In September 2023, Hulu released No One Will Save You, a sci-fi horror film starring Kaitlyn Dever. The story follows Brynn, a solitary woman who faces an alien invasion in her small town. With very little dialogue, the film showcases Brynn’s fight against various alien creatures. Along the way, it hints at a personal secret she carries, which is revealed gradually throughout the film.
Brynn’s hidden past is exposed after she is abducted by the aliens. While inside their spacecraft, they probe her mind and discover a haunting memory from her youth: in a moment of rage, she accidentally kills another girl named Maude during a fight in the woods. This tragedy has haunted Brynn for years, leading her to withdraw from society. The aliens, after seeing this, decide to give her a second chance at life.
Aliens Create a New Society with Brynn
Instead of killing Brynn, the aliens include her in their efforts to rebuild a new society. In the film’s surreal ending, Brynn participates in a strange dance sequence with the alien-controlled bodies of people who once lived in her town. While unsettling, this moment symbolizes her shift from isolation to belonging, though it comes at a dark cost: the people around her are now just vessels for the aliens.
Kaitlyn Dever as Brynn Adams (Photo: No One Will Save You/Hulu)Director Brian Duffield explained his creative vision behind the movie’s unusual ending. He wanted to provide Brynn with a sense of community, something she lacked throughout the film. Despite the alien destruction, Duffield chooses a more hopeful outcome for Brynn, where she finds a semblance of happiness. He also revealed his desire to include a musical element, leading to the dance scene as a way to offer her a brief moment of joy in an otherwise bleak world.
A Semi-Happy Ending Amidst Alien Chaos
While the ending of No One Will Save You offers a degree of happiness, it’s deeply unsettling. The final dance scene, while seemingly joyful, is overshadowed by the eerie fact that Brynn is now surrounded by alien-controlled, lifeless bodies. Despite finding a community, Brynn’s new life is not genuine—it’s a manufactured existence, mirroring the fictional worlds she previously created to escape her pain.
At the conclusion of the film, Brynn is part of an illusory new world. Though she is no longer alone, her life is still based on an artificial reality. This new existence, built on the destruction of humanity, reflects the fantasy she had created in isolation. While it may seem like Brynn has found freedom from loneliness, she is merely trading one form of escapism for another, trapped in a reality that’s just as hollow as the one she fled.
