The ending of the movie Hippopotamus features a mind-boggling twist that needs to be explained. What does that hospital room scene mean?
Hippopotamus has been a long-time coming.
The low-budget indie film, made for an estimated £5,000 according to IMDb, first hit screens at film festivals in 2018.
Now, it’s available for fans to watch on digital stores and the Amazon Prime Video streaming service here in the UK.
The film is a minefield of manipulation and memory loss and it’s safe to say that the ending of Hippopotamus needs to be explained.
Hippopotamus
Hippopotamus first hit screens at film festivals back in 2018 and is now available on digital stores and the Amazon Prime Video streaming service here in the UK.
The film tells the story of Ruby Watts (Ingvild Deila) who wakes up in a Saw-like basement and is unable to walk when we first meet her.
She can’t remember who she is or how she got there but she is greeted by a mysterious man named Tom (Stuart Mortimer) who says that he is keeping her captive until Ruby falls in love with him.
The ending of Hippopotamus
Throughout the film, we slowly learn more about why Ruby is being held in the featureless basement and about her relationship with Tom which apparently dates back years.
Via the use of triggers, such as books or a certain meal, more of Ruby’s memory is opened up and we catch glimpses of an apparent relationship with Tom.
It appears that the two have known each other since childhood and were in a relationship before venturing off to different universities.
Ruby struggles to piece things together as fresh doubt is cast by notes she finds in her favourite book, written using burnt matches she’s stolen from Tom.
The notes warn her not to trust Tom and suggests that she should play along with his attempts to rehabilitate her, even though she discovers that her legs have not been injured as previously stated.
The seemingly big reveal comes when Tom explains how Ruby got into the basement to begin with.
He details how she was viciously attacked and raped by a friend at university and that Tom saved Ruby and killed the assailant himself, although he claims that Ruby suffered retrograde amnesia as a result of the beating she received.
Tom says that he took Ruby to an abandoned farm on a remote island in the hopes of restoring her memory and her love for him.
Up to this point, Tom’s story all seems to fit together reasonably well, even if his attempts to restore Ruby’s memory border on the obsessive and creepy.
Unbelievably, Tom seemingly succeeds in fixing Ruby’s memory and she admits that she loves him.
However, shortly after the pair are reunited, Ruby apparently kills Tom with a shard of broken glass and attempts to escape, only to collapse on the shore of the island.
In a mind-boggling twist, Ruby wakes up in what appears to be a hospital room where Tom is now her nurse.
The twist explained
The reveal that Ruby is now in a hospital room is mind-blowing at first but if we unpack the scene, we can attempt to work out what’s happening.
When Tom walks out of the hospital room, he’s walking with a limp and seems to have bandages over his neck, where Ruby stabbed him earlier. He survived.
This scene seemingly takes place after Ruby’s escape attempt and looks to be another scenario that Tom is using to jog her memory.
Although Tom’s final stare to camera is rather sinister, his version of events seems to be true, even though his love for Ruby has definitely morphed into an unhealthy obsession.
At the very end of the credits, we can hear a voice – seemingly Tom’s – that pleads “why don’t you wake up?” showing that he’s growing desperate to finally fix Ruby.
Of course, with the story taking place from Ruby’s perspective, all of what we’ve just been through might well be wrong as she’s proven to be a forgetful and unreliable narrator throughout the film owing to her damaged hippocampus – which Ruby mistakes for Hippopotamus, hence the film’s title – which means she struggles to create and retain memories.
While Tom could be trying to save Ruby, he might well be up to something far more sinister. We, like Ruby, simply can’t say for certain.
Hippopotamus is available to on digital stores now and can be streamed via Amazon Prime Video here in the UK.
