Aahana Swrup
Netflix’s ‘Mother’s Day’ is a Polish action thriller film, originally titled ‘Dzien Matki,’ directed by Mateusz Rakowicz. The film features Agnieszka Grochowska as its lead alongside Adrian Delikta and Szymon Wróblewski. The film follows a retired special agent, Nina Nowak, who faked her own death and gave her son, Maks, up for adoption.
A decade later, when an old enemy resurfaces and kidnaps Maks, Nina is forced to use her lethal skills and go up against some of the biggest gangsters in the city. The film is jam-packed with gritty action sequences and depicts a complex relationship between a mother and her son whom she never knew. If you’re curious to learn how things work out for Nina and Maks, here is everything you need to know about the ending of ‘Mother’s Day.’ SPOILERS AHEAD!
Mother’s Day Plot Synopsis
On the night of Mother’s Day, ex-special agent and current junkyard crane operator Nina Nowak goes out to a convenience store to buy herself some alcohol. On her way back, she notices a group of men harassing two girls and intervenes. After a violent altercation with the men, Nina returns back to an empty apartment. The next night, Nina drives down to her biological son, Maks’ house and spies on him celebrating his 17th birthday with his parents from her car across the street.
When Igor, a cop, and Nina’s old friend, arrives, the two drive to a graveyard and leave flowers at Nina’s empty gravestone. A few days later, a gang of masked guys jumps Maks as he’s skateboarding home. Maks manages to escape, leaving his phone behind, but soon after, he gets caught and taken in a van.
Meanwhile, an ABN department discusses the threat posed by the “Beauty Queen” Diplomat and her regime’s illicit activities like money laundering. The Diplomat is involved with Wolto Woltomierz, a maniacal second-generation gangster who killed his own father and inherited his organization. Two separate gang leaders, Human trafficker Titus Konopka and drug ring runner Ivo Jarecki, work under Wolto’s command.
The next morning Nina discovers that Maks is missing through his social media and asks Igor to collect some intel about Maks from the police force. Igor comes through and locates Maks’ phone, in which the kidnappers have left a recorded audio message. The message is from Duśan Dragan, a Serbian gangster, announcing that he has kidnapped Maks as an act of revenge since his mother, Nina “Kikimora” Nowak, killed his father.
Igor also procures CCTV footage of the street Maks was kidnapped from and tells Nina that the kidnappers’ van belongs to Woltomierz. Igor advises her against crossing paths with Wolto’s gangs. Nevertheless, Nina attacks Ivo’s place and singlehandedly fights off his goons. Afterward, she asks Ivo about Maks’ location and discovers that Titus has him. As such, she storms Titus’s lair and makes her way through his henchmen. After Nina finds Maks tied up in a room, Titus ambushes her and ties her up.
Wolto arrives at Titus’s lair shortly after. However, by then, Nina and Maks escape, driving to an underground safe house. Inside the bunker, Maks tells Nina he wants to call his parents to ease their worries. Nina tells him his phone call can be traced but secretly makes a call to Igor and asks him to contact Maks’ parents. Later in the night, she wakes to find Maks talking to his parents on the phone. She destroys the phone and freaks Maks out, who desperately tries to run away from the locked bunker. As a result, Nina reveals that she’s her biological mother to Maks and hands her a box of evidence. Their conversation is cut short when two of Wolto’s goons storm the bunker.
After Nina hides Maks at a safe spot, she fights off the two criminals and leaves the bunker to take on the rest of Wolto’s gang. As she steadily makes her way through the crew, she eventually faces off against Wolto himself. A grueling fight with Wolto and his handheld tasers ensues. In the end, after Emma gets attacked with a Taser gun, she wraps the wire around Wolto’s neck and chokes him to death. As she recovers from the fight and takes a breath, she sees Maks in the distance. After witnessing Nina kill Wolto, Maks runs away from her in fear.
Mother’s Day Ending: Does Nina Save Maks?
Soon after Maks runs away from Nina, he stumbles across The Diplomat’s son, who’s keeping watch on Wolto’s base. As a result, The Diplomat’s son abducts Maks and takes him back to his mother. Meanwhile, Nina roughly fixes her injuries and visits Maks’ house, thinking Maks might have returned there. However, soon after arriving at the house, Nina passes out, mumbling about how she’s Maks’ mother. Maks’ father patches Nina up with the proper tools and wakes her up. Afterward, Nina gets a call from The Diplomat, who tells her if she wants Maks back, she has to rob Wolto’s money from the police.
Nina agrees and goes to Igor for help. At first, Igor is against the idea since the money is locked inside the police headquarters with 150 armed guards. Still, he agrees to share the blueprint of the building with Nina. However, once Nina exits his car and starts to walk out of the parking lot, Igor runs her over with his car and kidnaps her. Igor takes Nina to a remote forest clearing with his other accomplices. Upon reaching the clearing, two of Igor’s allies make Nina dig a grave while pointing a gun at her. However, Nina fights them off and chases after Igor. When Igor tries to drive away in his van, Nina shoots at the vehicle with a gun. The van crashes and blows up, sending bags full of money falling from the sky.
Nina realizes that the police never confiscated Wolto’s money and that Igor was behind Maks’ kidnapping from the beginning. Instead of chasing after Igor, Nina collects the cash and takes it to The Diplomat as per their deal. However, since Nina can only salvage two bags of money for The Diplomat, she refuses to let Maks go and plans on killing both Maks and Nina.
Nevertheless, when The Diplomat asks her son to kill Maks, her son disapproves of the order. While Maks stays at The Diplomat’s office as a hostage, he plays a game of chess with her son. Previously, The Diplomat’s son only ever played chess against himself. As such, when he plays against Maks and loses, he comes to respect Maks and value him as a person. Therefore, when the time comes, he tells The Diplomat he wishes for her to let Maks go. The Diplomat has a soft spot for her son and cannot refuse his demand. On Nina and Maks’ drive back, Igor crashes his car into Nina’s and tries to kill her. However, Nina fights him off and leaves him to the cops. In the end, Nina and Maks are able to walk away from the whole ordeal with each other alive.
Who is Duśan Dragan?
When Nina first hears the voice message from Duśan Dragan, he introduces himself as the son of Spiridon, a criminal from Nina’s old mission. In the message, Duśan reveals he knows Nina is responsible for his father’s death and that he’s kidnapping Maks because of the same. However, Nina used to be a secret agent. As such, her identity remained a secret from her target, and no one was supposed to know about her involvement in any of her missions. Due to the same, Nina suspects a leak from an inside source, but Igor quickly brushes off her concern.
Later, when Igor and his crime partners try to kill Nina, she finds out that the message from Duśan was a trap set up by Igor. Igor, alongside some other ABN Agents, formed an alliance and contacted Wolto, pretending to be Duśan Dragan. Igor knows Nina closely, and he’s aware of her high skill set and deadly determination.
Ever since Igor’s divorce, he barely sees his daughter, Zosia, since he’s been having financial problems and has to pay alimony to his ex-wife. Therefore, he came up with the elaborate charade of making Wolto kidnap Maks and indirectly sending Nina after him. Igor wants Nina to take down the wealthiest gang in the city so that he and his team can steal Wolto’s money. With Wolto’s money, Igor can enroll Zosia in a university in his city so that he can be more present in her life. In order to do so, Igor crafts up the persona of Duśan Dragan with one of his men mimicking a deep Serbian voice for the audio message.
What Happens To Nina?
Toward the end of the story, Nina takes Maks back to his parent’s house, where the family happily reunites. Maks asks if he’ll ever see her again, and Nina tells him it’s entirely his choice. Throughout the movie, Nina constantly checks up on Maks from afar, spying on him and stalking his social media accounts. She wants to be a part of Maks’ life but can’t due to her past. Years ago, some people targeted Nina and Maks’ father and successfully hunted him down. After her husband’s death, Nina realized she had to fake her death and remove herself from her enemies’ eyes. In doing so, she had to part ways with her son because she couldn’t give him a safe and happy life.
However, Nina recognizes the fact that Maks doesn’t owe her anything. She has been absent from his life from the start, and now people are kidnapping him due to his relationship with her. As such, she gives Maks the choice to keep her in his life if he wants. A few days later, Maks arrives at Nina’s place for lunch. The conversation between them is stilted and awkward, but they still make an effort to grow their relationship.
However, when Maks asks Nina about her and his father’s history, someone knocks at Nina’s door. On the other side of Nina’s apartment is her mother. Nina’s mother tells Nina that many criminals know about her now and that bad things are coming. The film ends with an opening for more adventures for Nina and Maks in a potential sequel.
Read More: Where Was Netflix’s Mother’s Day Filmed?
