Brightwood is a 2022 psychological horror movie with a tricky bent that can benefit from a deeper exploration. To talk about the beginning of Brightwood, a psychological two-hander from Dane Elcar in his feature debut, is to talk about the end of Brightwood, so spoilers begin with even the smallest of plot recaps. Starring Dana Berger and Max Woertendyke, and only Dana Berger and Max Woertendyke, Brightwood begins with a married couple, Jen (Berger) and Dan (Woertendyke), going for a run around a lake in the woods near their house.
From the get, it’s clear things are not so great in marriage land. Jen is listening to a podcast about getting a divorce, and Dan is half-heartedly apologizing for drinking too much and flirting with other girls the night before. They fight through their run, ending after one loop. However, something has changed. The path back to their home is gone, and the couple has an eerie feeling that they’ve done this same thing before. Here’s the first twist: Brightwood is a time loop movie, and Dan and Jen are going to learn some horrifying things about themselves.
What Happens At The End Of Brightwood
Jen And Dan Are Trapped In A Loop Forever
As Brightwood goes on, we come to learn that every time Dan and Jen run this loop, they create another copy of themselves. These copies are the only living things in this loop, and as “time” goes on, more copies appear. By the end of the film, we are with a different variant of the Dan and Jen we started with. This couple is a bit more savvy about their predicament, and quickly kills other Dans and Jens to stay safe. They come across a campsite, where they find a decomposing Dan, and understand this to mean there’s no way out.
As they profess their love for one another, another Dan brutally murders the Dan we’ve been following. Jen flees and falls into a pile of Jen remains from multiple other variants. She jumps into the lake to hide, and while she waits there, she spots a silvery orb in the brush that emits a loud sound as she approaches. Suddenly, another Jen variant rises out of the lake and kills Jen.
This variant’s blue jacket is caked in brown mud, which identifies her as the figure in a brown coat that the variants have seen lurking in several time loops. This Jen brings the deceased Jen’s body back to her encampment, where Dan is waiting. Together, the couple silently begin eating the ᴅᴇᴀᴅ Jen variant.
The Rules Of Dan And Jen’s Time Loop
Jen Suspects They May Be The Victims Of Extraterrestrial Meddling
The time loop rules in Brightwood are not explicitly explained, but it does seem to follow multiverse rules, rather than strict time travel ones. In Brightwood, every trip around the lake produces another instance of Jen and Dan, who can act independently of other Jens and Dans. However, it takes time for each couple to understand what’s happening, so each new variant is not as wise to what’s happening as the others who came before. Things that happen in one loop stay in the next, such as the earbuds Jen keeps throwing to the ground.
If it’s not because of aliens, perhaps they’re trapped because of some divine punishment stemming from their crumbling marriage
How Jen and Dan are kept in this time loop is a whole other question, and one with an answer that’s only hinted at as they begin to understand what’s happening to them. Jen half-jokingly theorizes that alien time travel technology crash-landed near them, and they’re caught in its orbit. It’s possible that Jen is proven correct because the silvery orb she sees at the end of Brightwood certainly looks extraterrestrial in origin. If it’s not because of aliens, perhaps they’re trapped because of some divine punishment stemming from their crumbling marriage.
How Jen And Dan Could Have Escaped The Loop
The Silver Orb Could Be The Key
Jen and Dan think there’s no escaping the time loop. One variant finds an old corpse of Dan and comes to that conclusion. Another has decided that, with no way out, they will have to eat the other variations of themselves. However, the glowing orb could have been the answer. If that was truly the source of their time looping, then maybe destroying it or investigating it further, could have desynchronized them somehow. It could also be that had they learned to love one another, they would have escaped, but we’re shown that even admitting their feelings doesn’t save them.
How Many Variants Were There In The Time Loop?
Numerous Dans And Jens Die
It’s unclear how many variants of Dan and Jen there were in the time loop, and because the rules of time are different there, it’s hard to know exactly how long the couple were going through this repeated life. It’s possible they’ve been doing this for an almost eternal amount of time. Jen stumbles upon a pile of other ᴅᴇᴀᴅ Jens, suggesting there have been far more variants than she or Dan realizes. The discovery of a rotting Dan also means that there have been variants here for a very long time.
There are only two actors in Brightwood, and Max Woertendyke also serves as producer.
It’s hard to determine just how many Dans and Jens have been through the loop, but it could be anywhere from dozens to possibly thousands to even an uncountable number, depending on what the rules of decomposition are in this loop. Perhaps the reason there’s a
No Swimming” sign is that the other bodies are hidden in the lake, and whatever being is controlling this “experiment” wants the variants to avoid stumbling upon the real truth of their situation.
Dane Elcar’s Thoughts On Brightwood
Elcar Made A 2017 Short With A Similar Premise
As his first feature film, Dane Elcar had been thinking about this subject for a long time. He even made a short film in 2017 called The Pond that had a similar idea (via CinemaCrazed),
“I really wanted to make a horror film about relationships. You know, something truly terrifying! I had actually made a short film called The Pond back in 2017 that was sort of the first concept of Brightwood, but that short wasn’t a couple, just one man, played by me, which in essence was an experiment to see if I could get the basic plot elements and single location to work.”
This is something that has long been gestating in Elcar’s mind. With so much of the mystery of the film wrapped around its ending, it’s not lost on Elcar that some viewers may be coming to him with hopes of figuring out what happens in the end,
“Sure, I have an idea of what is causing them to be trapped in this time paradox. And earlier versions of the script went a little more into the mechanics, however I never wanted to get that deep into it. For me it was way more important to focus on what this does to Dan and Jen’s relationship than to fully explain why it’s all actually happening. There are some hints here and there. And I love hearing the theories about the ending.”
It’s interesting that Elcar had considered explaining the mechanics of the time loop further, and it’s possible the silver, glowing orb would have played a larger part in that version of the movie. As it stands, Elcar is happy to let fans theorize about what they think is happening and it’s the sign of a confident filmmaker to let the audience consume the film on their own terms.
The Real Meaning Of Brightwood’s Ending
Dan And Jen Are Forced To Aknowledge Their Need For One Another
Of course, it doesn’t matter how the Dans and Jens got stuck in the time loop. It doesn’t matter how many of them there are. It doesn’t matter what the big silver orb is. What matters in Brightwood is the relationship between Dan and Jen, which is a relationship that the audience can see reflected in their own lives. Maybe it’s not exactly the same, but anyone in a relationship has run into struggles. There are periods of miscommunication, and these can either be solved or they can be left to fester, like in the case of Dan and Jen.
They are at a crossroads, so it’s a bit ironic that they end up in a time loop where their crossroad is literally erased. There’s only one road, and they have to stay together on it. In Brightwood, if half of the couple dies, it seems like the other meets their maker soon after. In this movie’s world, they are forced together. Their time spent fighting and refusing to acknowledge their own faults has left them broken. As the cannibalistic Dan and Jen realize, they do need one another at a basic level, but it’s a messy and violent union.
