Aahana Swrup
‘Alone,’ the thrilling horror story of a woman’s survival after she finds herself in an increasingly dangerous situation, follows the story of Jessica, who undertakes a journey on her own, driving from one town to another. However, the woman finds herself acquiring a shadow, a seemingly harmless man who constantly comes across her path. Eventually, the man ends up spelling trouble for Jessica as he abducts and locks her away inside a cabin in the middle of the woods. Thus, Jessica enters a battle for her life, compelled to conquer the devious man and the unforgiving surroundings around her to earn her freedom.
While Jessica’s pressing predicament remains the narrative’s focal point, her past— specifically the recent traumatic loss of her husband— continues to loom over the character. For the same reason, Eric, the husband, catches the viewers’ attention despite the character’s absence from the plot, pushing them to wonder about the details surrounding his untimely death. SPOILERS AHEAD!
Jessica’s Husband’s Desolate Mental Health
Eric’s presence plagues the narrative from the film’s beginning as Jessica packs up her life into a U-haul trailer attached to her car. The woman’s desperate need for a fresh start and disinclination toward sharing a four-day ride with her parents pushes her to make the drive on her own. While the same allows her some solitude needed to clear her head, the silence on her trip also highlights the significance of her recent tragic experience.
Once the ring on the chain around Jessica’s neck makes an appearance, Eric’s nameless influence increases, providing the viewers with a hint of the tragedy in the woman’s life. Yet, it isn’t until the strange man— Sam— abducts Jessica that the entire truth reveals itself. The woman was not oblivious to the dangers that lurked in the corners for women like herself. Yet, despite her best efforts, Jessica finds herself living through a nightmare when she wakes in Sam’s dark, empty, and locked basement.
The kidnapper’s intentions remain evident after he enters the room, commanding Jessica to strip. However, upon noticing the woman’s fighting spirit, Sam decides to psychologically torture her by extracting photos and videos of the woman’s husband from her phone. Therefore, as Sam forces Jessica to watch her memories with Eric and relive the bittersweet experiences, the reality about the latter’s death comes out.
Eric was dealing with some mental health issues that pushed him toward suicidal ideations. Therefore, Jessica’s husband committed suicide with a gun due to his mental health issues. The incident left a formidable scar on Jessica’s psyche, further worsened through the awful turn of events that follow after she attempts to rebuild her life in Eric’s absence.
Furthermore, as Jessica’s fight against Sam progresses, taking the woman out into the woods, where she tries to escape her assailant, the man doubles down on his efforts to hurt the woman. To do so, Sam prods at Jessica’s inner demons by vocalizing her guilt at not spotting the signs Eric may have exhibited before his suicide to signal his deteriorating condition.
As such, Jessica’s experiences throughout the film only work towards exacerbating her fragile state over her husband’s death. In the end, although Jessica manages to overcome Sam and his attack on her life by killing the man and securing safety for herself, she knows she will never quite be able to overcome her grief for Eric’s death.
Read More: Is Alone (2020) Inspired by a True Story?
