The riveting narration and twisty story of Prisoners is headlined by Hugh Jackman, Jake Gyllenhaal, Melissa Leo, and Paul Dano. The central story of Prisoners revolves around the investigation of two missing girls, Anna and Joy, led by Detective Loki.
The detective’s job is complicated by the fact that his daughter, Anna, has disappeared. The prime suspect is a man with mental illness, Alex, who remains in question.
Loki’s relentlessness eventually leads him to the door of uncovering decades of unsolved crimes and a religious conspiracy to wage war against God. This explainer not just magnifies the various aspects of the film’s ending, but it also finetunes points from the plot that might have seemed ambiguous to the viewer. ..
Whose body did Loki find in the priest’s house?
Loki was in the initial stages of the investigation when he met Holly. Alex had just been released after nothing could be found to incriminate him. In conversation, she let out that her husband had died many years ago. If you remember, when Loki got the first call to the priest’s house, he revealed a body downstairs in the basement. The priest showed him the body and explained that he himself came to the house. The confession was so shocking – that he had murdered about sixteen children – that the man of the collar left him to die down there. ..
The necklace of a maze has been a mystery for the story and the viewer. It mostly plays out like a motif for the story and the viewer. Taylor continues the mystery behind it, even drawing one for Loki when arrested to tell the location of the girls.
The FBI agent’s book, which was mostly overseen in the first viewing, had a detailed outlay of how the “Invisible Man” deployed the use of mazes to kidnap little children. Both Alex and Joy also refer to reading a book where the task is to complete the mazes. Hence, the man in the basement was indeed Holly’s late husband. Why he went there at all is a mystery beyond all of us and probably best suited for you and your quiet living room.
What did the drawings on the wall in Taylor’s house mean?
At this point, we know that Holly and her husband professed an obsession with mazes and giving them to children they abducted to obsess over. So much so, that two of “their children”, Alex and Taylor, both were still reeling from its effects. The drawings, more or less have nothing to do with the plot, but everything to do thematically with the film. And to some extent, the character of Taylor and how a certain thing can have different impacts on everyone individually. It is almost like a red herring that creates doubt in the same manner, that Alex distracted the conversation from Taylor.
Loki is angry because Taylor made a maze for him.
The drawings in his house were iterations of his obsession with them that he had picked up while in his abductors’ home. But the significance of those drawings extends beyond Taylor or one single entity. In the film’s theme, it reinforces the central idea of imprisonment for its characters and even the viewers. We will be discussing the significance of the title in the upcoming segment. ..
Why did Taylor burgle the Birch and Keller residences?
After watching multiple re-watches of Prisoners, we have a faint idea as to why Taylor went to prison. After all, the police found one of Anna’s socks outside their window after the burglary happened and Grace claimed that she wasn’t wearing that particular clothing on the day of the abduction. However, some people still think that Taylor may have been in sympathy for the girls and that this theory proves how ignorant some people can be and live in their make-believe world.
Taylor went back to steal their clothing. He rummaged through the bedrooms of the girls looking for something that he can use to give the impression that the girls were dead. The police found the bloody clothes and the blood belonged to slaughtered pigs; not the girls. Maybe Taylor even fancied the idea of replicating his abductors’ deeds and expertise in hiding their crimes. The investigation was already all over the place and another distraction like this would be the final nail in the coffin. ..
How does Keller realize Holly is the abductor?
The hospital scene in “The Wolverine” is a puzzling question. Why does Keller suddenly run? And why did Joy say, “you were there”? Both are puzzling questions.
Joy is trying to piece together what happened to her and Anna while they were held captive by Keller. She recalls that Keller had visited Holly’s house twice and that they had been taped up. ..
When Keller went to inquire about Alex, the girls were kept in the next room and could hear his voice. They recognized it but couldn’t scream for help as there was tape on their mouths. It took a moment for Keller to put two and two together, but once he did, there was no stopping him.
The significance of the title
The central theme of the film is how every character in it is a prisoner of something in their own right. The movie is a metaphor for people’s external and internal prisons. Keller, Alex, Loki, Holly, Anna, and Joy; all of them represent the above three categories. Dealing with their conditions took a huge effort out of them, pushing certain dark clouds of uncertainty about whether they could come out of it or not. ..
Them enduring was not an absolute outcome given the labyrinth-like narrative, which itself is like a mystery for the viewers to figure out and get out of the “jail” or “maze”. We do not get full information on almost any of the key clues to solve the murder; an intentional diversion to keep us guessing.
Prisoners Ending Explained: Is Anna telling the truth about the whistle?
Holly and her husband began abducting children when their own son died. This was their way of waging “war against God” in the absence of a real one. In fact, the ending also reveals that Alex was the very first child they kidnapped, who has been with them ever since. Taylor, who was the other prime suspect for a while, was the next one. ..
Bob Taylor’s necklace was found in Holly’s husband Loki’s room. Holly shot her husband down and he drove Anna to the hospital while Keller himself is trapped underground.
But now, after Keller’s disappearance, the police are backtracking and trying to figure out what happened to him. They’ve even reopened the case of the girl who went missing after Keller ran away. It’s ironic that this case is being treated as if Keller never existed in the first place.
Loki is called back to duty from the hospital after hearing Keller blowing Anna’s emergency whistle from the pit where Holly threw him after drugging him. This rescue whistle is featured in the first fifteen minutes of the film when Anna asked to take Joy to find it at their house.
The whistle in question is actually a new one that was found as part of the investigation into Anna’s true identity. It was used throughout the film as a long-standing Chekhov’s gun, and it is even mentioned in the final scene. However, it is not clear if this new whistle is actually Anna’s original whistle or if she has just recently acquired it. If it is indeed her original whistle, then it seems that a huge coincidence occurred that Keller found another child’s red whistle down in the pit - which would make her story much more believable.
The whistle can be seen as Anna’s inadvertent Evenstar for her father; a light to vanquish the darkest of darkness. It is a bit of a cinematic coincidence that he is whistling just when Loki, the instinctive detective whom Keller knows to be brilliant, is standing him. But what is left to our imagination is the gap between Loki recovering in hospital and coming back. Keller must have done this quite often but the other guys who were on site probably didn’t care as much.
Loki’s emotional involvement with the case made sure he saw it through to the very end. It is highly probable that Loki went in the direction of the whistle and found Keller. I mean, come on; it is Loki. We have seen how keen, determined, and singularly devoted he is to his job; a prisoner, nonetheless.
