Diksha Sundriyal
A well-planned day takes a very unexpected turn for a woman when she encounters a serial killer in Netflix’s ‘Don’t Move.’ Iris has her own death in mind when she goes to the place where her son, Mateo, died. However, things change when she crosses paths with Richard. The experience of meeting him changes her entire thought process, especially after he drugs her, revealing his plans to kill her. As she tries to escape him, Iris does everything in her power to survive, and all along this, she has a red boat in her pocket, which eventually becomes the very thing that saves her. SPOILERS AHEAD
The Red Boat Connects Iris to Mateo
Iris lost her son Mateo while hiking with him and her husband at a state park. A moment’s lapse of attention led the young boy to fall to his death, and it wasn’t something that Iris could come out of. Since the incident, she has been slowly spiraling until she eventually comes to the point where she can’t take it anymore. So, she goes back to the point from where Mateo fell, ready to join him in death. Because her son is gone, she only has his things to hold on to him, and the red boat signifies that connection for her.
When she thinks about the good memories with her son, she thinks about playing with him and his favorite toy, the red boat. She keeps it on her bedside table, looking at it before she goes to sleep and the moment she wakes up. The day she decides to kill herself, she carries that boat with her in the memory of Mateo. Even Richard understands the significance of the toy, so much so that when he abducts her, and takes the toy from her car and gives it to her later. The importance of the toy is underlined once again when Iris tries to escape Richard after getting his car to crash, and even in all the chaos, she doesn’t forget to get the toy, which she keeps in her pocket for the entirety of the film.
The presence of the boat is an indicator of the grief that Iris carries and doesn’t let go of, no matter how dire the situation gets. Before she is physically paralyzed by Richard’s drug, she feels an emotional and mental paralysis set in due to the grief and guilt that has accumulated inside her since her son’s death. She tells Richard that she hasn’t been able to cry since the incident, which shows how she has restricted herself from completely processing her loss. She hasn’t let it out, which means that she is carrying the full weight of it with her at every moment. The red boat symbolizes all those feelings for Iris.
The Boat’s End Marks a New Beginning for Iris
Apart from her grief and loss, the toy also becomes an element to show Iris’ progression at the end of the movie. In the beginning, when she goes to the park, she seems to have made up her mind to kill herself. If Richard hadn’t shown up when he did, she probably would have jumped to her death. However, when she is abducted and paralyzed, her desire to survive kicks in. Over the course of the next few hours, she tries everything in her power to prevent Richard from killing him. By the end of the film, her suicidal thoughts seem to have subsided, and she is in no mood to die. This marked change in her psyche is represented through the red boat.
When his plan goes awry, Richard takes Iris on the water on a boat. She sees an opportunity to save herself and makes an excuse to get Richard closer to her. She asks him to get Mateo’s boat out of her pocket. Richard does it because he thinks that Iris is accepting her inevitable end. However, she uses it to distract him long enough to get the knife out of his back pocket and stab him in the neck. Moments later, she shoots him, leading to holes in the boat, which drowns, taking her with it.
For a few seconds, it looks like Iris has drowned. But then, the red boat is seen floating on the surface, and moments later, we see Iris swimming and eventually making it to shore. Mateo’s red boat floats away, signifying that her desire to kill herself has also floated away from her mind. While she still grieves her son, she no longer feels tethered to the boat and to her grief so much that she will let herself drown just to keep holding on to it. The incidents of the day, however traumatic they might have been, have changed her perspective, and perhaps now, she can finally begin to heal and deal with her grief in a healthier manner and not return to the thoughts of ending her life.
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