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Jason Satterland’s The Abandon (2024) is a sci-fi thriller that boasts potential but ultimately falters due to its claustrophobic single-location setting. While Jonathan Rosenthal and Tamara Perry deliver commendable performances, the film struggles to maintain a gripping pace within its confined environment. Unlike Trapped, which cleverly varied its monotonous backdrop to keep viewers engaged, The Abandon relies heavily on its characters and plot to carry the narrative. While sharing structural similarities with the enigmatic The Platform, the film’s frequent departures from the core survival thriller genre dilute its impact. Despite these shortcomings, fans of the genre will find The Abandon an intriguing watch.
Spoilers Ahead
The Abandon (2024) Plot Summary & Movie Synopsis:
“The Abandon” opens with a battlefield scene where our protagonist, Miles Willis, loses his comrades. When he realizes that he can not take the enemy on his own, he decides to move away from the blood-frenzied zone. Eventually, he gets shot in his gut. He rests nearby, waiting for his death. Miles is sure that he will not last long. While he is struggling with pain, he sees an air strike. Something bright seems to be coming at him.
Soon after, when Miles opens his eyes, he finds himself inside four walls, which are kind of box-shaped. Miles thinks he is kept here for a while. He calls out for help, but no one seems to be responding. When Miles realizes that he is alone, he tries to patch up his bullet wound to stop the constant bleeding. As time progresses, Miles starts to realize that this place is designed to torture him. But who is responsible for it remains unclear to him.
How does Miles Get in Touch with Damsey?
Miles sees messages being written on the wall by something invisible. The room behaves peculiarly. It automatically gets very hot, and soon after, it becomes so cold. After one point, the whole room starts to rotate, throwing Miles and his things here and there. When the spin stops, Miles finds himself on a different floor than before. He sees a couple of his things, including his satellite phone. Miles also finds a telecom device and tries to communicate with whoever is possible. He receives a signal but realizes that these walls are blocking his signals, which is why he is unable to send any.
Later, he thinks of using the satellite phone so that he can send information about where he is. But, since the phone is stuck on the other side of the wall, he fails to get to it. When the room again spins, Miles gets hold of the satellite phone. Right after that, he receives a call from a woman named Damsey, who is stuck in the same situation, just like Miles. She says that Miles’s sat-phone number was written on Damsey’s wall, which is how she got in touch with him. With time, Miles realizes that Damsey is a teacher and she is often physically abused by her husband.
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As they become more familiar with each other, Miles also discloses his traumatic childhood. His father, who was also in the army, used to lock him up. He could hear his mother scream because of all the ruthless abuse. Miles also confesses that as he grew older, war and his childhood experience brought out his father within him. He explains that there are times when he gets angry with his loved ones, including his child and wife. He regrets these moments while Damsey tries to console him.
What does the Man with the Accent Tell Miles?
As they continue to talk, there are times when the room often spins and sinks. Miles calculates the time in between each spin occurring. With that, they reach the solution of how much time they have left until the room suffocates them to death. Until now, neither of them has any clue why they were brought here. Miles only realizes that Damsey is from 2020 while he is from 1991. Therefore, one thing they are certain of is that these walls are made by some more advanced race who are trying to learn about human behaviors simply by making them survive through tough conditions. Meanwhile, the call gets cut once, and another caller calls on Miles’s sat-phone.
This time, it is a man with a certain accent who tries to stop him from solving something. Miles does not understand. However, later, some kind of math problem turns up on the wall. Both Miles and Damsey are good with numbers, so Miles tries to write down the problem. By this time, they realized that whatever they wrote on their side of the wall, the other was able to see it. So, when Miles writes down the problem on his side, Damsey is able to see it. However, an invisible third party tries to erase the equation. It is perhaps the man who called earlier to stop Miles from solving anything.
What do Damsey and Miles Plan to Escape?
Anyway, Damsey finally comes up with the closest possible way to escape from these walls. She says that since the people or whatever has brought them here can bring people from past and future, there remains no doubt that these people can tamper with time. Whether it is with the help of a time machine or anything, the equation that appears on the wall must have something to do with the 4th-dimensional world. So, if they can solve the equation, perhaps they can easily get out of the mess they are in right now. Miles says maybe the one who comes up with the solution is the one who finally escapes.
But Damsey says that there is no such thing as that because, if it were a rule, one could never see what another person writes on the wall. Just when they are reaching close to the solution, another spin hits. This time, the walls sink a lot faster than before. Damsey is forced to imagine her husband hitting her, while Miles is forced to see himself abusing his wife. Everything changes from this time onward as Damsey is in a dark phase where she feels like her abuser has access to these walls. Miles tries to make her understand that the people who are overseeing them are only trying to play with their minds. None of this is reality except for the fact that they need to get out of this place no matter what.
The Abandon (2024) Movie Ending Explained:
Are Miles and Damsey able to Escape the Walls?
When the walls start to sink faster, Miles calculates the time to get the value of the constant so that the equation can be solved. There comes a time when there is not much space remaining within the walls. Hence, Miles begs Damsey to get rid of all the traumas she is having right now and write the solution. Meanwhile, the man calls again to explain to Miles why he should not solve the equation. According to the man, the people or creatures who hold them here only want them to solve the problem to test whether they are capable of doing so, or perhaps the solution would lead them to the answer they sought.
The man fears the infinite possibilities once the solution is handed over to the superior beings. However, the only thing that is going on right now in both Miles’ and Damsey’s minds is getting out of these walls, or they will die here. Damsey starts with the calculation. With Miles’ help, they reach the answer, which is 1. Damsey soon realizes that the answer to the problem resides within the unity of human beings. Number 1 suggests that human beings work as one regardless of their opinions. Soon after, Miles puts his hand on the wall. Suddenly, the wall vanishes, and he meets Damsey for the first time inside a 4th-dimensional world where they can see other people as well.
Does Miles actually return to his world?
At the end of the film, we see Miles waking up in the same location where he lost consciousness right before he found himself inside the walls. He starts walking as he finds that the army is preparing for an airstrike. Miles walks up to a higher location where he sees the US Army looking at something. He walks past them and looks at something in the sky, which is definitely quite huge in structure. The figure is not shown in the film. However, we can assume that since the solution is handed over to the creatures of the 4th dimension, they have now come to Earth. They now know that to capture the world, they must capture or kill the whole human civilization because, in a crisis, they stand as one to protect their world.
This is only a theory that can be followed by another one. In the scene where Miles is struggling inside the walls, right before the walls are gone, we see the sat-phone on his right side and the flashlight on his left. But right after he puts out his hand to touch Damsey’s hand, for one moment, we see the mirror image of Miles. Now, all the injuries on his face switch to the other side, along with the sat-phone and the flashlight changing their position as well. But this happens only for a moment. Moments later, we see the injuries, the sat-phone, and the flashlight are in the same location as before. This can suggest that Miles and Damsey have encountered each other and ended up in each other’s universe.
In layman’s terms, when Miles opens his eyes, he is in the future, in 2020, and Damsey, perhaps, has gone to 1991. This is just some random parallel world theory where certain things mirror to identify the changes between the worlds. Anyway, none of this may be true because the ending is a bit ambiguous, but it is hard to believe that this is just a continuity error. Anyway, there is no doubt about the last part, though, where Miles witnesses an alien invasion. The only thing that remains unclear is whether he is in Damsey’s universe. From what I understood and explained here, I do not have any doubt whatsoever. But if you come up with an interesting idea, do not forget to comment. It’ll be nice to know if we are in the same boat.
