching TV content, theBird Boxending reminds viewers of how there’s still hope even in the bleakest of times. Malorie and Tom make a run for it and manage to make a life for themselves in the middle of the woods. Then Tom gets a radio call from a man claiming to run a sanctuary for survivors. Tom dies before he gets the chance to see it for himself. Malorie and the kids – whom she’s strangely named Girl and Boy – take the now-infamous boat ride down a river to safety.
At some point, they hit a rough patch that tosses everyone into the water. If that’s not bad enough, the actual trek through more forest is filled with the entity going all out in its attempts to make them remove their blindfolds. In the end, though, they’re rewarded for their resilience when they reach the Janet Tucker School for the Blind. Girl becomes Olympia, Boy becomes Tom, and Malorie finally becomes a mother.
Malorie begins her journey inBird Boxcompletely unprepared to nurture another life. Jessica and Dr. Lapham can barely even get her to acknowledge that she’s pregnant, let alone make plans for the child or think about what her life will look like once it’s born. Later, Malorie has no choice but to accept herparental responsibilities as a found motherto her son, Boy/Tom, and Olympia’s daughter, Girl/Olympia.Bird Boxstarts with her trying to maintain emotional distance while giving them instructions on how to survive the treacherous boat ride.
The movie’s ending finds her once again talking to her old OBGYN. This time, however, Malorie is ready to give the kids actual names as she finally claims them as her own.Bird Boxputs its main characters through hell. The entity mimics the voices of dead loved ones, and they have to run into all sorts of scary situations while wearing blindfolds. It’s fitting, then, that the ending ofBird Boxallowed them to take a breath of fresh air and relax for the first time since the chaos started. Thank goodness for birds a box.
