Sumith Prasad
Directed by André van Duren, Netflix’s Dutch film ‘Faithfully Yours’ revolves around Bodil and Isabel, two best friends who set out for a vacation together. After their journey starts, Isabel leaves Bodil for her secret affairs asking the latter to establish her fake alibis using her phone for her husband Luuk Luijten. Bodil’s life turns around when Isabel gets killed by an unknown killer, whose real target could be the former. The engrossing thriller film ends with a series of astounding revelations. If you are trying to make sense of the same, let us share our take on the film’s ending! SPOILERS AHEAD.
Faithfully Yours Plot Synopsis
‘Faithfully Yours’ begins with Bodil and Isabel leaving for Belgium for their vacation. After leaving their respective husbands, Isabel asks Bodil to use her phone to text and send images to her husband Luuk, pretending to be her, while she takes care of her secret affairs elsewhere. Since Luuk has installed a GPS tracker in Isabel’s phone, Bodil takes the phone with her everywhere she goes while her friend cherishes an adventurous and liberating time, away from the former. Meanwhile, Bodil meets a professor named Michael Samuels and ends up having sex with him. As she spends her time with him, Luuk calls Isabel’s phone, only for Bodil to pick up the same.
Luuk asks Bodil to let Isabel know that he injured his ankle and that she needs to return to him as soon as possible. Upon knowing about her husband’s condition from Bodil, Isabel plans to meet her friend to retrieve her phone. On the day Isabel is supposed to come to her aunt’s villa, Bodil discovers a large amount of blood on the establishment, which gets matched to Isabel’s blood group. After a day, the police discover a photograph of Isabel’s dead body. Officer Ann van Passel tells Bodil, her husband Milan Saber, and Luuk that a dark web user named Zadkin hired a killer to murder Isabel.
Bodil’s sister Yara gets arrested by the police since she is last seen with Isabel, sharing intimacy. When Yara gets released from custody, she meets her sister and asks her to be careful since she thinks that the killer wanted to kill Bodil instead of Isabel since the crime happens at the judge’s villa. Bodil then discovers hidden camera footage of her having sex with several men on her husband Milan’s laptop, which makes her think that her husband hired a killer to kill her, only for her best friend to get murdered by mistake. Milan clears the confusion by revealing to her that he saved the videos because the same turns him on and not because he wants to hurt Bodil because of her extra-marital affairs.
During the same time, Bodil notices that the protagonist of Luuk’s novel ‘Night Watchman’ is named Zadkin, which makes it clear that the person who hired the murderer is none other than Isabel’s husband. Luuk then tries to kill Bodil but the latter kills the former in self-defense.
Faithfully Yours Ending: Is Isabel Dead or Alive? Why Does She Stage Her Death?
After Bodil’s discovery that Luuk hired the killer, the police close the investigation and return Yara’s passport to the former. She takes the passport to her sister, only to meet Isabel, alive. Isabel then explains to her best friend that she was never killed. When Luuk hired a killer to murder Bodil, Isabel comes to know about the same. She uses the assignment as an opportunity to escape from her husband and run away with her secret lover Yara. Isabel digs deeper into the dark web communications of her husband to contact the same killer he hired to kill Bodil.
Isabel then pays the killer twice his fee to not kill Bodil. She also asks him to tell Luuk that the assignment is completed. Isabel then draws a large amount of her blood and splatters the same in Bodil’s villa to make it appear like a crime scene. With the help of Yara, she takes a fake picture of her apparent “dead body” and sends the same to the police, along with the files that reveal the interactions between the killer and Luuk. Isabel also orders a copy of ‘Night Watchman’ for Bodil to connect the name Zadkin to the name of the protagonist of the novel. Her plans materialize when Bodil connects the dots and presents to the police a late Luuk as the person behind the murder that never got committed.
Isabel initially plans to put Luuk behind bars to escape from his life. His death is an unexpected bonus she receives as she sets out to run away from Belgium with Yara. Isabel knows Luuk enough to know that the latter will try to find her if she disappears without an explanation. Therefore, she stages her death to eliminate him once and for all from her life so that she can cherish her togetherness with Yara. From their conversation with Bodil, it is evident that they love each other deeply. Yara even promises to her sister to take care of the latter’s best friend. Therefore, Isabel stages her death for the sake of love.
Why Does Luuk Try to Kill Bodil?
After Bodil’s discovery that Luuk is the man who hired the murderer, the police dig deep into his interactions with the latter, which reveals that the novelist wanted to kill Bodil rather than Isabel. Luuk tries to kill Bodil because he believes that the latter is trying her best to separate his wife from him. When Isabel first met and got together with Luuk, her world was mainly occupied with the novelist’s presence to the point it suffocated her. Luuk, however, wasn’t ready to change. He always wanted her to be near him irrespective of how it affected her. Bodil then started to liberate Isabel from Luuk’s possessiveness and the emotional suffocation she suffered from.
Bodil started to show Isabel a world beyond the depressing space Luuk offered his wife. The two best friends’ vacations must have gotten frequent, which allowed Isabel to live a liberated life. Luuk, meanwhile, saw this as Bodil’s attempts to set his wife against him. He started to believe that she is asking Isabel to move on from the depressed novelist, who is holding her back in her career, for the sake of her professional life. These beliefs and a conviction that Bodil brainwashed his wife led Luuk to hire a murderer to kill the judge.
Luuk hired a killer to murder Bodil thinking that her death will solve every problem that exists between him and Isabel. The novelist believed that he is Isabel’s soulmate and she would realize the same if she becomes free of Bodil’s influence. Thus, he tries to kill Bodil to regain his wife without realizing that the latter’s heart is filled with her love for Yara.
Do Bodil and Samuels Get Together?
After bidding her adieu to Isabel and Yara, Bodil receives a phone call from Samuels. Although we don’t get to know what she speaks to him, it is evident that she has warm feelings for him. Bodil initially sees her time with the professor as a fling because of her married life with Milan. The same may have gotten affected badly after she came to know that her husband loves watching her having sex with other men. The dynamics of their relationship must have changed with the revelation since she may not want to share her life with someone who has been secretly watching her using hidden cameras.
If Bodil doesn’t want to remain in a relationship with Milan, she may consider getting together with Samuels. He has been nothing but affectionate and understanding towards her, although she has hurt him. When he comes to know that his statement has made Bodil a suspect in a murder investigation, after she dismissed his feelings for her harshly, he promises her to withdraw the same. When she runs away from Milan, Samuels makes sure to be there for her. Bodil must be valuing all these actions and she may unite with the professor.
Read More: Where Was Netflix’s Faithfully Yours Filmed?
