Aahana Swrup
‘The Abyss’ is a Swedish disaster film that follows a family with complex inner dynamics as they try to survive a tragic seismic accident within their earthquake-prone mining town. Due to Kurina’s close proximity to the Kiirunavaara mine, which runs underneath the town center, the citizens are used to regular small tremors. Furthermore, the town is actively in the process of a gradual move eastward to ensure public safety. Nevertheless, after some irregular activity catches Frigga’s attention, the mine’s security manager quickly realizes that a rock burst is about to lead to the city’s collapse.
Thus, with the clock ticking against her as her dysfunctional family falls apart in the face of the disaster, Frigga must lead her people and her family to safety and find a way to survive. The film’s tense pressure cooker narrative continues to rise in stakes, stacking the odds against Frigga’s family. Therefore, people must be curious to know where this disaster finds the Vibenius family in the end. SPOILERS AHEAD!
The Abyss Plot Synopsis
Ever since Frigga and Tage’s divorce, the couple and their kids, Mica and Simon, have been having a hard time adjusting to the new family dynamic. As a result, on the morning of Simon’s birthday, while Tage awaits his son’s presence at his house for the week, the teen stays out without any warning. Meanwhile, Simon’s mother, Frigga, readies herself to spend her son’s first birthday away from him. However, her firefighter boyfriend, Dabir, from a nearby town, surprises her with an early visit to help through the tough time.
Nevertheless, the gesture ends up backfiring when Tage arrives at Frigga’s house, searching for Simon. Consequently, Dabir has a tense first meeting with Tage and Mica much earlier than Frigga would have wanted. Mica is already unhappy with her mother for the authority’s selective picking of which buildings to move to New Kiruna, deeming their process unfair. Nevertheless, a more pressing problem befalls the family when they realize Simon is missing just as a dangerously big earthquake hits the town.
Therefore, Frigga and Tage, the mine’s security head and head of operations, respectively, rush to check things out at the mine and evaluate the level of danger to come up with an evacuation plan. Meanwhile, they assign Mica the task of finding Simon. At the mine, Frigga and Tage venture underground, alongside Erika, a veteran mine worker, to make an on-site assessment. Predictably, only bad news awaits the trio and Patrick, the drone operator, as Frigga discovers a giant undetected cavity within the mine.
The cavity’s discovery in the direction of Kunira seamlessly leads to the realization that the tremors will likely lead to the town’s devastating collapse. Yet, before Frigga and her team can warn the townsfolk and corral them towards evacuation, the mine becomes a danger all on its own, with the ceilings and the walls caving in. As a result, the team has to strategically take shelter in rescue chambers and crawl through tiny tunnels to attempt escape.
Tage’s claustrophobia complicates the situation, and the dangerous endeavor ends with Erika’s unfortunate death as the woman gets buried within the mine walls. Back above the ground, Mica learns about a drunken party hosted by some teenagers near the town’s fence that separated it from the rift zone and ventures into the hills, joined by Dabir, who prevents her from making rash decisions. At the rift zone, Mica realizes that some teenagers have fallen victim to massive cracks that formed due to the earlier seismic tremor. Yet, she doesn’t believe her brother to have met a similar fate.
Around the same time, Frigga and Tage emerge from the mine, with the mother calling her daughter to instruct her to evacuate to her father’s house at New Kiruna. Still, as soon as Mica realizes that the town is about to collapse, she abandons her self-preservation and returns to the city center to save her girlfriend, Aila. As a result, all three Vibenius’ and Dabir find themself within the city boundaries in anticipation of a massive collapse as they attempt to evacuate the town.
Nonetheless, people are reluctant to heed the warning until minutes later, the disaster arrives, rapidly closing in on the town in a huge wave as people attempt to outrun it. Mica almost faces a brutal demise after her car gets stuck in a sinkhole, but Dabir manages to rescue her in the nick of time. Frigga and the others also make a run for their lives while helping others along the way. In the end, Mica loses Aila, but the rest of her family manages to survive.
The survivors gather at the local hospital, where the severely injured patients receive whatever treatment possible. Yet, Simon is nowhere to be seen. Nonetheless, an injured teenager and Aila’s grandmother inform Frigga that while other kids partied near the rift zone, Simon planned to escape his unpleasant family by going to his happy place: a call of duty gaming session.
As such, Frigga realizes that Simon must have run off to his high school, where kids collected for the same reason. Despite the looming danger outside and the high school’s damaged situation, Frigga and her family, including Dabir, decide to travel to the school for the chance of Simon’s return.
The Abyss Ending: What Happened to Simon?
While Kiruna’s upcoming doom remains the central point of conflict within the film, Simon’s disappearance adds an extra layer of personal concern and thrill for the film’s protagonist characters. Therefore, after the town’s initial collapse, as Simon’s story takes center stage, it tugs on the viewers’ curiosity, compelling them to wonder if any semblance of luck remains in the character’s lives on the heels of their massive misfortune.
However, even as Frigga and the others walk into the wrecked high school filled with dead or dying kids in the hallways, they’re well aware that finding Simon won’t necessarily equate to good news. Furthermore, emotions are running high due to the nature of the events that led Simon to seek out comfort in school in the first place. Prior to his birthday, the boy got into fights with both his parents.
Although Frigga and Tage have long since separated, the former isn’t entirely over his ex-wife. On the other hand, Frigga is happy with her current situation and doesn’t wish to return to her previous life. For the same reason, there is palpable tension between the two parents that creates unpleasant complications within the family. The same negatively affects Mica and Simon, with the latter asserting that he can no longer remain with his family since he feels everyone’s unhappiness.
As such, Simon escaped to the high school to be with his friends and play his favorite video game as his birthday arrived, preferring to spend the day alone than with his newly broken family. Consequently, the dreadful day finds his family at the school’s ruins, attempting to make their way to the establishment’s computer lab, traversing through collapsed ceilings, walls, and random rubble.
Eventually, Frigga climbs through a vent to travel past a debris wall and arrives at the room most likely to house her son. While a girl, Tina, lies impaled, Frigga finds her son in a sunken section of the floor beside the other kid. Even though rescuing Simon from the ditch would be difficult, Frigga can finally take a breath of relief, settled at the fact that her son is at least alive and relatively unharmed.
Does Tage Die? Does Dabir Propose To Frigga?
Soon after Frigga finds Simon, the others join her on the other side of the debris wall. As such, a plan quickly forms of fashioning a rope harness for the mother to lower down to her son and rescue him. Nevertheless, Frigga ends up getting stabbed through the leg and stuck to a floor edge. Furthermore, the floor threatens to give out further, taking Frigga with it as the aftershocks of the seismic tremors arrive.
Still, the Vibenius remain a stubborn bunch, refusing to back down. As such, the kids come to their mother’s rescue and risk their lives to keep the floor stable and save her skewered leg. Afterward, Dabir and Tage pull the three out of the crack one after the other. Yet, after Simon’s retrieval, the hanging platform, providing stability to the mother-daughter duo, almost gives out, compelling Tage to hold onto electric wires to prevent its fall.
As a result, Tage chooses to get electrocuted to ensure Mica and Frigga finally return to safety. Thus, the man dies, leaving his family, especially Simon, devastated at the loss. For all his hostility toward Dabir, Tage’s last words remain an encouragement for the other man’s relationship with Frigga.
Earlier, Tage discovered Dabir’s plans to propose to Frigga. While the former respected Dabir for all he’s done for his family in the past day, including risking his life for Mica, he can’t help but freak out at the discovery. Despite all the issues in their marriage, Tage never truly got over Frigga and still holds out hope for their relationship. Nevertheless, he can tell Frigga has truly moved on after witnessing her relationship with Dabir, which only remains a source of anger for him.
Yet, in his dying moments, Tage recognizes the stability and happiness Dabir brings to Frigga and realizes he wants him to look over his family in his absence. In the end, Frigga, her kids, and Dabir emerge from the school as survivors, with emergency teams tending to their injuries. In the aftermath, Dabir considers the engagement ring in his pocket. Even though the man wants to propose to Frigga, he recognizes that the time isn’t correct— but will likely pop the question on a sunnier day in the future. Thus, the film ends, on a bittersweet note, with the Kurina town’s survival, even in the face of mass destruction and tragedy.
Read More: Is The Abyss Based on a True Story?
