Rather than starting with Chloe discovering her mother’s secret, this story slowly reveals how her life has been manipulated. Chloe, over time, realises that Diane, who raised her, actually stole her from the hospital after her premature baby died shortly after birth.
Diane deliberately keeps Chloe sick by giving her drugs so she won’t find out the truth about her identity. The turning point arrives when Chloe uncovers the deception, the authorities intervene to rescue her, and she ends up punishing Diane for the years of lies and abuse.
The truth was never in the medicine; it was in the lies (Photo: Run/Search Party)The story opens with Diane delivering a premature baby who requires a ventilator to survive. A list of five conditions—arrhythmia, asthma, diabetes, among others—is then introduced. From there, the plot jumps forward several years.
Diane now lives with Chloe, a teenager believed to be chronically ill and taught at home due to the conditions mentioned earlier. Suspicion begins to grow the day Chloe finds a set of pills in a shopping bag with Diane’s name on them. That evening, she observes her mother administering one of those pills to her.
When Chloe questions Diane, insisting that the green and grey pill doesn’t belong to her, Diane tries to dismiss her concern by saying the prescription is Chloe’s, but the receipt was made out in Diane’s name. But Chloe doesn’t buy that explanation.
She continues her investigation and realises that Diane has simply placed her label on top of the original one on the pill bottle for a drug called Trigoxin. When she tries to look it up that night, she finds that Diane has cut off the internet to block her from researching further.
Chloe manages to reach a random person by phone, who explains that Trigoxin is a red pill used to treat arrhythmia, not the green and grey ones she’s been taking. She then tricks Diane into going out for a movie and sneaks off to a pharmacy. There, she convinces an employee to help identify the green and grey pills.
The pharmacist reveals that the pills are Ridocaine, a veterinary medication used to relieve leg pain in dogs. When taken by humans, the drug causes leg numbness. Before Chloe can escape, Diane finds her, drugs her, takes her back home, and locks her in.
Chloe eventually breaks free and reaches out to the mailman, Tom, for help. Unfortunately, Diane intercepts him, drugs him too, and imprisons Chloe in the basement.
Plot Hole Alert!!
The film takes a strange turn when Diane decides to trap Chloe in a room surrounded by all the clues that would expose the truth—medical files, letters of university admission, and more.
It feels odd that Diane wouldn’t think to hide these things, especially when she returns later and appears surprised that Chloe has pieced everything together. That movie segment seems created just to ensure the audience understands the twist, and the timing and arrangement come off as far too convenient to feel believable within the story.
Run Movie: What did Diane Sherman do with the baby?
As Chloe pieces the puzzle together using scattered clues, it becomes evident that Diane gave birth to a baby who didn’t survive more than a few hours. Instead of coping with the loss, she steals another baby from the hospital before relocating to a different town.
She names this stolen baby Chloe and raises her like her biological daughter. Diane’s behaviour becomes increasingly disturbing, especially considering the way she treats Chloe. There’s very little revealed about Diane’s past.
We are left in the dark about whether she ever had a partner or husband, or even how she finances their life. It remains unclear whether the trauma of losing her baby triggered her psychological issues or if she already had mental instability before the loss.
My theory? I believe she was already mentally unstable before the tragedy.
Run Movie: Why can’t Chloe walk?
All through Chloe’s life, Diane has been giving her medications that mimic symptoms of various illnesses. These drugs are what cause the conditions we were shown at the beginning of the film. In truth, Chloe is physically healthy and only exhibits symptoms because of long-term drug use imposed on her by Diane.
Run Movie: What happened to Tom, the mailman?
From what the film shows, we can reasonably conclude that Diane murders Tom after drugging him. She sees him as a risk since he might expose her secret. When Diane goes back to get Chloe, we notice her sleeves are stained with blood.
When Chloe asks about it, Diane simply replies that Tom is asleep, although it’s evident something worse has happened.
Run Movie: What was in the syringe?
Diane goes shopping for paint thinner. She’s been researching how to produce a neurotoxic substance that could erase memory, and thinner is part of her plan. At this stage, Diane’s mind has completely gone off track, and she’s ready to take extreme steps just to make Chloe forget what she’s discovered.
Years of sickness built on one stolen moment in a hospital (Photo: Run/Search Party)The syringe contains a mixture that Diane believes will erase Chloe’s memories and let them go back to ‘normal’. But in reality, the mixture is deadly and would have ended Chloe’s life.
Instead of letting Diane succeed, Chloe deliberately drinks a bottle of organophosphate and pretends she needs Diane’s help, knowing Diane would rush her to the hospital. Though she can’t talk, she tries to inform the nurse that Diane is dangerous. Before the hospital staff can act, Diane causes a panic by killing another patient, triggering a code blue alarm.
As the chaos unfolds, Diane tries to escape with Chloe. But one of the nurses notices the message Chloe scribbled on paper—“Mom”—and quickly calls hospital security. Security guards arrive just in time to prevent Diane from fleeing. She tries to fight them off with a weapon and ends up getting shot.
She falls down the stairs, badly injured but still alive.
Run Movie Ending Explained: What does Chloe do to Diane?
Now that Chloe has stopped taking the drugs Diane used to keep her weak, she can walk short distances. We see her paying monthly visits to Diane, who is now bedridden.
The last part of the film reveals that Chloe has been sneaking pills into Diane’s medication and forcing her to take them, making her weak and sick just as Diane once did to her. Although it may seem like Chloe has forgiven her, what she’s doing is taking her time to get her revenge, slowly and deliberately.
