Diksha Sundriyal
Netflix’s ‘Loving Adults’ follows the story of Leonora and Christian, who find themselves caught in a loveless marriage that they can’t get out of. It starts as an extramarital affair but things take a bloody turn when a murder happens. What follows is a series of events that result in Leonora and Christian’s relationship becoming all the more twisted and dark. By the time the story ends, their marriage becomes so convoluted that one can’t help but wonder why they couldn’t have figured out something simpler for themselves. The ending packs a punch and it looks like maybe, Christian and Leonora were really meant for each other. Here we analyze what the ending really means for them. SPOILERS AHEAD
Loving Adults Plot Synopsis
Leonora was a gifted violinist. Her career looked bright, but she had put that success on hold when her son got really sick. Someone needed to stay at home and take care of him while her husband, Christian, went out to make money. So, Leonora gave away her career, everything that she’d worked for her entire life. At least, she had a happy family. But that changes when she discovers that while their son was fighting cancer and she was taking care of him, Christian found love with some other woman, named Xenia.
Now that their son has recovered and seems to be doing well, Christian decides that it’s time they get a divorce. The problem is that their marriage is the only thing that is left in Leonora’s life now. She can’t go back to her career because she hasn’t played violin for years. She doesn’t want to go to work at the supermarket like one of Christian’s friend’s ex-wife. Despite Christian’s arguments that he is in love with someone else, she refuses to divorce him.
Leonora gives him a choice. Either he stays with her, or he goes to jail for the tax fraud he’d committed a few years back. In any case, he is not ending up with Xenia. Being cornered by Leonora angers Christian, and he decides to kill her but ends up killing someone else, and that’s where things get even more complicated between him and Leonora.
Loving Adults Ending: What Happened to Xenia’s Body?
One of the main things needed to solve a murder is to find the dead body. It can reveal a lot of things about the crime, and often becomes instrumental in catching the culprits. Leonora knew this, just like she knew how to have a perfect alibi. When she discovered that her husband had murdered a woman believing it was Leonora, she becomes convinced that he will surely attempt to kill her next time, and might actually succeed at it. While her first instinct is to call the cops and tell them everything, she gives the situation some thought and comes up with a way to not only save her marriage but also save the future of her son. She asks Christian to kill Xenia and offers to help him with the task.
Leonora creates a perfect alibi for herself and Christian by booking a weekend at a spa. She makes sure that people see them, or at least hear them, and uses sound as an alibi. While Christian sneaks away to kill Xenia, Leonora keeps up the ruse and makes it look like her husband never left her side. However, she also knows that Christian might get cold feet, considering that he was in love with her. Her suspicion is proven right when she shows up at Xenia’s house and discovers that instead of killing her, Christian slept with her.
Leonora kills Xenia, but they can’t leave the body behind now because Christian’s DNA is all over the place, not to mention, on the dead body. After Christian copes with the shock of Xenia’s death, he and Leonora clean the house, even changing the bedsheet, so that none of Christian’s or Leonora’s DNA is left behind. As for the dead body, they realize that there is a perfect way to get rid of it.
In the days before Xenia is killed and while Christian was only considering whether or not to put forward the topic of divorce, they were also preparing for the Midsummer celebration. With his friend, Christina had set up a bonfire in the middle of the lake, which was to be lit up the day after Xenia’s death. So, instead of burying her or using any other method of disposing of her body, they decide to go with the one thing that they could do in front of everyone, with none the wiser and no evidence left behind for the cops to find. They put Xenia’s body in the bonfire.
Detective Holger had his suspicions about Christian, ever since the hit-and-run case. He becomes all the more convinced of his guilt when he discovers that Christian and Xenia were having an affair and that getting rid of her body would be in his favor if they’d had sex before she was killed. He knows that finding Xenia’s body is paramount to catching her killer, so he conducts an extensive search of the area, which leads him to the lake. While the dogs follow the scent, no one realizes that they are actually pointing towards the bonfire in the middle of the lake.
At the same time, a nervous Christian hurries to light up the bonfire, and just as the detectives watch from the other end of the lake, he burns Xenia’s body in plain sight. By the time Holger realizes what has happened, he can’t do anything about it. While the flesh is burnt, Xenia’s bones remain, but they are much easier to dispose of. In the last scene, we see that Christian and Leonora go somewhere far away, to some other lake, where Christian throws the bones in the water, never to be found again.
Do Christian and Leonora Stay Together?
A couple that murders together stays together, mostly because they are privy to each other’s crime, and divorce in their case doesn’t look like a possibility without jail. Leonora knows that if love couldn’t tie them together, crime will. Previously, when Christian had talked about getting a divorce because he was in love with Xenia, she’d stopped him in his tracks by threatening to go to the cops about the tax scam he’d pulled off at his company. Christian could neither afford the jail time nor the bad reputation for his business, so the only option left for him was to kill Leonora, which didn’t go as swimmingly as he’d expected.
If the threat of spending five years in prison had kept Christian from leaving her, a murder charge would mean that he’d never set eyes on another woman, let alone think about divorce. Christian had already killed a random woman and Leonora could hold it over him, but her leverage also put her in a dangerous position. In this situation, Christian would always see her as a threat and might kill her someday. To truly bind them to each other, she decides that the best thing is to get their hands dirty together. This way, Christian would have just as much power over Leonora and he wouldn’t feel threatened by her.
The ending of the film makes it look like Leonora’s plan has worked. With Xenia out of the way and three crimes in his past, Christian finds it best to stick with his wife. He also realizes that as dangerous as Leonora is, she is also the one who tends to get him out of hairy situations. So, after disposing of Xenia’s body, they sell their house and move to someplace else, perhaps to have a fresh start. Or, at least, to put some distance between themselves and the detective who’d grown suspicious of them. Throwing Xenia’s bones into a lake, Christian bids farewell to his past and prepares himself for the rest of his life with Leonora.
Read More: Is Netflix’s Loving Adults Based on a True Story?
