Look Away Ending Explained: What Happens To The Girl In The Mirror

The Look Away movie on Netflix follows 17-year-old Maria (played by India Eisley), whose meek demeanor causes her to be bullied at school and misunderstood at home. After discovering that the person she sees in the mirror is not a mere reflection but an autonomous alternate version of herself named Airam, Maria finally has someone to trust. After the pain of her existence becomes too much, Maria and Airam decide to switch places. However, this decision only worsens Maria’s situation as Airam begins to show her true colors.

Trading places with Airam quickly proves not to be the improvement that Maria thought it would be by the end of Look Away. Though Airam initially acts as a bolder version of Maria while living in the real world, she quickly proves to be more sinister than she first lets on. When Airam begins acting of her own accord and goes on a killing spree that targets people Maria is close to, Maria’s life is turned upside down forever, somehow becoming even more complicated than it was before.

What Happens To Look Away's Girl In The Mirror

Maria Disappears, Leaving Airam Alone

During the 2018 horror movie Look Away, both Maria and Airam consult with the other version of herself trapped in the mirror, but this ability becomes increasingly complicated by the end of the movie. While Airam is in the real world, she often checks her reflection to see Maria's reactions, but the last time she looks in the mirror, she only sees her own reflection, not Maria. This begs the question of what happened to the other girl in the mirror, as the audience is never shown the whereabouts of the girl in the mirror throughout Look Away.

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Unfortunately, there isn’t a happy answer for the girl in the mirror going missing in Look Away. While there is no explicit confirmation, the fact that Maria doesn’t appear in the mirror at the end of the horror movie seems to imply that Maria is gone and Airam is stuck in the real world indefinitely. If Maria is gone, then it’s impossible for Airam to switch places with her again, meaning that Airam will have to deal with the consequences of what she has done while posing as Maria after Look Away concludes.

Airam's Connection To Maria Explained

Ariam Is Actually Maria's Twin Who Died As An Infant

It initially seems odd that Maria’s reflection in the mirror has a mind of her own in Look Away, but Airam’s appearance in the horror movie isn’t random. Early on in Look Away, Maria finds a hidden sonogram depicting twins, and over the course of the movie, it’s explained that Maria had an identical twin who died at birth. While Airam is originally presented as Maria’s reflection or another version of Maria (represented by her name being “Maria” backwards), Airam is actually Maria’s deceased twin.

Why Maria Switched Places With Airam

Maria Wanted To Escape Her Pain In The Real World

Throughout the beginning of Look Away, Maria resists Airam’s offers to switch places, but she eventually relents. Airam continually tells Maria that she can “take [Maria’s] pain away,” which is an attempt to goad the latter into switching places with her. Maria only becomes open to Airam’s offer of taking her pain away after she is publicly bullied at her prom, which is effectively rock bottom for Maria. However, in the end, switching places with Airam arguably caused more pain for Maria since Airam caused chaos in the real world. In other words, her risky decision backfired horrifically.

Airam’s True Motives For Her Actions In The Real World Explained

Ariam Wants Maria's Deepest Desires Without Care Or Remorse

When Airam switches places with Maria and enters the real world, she does more than just pose as Maria. Airam has a more confident personality than the quiet Maria, and Airam begins taking huge risks in Maria’s life, particularly when it comes to speaking her mind to her tormentors, such as Maria’s bully or her dad, Dan. Maria is initially alarmed at Airam’s abrasiveness in the real world, as Airam is shaking up the status quo in ways Maria never would. However, Airam assuages Maria’s concerns by stating that she's merely doing things that Maria’s always wanted to.

While Airam claims that her actions are meant to fulfill Maria’s deepest desires, it eventually becomes clear that Airam has her own motives. Between Airam’s rude interactions to their parents, indulgence in substances, or her affair with Sean, Airam’s activities become increasingly hedonistic over the course of Look Away, turning her into the horror movie's villain. Airam has begun acting on her own whims and living out her personal desires (not Maria's), which is exemplified by Airam’s dismissal of Maria’s protestations from the mirror.

Why Airam Killed Dan

Ariam Believes Dan Killed Her As An Infant

In one of the most shocking moments of Look Away’s ending, Airam confronts her and Maria’s father, Dan (played by Jason Isaacs), leading to his death. After pretending to be intoxicated, Airam strips naked in front of Dan and demands to know if he would still love her if she was “deformed.” Eventually, Dan overcomes his discomfort and answers that he would, leading Airam to slit Dan’s throat with a scalpel, killing him. Although Airam’s decision to kill Dan might seem like it comes out of nowhere in Look Away, she has a clear reason for her crime.

Earlier in Look Away, it is revealed in one of their mother’s dreams that the reason Airam died in infancy is that Dan killed her due to her “deformity.” Therefore, when Dan says he would love Airam/Maria even if she wa “deformed,” Airam knows that he is lying, which is why she screams at him, “Why couldn’t you love me?” Airam’s murder of Dan is revenge for the fact that he killed her as a baby, which she gets not just by killing him but by doing so in a way that would mar his outward appearance.

The Real Meaning Of Look Away’s Final Image

It Symbolizes That Maria & Airam Have Become One

At the end of Look Away, Airam lays in bed with and is comforted by her and Maria’s mother, Amy (played by Mira Sorvino). The camera then pans to the reflection in the mirror above the bed, and the mirror image shows Amy holding her daughter in her other arm. Look Away flickers between the two images, the one in the mirror and the one in real life, and they eventually merge into one, making it look like Amy is holding one daughter in each arm.

Given the fact that Look Away concludes right after this image, the movie never reveals what the true meaning of the image is. Although Look Away’s ending is left open-ended, it’s still possible to speculate on what it symbolizes. One interpretation of the image is that it represents Amy seeing the two daughters she should have had if Dan hadn’t killed Airam.

However, the fact that the final image was created by flickering between two other still photos before merging also holds significance. This could suggest that the final shot means that Airam and Maria have merged into one person, meaning they will both have to deal with the real-world consequences of Look Away’s events.

How The Look Away Ending Was Received

The Movie Received Poor Reviews & Complaints About Confusing Ending

Look Away, as a movie, garnered terrible reviews. It sits at a very low 15% on Rotten Tomatoes from critics and is only at 50% on the Popcornmeter. It seems that most fans and critics were not impressed with the movie as a whole. Much of the complaints, at least on Rotten Tomatoes from fans, was about the "muddled" themes of revenge. One audience member wrote, "The film has an unfortunately anticlimactic ending. The sub plot about a twin sister was confusing."

There were a few Reddit threads created to show the confusion at the film's ending, with many not understanding Amy lying in bed with both of her twins. In a slight explanation, IslandTime4L wrote, "When she looked in the mirror at the end, only to see Maria wasn’t there, it was because she was never actually there, per say. I think the picture she found of the twins was real, but her twin in the mirror was only in her imagination the entire time." This strips the supernatural from the film, but what about the bed scene?

Redditor Delemeko believed they understood the meaning, writing, "My takeaway at the end, when they're both crying in the mirror, was that she realized there was no Airam, and it was her all along... She basically found an excuse to let her real self out. And so then, the last shot, showing them both on the bed, was saying, they're both present." Despite this, plenty of viewers remarked that they still didn't like how Look Away never revealed if Airam was ever real, explaining its low scores.

Look Away is a drama-horror film by writer-director Assaf Bernstein, released in 2018. The film follows Maria Brennan, an introverted high-schooler who suffers from bullying. However, Maria's life completely changes when she discovers a mirror image of herself with a more sinister personality - and switches places with her.

Director Assaf Bernstein

Release Date October 12, 2018

Distributor(s) Vertical Entertainment

Cast India Eisley , Mira Sorvino , Jason Isaacs , Penelope Mitchell , Harrison Gilbertson

Runtime 103 Minutes