The ending of Flow left audiences with a lot to think about, but the film's director revealed his intentions for the final scenes.
The Academy Award-nominated animated feature follows a group of unlikely animal characters who band together after an apocalyptic flood sweeps across their land.
The story's main character is a gray cat that must learn to overcome its fear of water to survive.
Flow's Ending Explained by the Director
The story of Flow ends in a surprising place and much of its resolution is subjective, but director Gints Zilbalodis provided his perspective on what he intended with the film's conclusion.
Speaking to Animation Scoop, Zilbalodis said he did not want the film to have a "simple happy ending" as he didn't feel it was true to life. The director wanted to show that the cat "does improve on its fears" but that it still has them "deep down:"
"I didn’t want the simple happy ending where everything’s solved and the cat learns to overcome everything. I don’t feel like life is like that. There are certain things we can change about ourselves and we can learn and become more brave, but there’s still some anxieties we feel, at least I feel, no matter what.
I wanted to show how the cat does improve on its fears, but it still has these deep down, something that it has to learn how to live with. And I wanted to show how that’s okay, and we can accept those things, and maybe there’s others who can support that."
Zilbalodis added that they purposely included a cast of animals that did not speak and built on their natural fears. In this case, it was the cat's fear of water, which they expanded on "in the biggest way possible."
The director explained that this eliminated the need for antagonists in the film as it became a "cat versus nature" story:
"All the films I’ve done are without dialogue. So I think about ideas where it makes sense. So in this case, it’s animals, and they don’t speak, they behave like animals. I knew that having the main character be a cat, everyone understands that cats don’t like water. We don’t need to explain that. So showing its fear in the biggest way possible, having this big flood destroy its home, I thought would be really powerful and very clear as well.
And in this case, we also don’t need antagonists in the film. It’s just a cat versus nature kind of a story, or maybe a cat versus itself story, because it has to overcome its fears and insecurities. And the water is something that pushes the cat to do that."
When it came to landing the tone of Flow's story, Zilbalodis said they tried to "balance this devastation with the humor and adventure:"
"I didn’t want it to be just bleak and dark and sad. There’s also this light adventure story, and there’s this journey with these animals, and I think when you kind of balance this devastation with the humor and the adventure of the characters… that was important to have that balance. Then it can actually reach an audience because I don’t think people want to see just the bleakness and the destruction."
What Happens At The End of Flow Movie?
After a hazardous journey, the apocalyptic flood waters finally recede at the end of Flow.
Having said goodbye to the secretarybird, the cat finds itself separated from its friends and then finds them in a precarious situation, with their boat hanging perilously on the side of a cliff. Working together the animals each manage to make it off the boat safely.
A deer stampede then leads the cat towards the beached whale. It's a tragic sight, and the cat stays by the whale's side to comfort it. It is soon joined by its friends the capybara, labrador, and lemur.
The film ends as the four animals look at their reflections in a puddle of water.
As Zilbalodis explained, the cat is seen overcoming some of its fears throughout the film, eventually learning to swim in the water to catch fish and accept the dog (which it was initially fearful of) as a friend.
The ending of the film can be taken as the animals literally reflecting on their journey and who they've become throughout it, which adds to the director's comments that the film is about the animals versus themselves.
Flow is available to stream now on Max.
