Aahana Swrup
2017’s ’12 Feet Deep’ is a thriller film directed by Matt Eskandari that features Nora-Jane Noone and Alexandra Park as its central sister duo. The film revolves around sisters Bree and Jonna, who accidentally find themselves trapped inside a public pool under its fiberglass cover. Trapped inside the pool, the sisters are forced to survive the entire night while braving the harsh weather and each other’s company. Eventually, when a stranger, Clara, shows up and promises an escape for the sisters, Jonna and Bree realize Clara may be more trouble than they imagined. If you’re curious about how the night plays out for Bree and Jonna, here is everything you need to know about the ending of ’12 Feet Deep.’ SPOILERS AHEAD!
12 Feet Deep Plot Synopsis
Two polar opposite sisters, optimist Bree, and cynical Jonna, meet up for a swim at the Katea Public Pool. Meanwhile, the pool owner puts on signs reinstating that the pool will be closed over the weekend for a public holiday. Later the owner also finds janitor Clara stealing from the bags in the changing rooms and fires her on the spot. The owner eventually calls for the place to close, and people start to exit the indoor pool. Once outside, Jonna looks for her engagement ring to break the news to Jonna but realizes her ring is no longer in her purse.
Jonna spots Bree’s ring stuck in a grate at the bottom of the pool, and Bree dives into the pool after it. Soon, Jonna follows after her. While the women are still inside the pool, the owner, unaware of their presence, pulls the switch for the pool cover to close. As such, Bree and Jonna get stuck inside the pool with only a little space between the waterline and cover left to breathe in. In pursuit of an escape, the sisters find a small air duct in the pool cover and try to break it open to no avail. Eventually, the two get into an argument, and Jonna accuses Bree of abandoning her after Jonna’s rehab.
During the argument, Bree realizes Jonna threw her ring into the pool in a fit of jealousy. Although Bree is livid, she still tries to look for ways to escape. She suggests prying off the loose filter grate at the bottom of the pool and using it to break the fiberglass, but Jonna isn’t sure about the idea. Nevertheless, they try and fail again. Bree reveals to Jonna that she has diabetes and will fall into a coma without her insulin shot.
As the night progresses, Jonna asks Bree about their abusive father, who died in a fire. Soon, the janitor, Clara, enters the building and finds Bree’s bag. The sisters overhear Clara’s footsteps and call out for help. However, Clara decides to take advantage of Bree and Jonna’s predicament and asks Bree for her banking details in exchange for opening the pool cover. The night turns into a hostage situation when Clara turns off the pool heater to intimidate Bree into handing over her ATM pin. After Bree tells Clara her pin, Clara leaves the building.
However, Clara soon returns after discovering Bree barely has any money in her bank and tells the sisters they’ll be left to die inside the pool. Bree’s blood sugar worsens without her shot, and Jonna decides to fight back against Clara. She fashions a shiv out of a pool tile and tricks Clara into putting her ear over the cover duct. Jonna stabs Clara’s ear, and in retaliation, Clara turns on the cleaning jets filling the pool with chlorine.
Eventually, Bree realizes Clara is only holding them hostage as a sick power trip since she feels helpless in her regular life. She convinces Jonna to follow her lead, and the two sisters start apologizing to Clara and stoking her moral superiority. Clara agrees to open the cover and puts in the passcode the owner gave her. However, the passcode doesn’t work. Jonna and Bree try to convince Clara to call the cops for help, but Clara refuses and leaves the sisters alone.
12 Feet Deep Ending: Do Bree And Jonna Escape From The Pool?
After Clara leaves, Bree surrenders herself to her demise. Due to her medical condition, Bree can barely stay lucid any longer and keeps passing out for short periods of time. Towards the end, Bree makes a confession to Jonna about their father’s death. She tells Jonna that on the night of his death, Bree saw their father enter Jonna’s room and abuse her. Therefore when the fire broke out, Bree held her father down in the flames until he died, burning her hand in the process.
Bree knows how deeply their father’s actions affected her sister. Jonna was so traumatized that she tried to commit suicide once and had to be put in rehab. Even now that Jonna’s been out of rehab for three months, she’s still scared of “monsters” like her father. Her fear is one of the main things that has held her back from staying underwater long enough to pry open the filter grate. Therefore, after Bree tells Jonna that she had killed “the monster” to ensure Jonna would remain safe, it gives Jonna a new boost of bravery.
She dives down to the bottom of the pool and tries to pull the giant grate with all her strength. After she realizes she needs more leverage, she retrieves an abandoned swimsuit from the water and loops it into the grate. Using the swimsuit, Jonna is able to pry out the filter grate and uses it to break the fiberglass from the small duct opening. In the end, she successfully pulls herself and Bree out of the pool.
Does Bree Die?
Since Bree is diabetic, her chances of survival are significantly lower than her sister’s. Her low blood sugar threatens to put her in a coma and constantly pulls her under short fainting spells. When Jonna is trying to rip out the grate, Bree passes out, and Jonna has to bring her back to consciousness by performing CPR. As such, even though Jonna manages to break the fiberglass cover and pulls them out of the pool, Bree’s chances of survival seem thin.
After escaping from the pool, Jonna searches for Bree’s purse and finds her insulin shot, injecting it into Bree’s thigh. The insulin saves Bree’s life, and she comes back to consciousness. Still, before Jonna can call for an ambulance, Clara returns and pulls a gun on the sisters’ heads.
If Bree and Jonna survive this night, they’ll rat out Clara. As a result, Clara would end up in jail for her crimes. Therefore, Clara decides the only way out of this situation is to kill Bree and Jonna and erase her tracks. Nevertheless, Jonna tries to talk her out of it. Throughout the movie, Jonna’s temper constantly gets the better of her. She screams at people and insults them, which just lands her in more trouble.
However, now that Jonna and Bree have grown closer through their shared trauma, Jonna is desperate to keep her sister alive. She empathizes with Clara’s situation and begs her not to take her sister away from her. In the end, Clara can’t pull the trigger in the face of Jonna’s grief and pulls her gun down. Jonna calls 911, and when the paramedics arrive, they put Bree in an ambulance. Although Bree needs medical attention, she’s alive and escapes death.
What Happens To Clara, The Janitor?
From Clara’s first appearance in the movie, it becomes clear that Clara is willing to let her financial instability push her to morally dubious measures. However, once she starts downright torturing Bree and Jonna in the pool, her motives start to blur. She extorts money out of Bree but doesn’t simply stop there. She uses Bree and Jonna as a means to vent her frustrations. As such, she verbally abuses them and plays with their lives.
Although not much is known about Clara’s backstory, she reveals the fact that she used to be in jail once. Now she is out on probation and can’t find a job due to her status as an ex-convict. Therefore she resorts to stealing in order to pay off her bills. Nevertheless, her actions against Bree and Jonna are much graver than simple theft. She blackmails them and puts their lives at risk. Therefore, Clara returns to kill Bree and Jonna at the film’s climax.
However, after Jonna’s begging convinces Clara to spare the sisters’ lives, Jonna decides to let Clara off the hook. Jonna knows Clara has kids and doesn’t want to ruin their childhoods by putting their mother in jail. It is also possible that Jonna is too tired and mentally exhausted to go through the process of taking revenge on Clara. By now, all Jonna cares about is keeping Bree alive. Therefore, after calling the ambulance, Jonna tells Clara to leave. Since Clara turns off all the security cameras in the pool, there is no evidence of her crimes, and she likely manages to walk free after the experience.
