Bliss Movie 2021 Ending Explained


Warning: This article contains major spoilers for the Bliss movie on Amazon Prime. 

If you’re someone who is intrigued by simulation theory, it’s a good weekend for new movies. Not only is Rodney Ascher’s new documentary on the subject, A Glitch in the Matrix, now available on-demand, there’s also a new movie starring Owen Wilson and Salma Hayek called Bliss, free on Amazon Prime to subscribers.

Written and directed by Mike Cahill, Bliss is a fascinating film that will warp your sense of reality. But it also might leave you slight confused. Never fear, because Decider is here. Let’s get into the Bliss movie plot and the Bliss movie ending explained.

What is the movie Bliss (2021) about? What is the Bliss plot explained?

Greg (Owen Wilson) is working a dead-end job in customer service. We learn from a phone call with his daughter that he’s divorced, and doesn’t have a great relationship with his family. Nevertheless, his daughter would like him to come to her graduation, and he promises her that he’ll be there.

Greg gets called into a meeting with his boss Bjorn (Steve Zissis), who fires Greg on the grounds that he is never focused on his work. In a fit of anger, Greg pushes Bjorn, who hits his head on his desk and dies. Instead of calling 911, Greg hides the body and flees. He meets a woman at a bar named Isabel (Salma Hayek) with telekinesis who claims he’s “real” because he deflected her powers. She tells Greg that if he can help her get a special amulet—which has specials powers to control the fake world—back, she will help him avoid prison for his crime. He does, and then Isabel tells him that the world is an artificial simulation and that Greg can control it. He wills his boss’s body to fall out of the window, and everyone thinks he committed suicide. Problem solved!

Greg goes off to lay low with Isabel in her makeshift home in a tent under a bridge. She shows him the ropes of manipulating reality, and he tells her about his drawings of a dream home on a peninsula. Isabel tells Greg these drawings are no dream, but a memory of a real-life outside of the simulation. She also tells Greg that they are together in real life, and the two of them fall into a dreamy romance, until the power of the amulet runs out.

Meanwhile, Greg’s daughter Emily (Nesta Cooper) is worried about him, and asks her brother Arthur (Jorge Lendeborg Jr.) to help her look for him. Arthur, who has a bad relationship with his father, declines, so Emily goes off on her own. She finds Greg while he’s waiting for Isabel to “refill the amulet” in a shady neighborhood. She tells him that he missed her graduation by two weeks. We realize he’s spent much longer with Isabel than we thought. We also start to suspect Isabel is lying to him, but Isabel insists Greg’s daughter is not real.

Owen Wilson and Salma Hayek in Bliss
Photo: Hilary Bronwyn Gayle/Amazon Studios

Isabel says Greg is getting seduced by the simulation. Greg says her he doesn’t believe her, so she has them take a special new “blue crystal” that will eject them from the simulation. He wakes up in a fancy room, with about ten people in chairs plugged into a giant water tank with brains. Isabel tells him that these are the only people in the simulation who are real. The two of them go to lunch in this new beautiful utopian future world, which includes Greg’s dream home. Though everyone seems to know Greg as “Dr. Wittle,” Greg has no memory of this world. Isabel says it will wear off. Greg decides he doesn’t care if his memory never comes back, because he’s so excited to discover this new world. In the other world, we see Emily is still looking for her dad.

Isabel and Greg spend a beautiful day in the utopia world. But at the end of the day, a doctor named Chris (Bill Nye) tells Greg that rumors are spreading that there are problems with Isabel’s research. Greg tells Isabel to publish her research now because he’s not going back in the “brainbox” simulation. She agrees, but only if she can interview him on stage. When asked if he’s lacking anything in his life, Greg thinks of his daughter he left behind but says nothing. Then Greg sees his daughter at the reception of Isabel’s talk. Emily tells Greg she has been to his tent, confusing Greg about what’s real and what’s not. Emily tells Greg that he has to choose one world. She acknowledges that both worlds might be real to him, and tells him to choose what’s best for him.

How does Bliss end? What is the Bliss movie ending, explained?

Greg eats some more yellow pills, while chaos reigns in the utopia. Isabel insists that they must be bringing some of the bad world from the simulation into the good world and that the only way to fix it is by taking ten blue crystals each. The two of them wake up in the bad world, in what looks suspiciously like a drug den.

Greg finds his boss Bjorn alive and freaks out. Isabel tells Greg they rebooted him. Isabel and Greg rob a dude for his wallet and have more money to buy “blues” from a man named Kendo (Ronny Chieng). Isabel shoots Kendo but insists he won’t die. At this point, it seems clear that Isabel is a homeless drug addict, and that now Greg is, too.

The police are surrounding them. Isabel says there are only enough crystals for one person to return to the “real world.” Greg tells Isabel to kill him, and that they will meet each other back in the real world. But then, somewhat abruptly, he changes his mind. He says he loves the unpredictable “simulation” world that Isabel has created and that he won’t leave it. Isabel takes the drugs and gives herself over to the police, while Greg runs away and checks himself into rehab. He describes to the support group his journey of addiction, chasing “bliss.” The utopia world was not real, it was all fantasy spun around the feeling of being high off of crystal meth (aka “blue crystal). And the “powers” that Isabel and Greg had earlier in the film were also fantasy, spun around the feeling of being high off of powder meth, aka the yellow pills in the amulet.

The final scene of the movie shows Greg meeting up with his daughter with flowers that he found on the side of the road, in a sort hybrid of the utopia and simulation world. She hugs him. It’s implied that Greg is in recovery from his addiction and making progress, but still has a ways to go.

Watch Bliss on Amazon Studios

.

Laisser un commentaire

Votre adresse e-mail ne sera pas publiée. Les champs obligatoires sont indiqués avec *

*