Help with the ending

Do you mean that Kate is actually Sarandon's (Sophies) daughter? And that when Kate told Mara shed share everything crazy Mara took it to mean EVERYTHING and then went after Sophie as her mom? Do you think Mara killed Kate off as part of her plan? How did Mara get the birth certificate? Well, I guess it didnt really say anything specific about the childs identity so its plausible. I just didnt like the ending scene. I guess the main point is to let the audience know that Mara is a crazy girl which I figured out when she was throwing champagne bottles and lighting them on fire. I think it could have been left out of the movie. Thanks for your help. I see what you are saying.

Wow , I just finished the movie (after hours and hours it seemed) and I was thinking that Kate was really Sophie's daughter also. I didn't get the part about Mara killing Kate though. Thanks to the above posters for clearing up the ending, and thanks for the original poster for putting a spoiler alert so it didn't ruin the film for me when I read the synopsis on IMDb! Thanks...

cb~

There was no evidence that Mara killed her Kate. Kate was a dedicated humanitarian, and aparently Mara followed her to Kosovo and photographed her work. When Kate accidently dies in the fire (going in to save the babies--still no evidence that Mara caused the fire) Mara has lost ALL her family, and goes nutty. The letter to Mara seems real--her mom has chosen not to make contact. Kate has respected her own mom's wishes to stay anonymous, and does not make contact with Sophie. BUT.... When Mara clears out her late friend's things, she now has an anchor on reality: Sophie. She can create a mother for herself by stalking and emulating every detail of her life. She has no persona. She is only a copy.

Still no evidence of a murder. But the photo clipping scene is a reay psycho thing to do. !!!!!

"When you throw dirt, you lose ground" --old proverb

CATE1956-THANK YOU!!! You are a genius!!! NOW IT ALL MAKES SENSE. It was an okay movie...seeing that my movie rental place has a special on new releases on Mondays. If I hadn't got it for $.50, I would have been disappointed. But thanks to Cate...it all makes complete sense now. But when you think about it, if that was the plot of the story, which it was, it's really stupid.

Yea, the title seems pretty generic, you could interpret loads of ways.
As for Susan's accent; I really didn't mind her being American. They explained it, but there are Americans in other countries anyway. It wasn't that big of a deal imo. Movies set in Britain or Paris have American characters. We're always going places, then marrying some "local". That wasn't some huge slam on the movie for me. I rather liked that she didn't throw on a fake accent. It's pointless. Her accent wouldn't have changed the movie in any major way, other than the backstory with her I guess being born there. It really doesn't matter in this type of a story.

"My drugs are red, white, and blue"

Here's some additional interpretation which explains the title Irresistable:

Initially Mara sets out to destroy Sophie. Why? Sophie's rejection of Kate's contact devastates Kate. Kate seeks escape, leading to her decision to work with abandoned children in Kosovo. Mara alludes to this while discussing Sophie's loss of her mother.

Mara blames Sophie for Kate's death in Kosovo (Mara did not murder Kate), which leads to Mara's obsession with destroying Sophie.

In the ending it is established by photographs that Kate, rather than Mara, is Sophie's child.

Mara never considers the possibility of a mother-daughter relationship with Sophie until Sophie's visit in the hospital where she proclaims herself Mara's mother.

At this point, the prospect of having a mother becomes "Irresistable" to Mara, redirecting her intent from destruction to posession of Sophie. (implicitly endangering Sophie's two young daughters)

I confess to being confused by the birth certificate and correspondence from the children's home which both seemed to suggest that Mara is actually Sophie's daughter. It is possible, however, that Mara ALSO attempted to contact her biological mother and was rejected.

you have a big mistake there.
actually, sophie's name, surname, age at the time and her birthplace WAS written on the birth certificate.
the name that wasnt mentioned in the birth certificate was Maras, it was mentioned only in the note that was attached to the certificate which was saying that her mother wouldnt like to contact with her.
i think; mara took kate's birth certificate and tried to contact sophie as she was her own mother (because there were no names for the child that was born in the certificate; so the child services or whoever she wrote to couldnt know that the child's wasn't now mara instead of kate of whatever.)

Thanks, thats what I was sort of thinking. Do you think Mara killed Kate?

I just saw this movie on DVD last night and found it pretty decent. Then, as I usually do, I came to IMDb to check out what others thought about it - particularly how the plot "twists" at the end were interpreted.

I figured out that Mara was Sophie's "daughter" before it was revealed in the film (when Sophie was locked in the basement of Mara's home and rummaging around, finally finding her "daughter's" birth certificate). At that point, Mara was trying to seduce Sophie's husband at work (which made me feel a bit queezy if she did, in fact, succeed in doing so and was truly Sophie's long-lost "daughter"). Thankfully, we then learn that Mara was NOT Sophie's true daughter, but her friend Kate was. But once that fact is revealed, one mentally goes back in what has transpired in the film to get some sense of Mara's motivations for the many things she has done.

I, like several others, believe that Mara DID actually kill Kate. Mara's obsession with Sophie was clear throughout the film (at least in hind sight). For example, at Mara's party (where Sophie shows up wearing the same dress as Mara, who later changes it), Mara drags Sophie onto the dance floor and starts plying her with drinks - a very seductive act considering they had just met formally for the first time. Why would she do this? Well, it is not uncommon for young girls to dance with their moms as a sign of love and attention between them. Then there is the next scene where Mara talks with Sophie at the water's edge, commenting about what it must feel like to burn to death (a bit of foreshadowing of the scene in Mara's basement where she tries to kill Sophie). That sequence makes me think that, yes, Mara did indeed kill Kate (because of the use of the Malatov cocktail technique in her attempt to off Sophie).

As for the final scene, where Mara is still crying and cutting out pictures of Sophie's youngest child and replacing it in an album with a picture of herself, that leaves one of two options open - either Mara will, indeed, try to fully take on the role of Sophie's estranged daughter, or, as suggested by others, may try to kill Sophie's younger children so that she can be the sole focus of Sophie's attention.

It is abundantly clear that Mara is a deeply emotionally-scarred individual. But, remember, in a number of ways, so is Sophie. She experienced an unplanned pregnancy at 18 and had her daughter taken from her (Kate), leaving Sophie with her own guilt and emotional baggage throughout her life (recall the dreams she has with her two daughters dancing around a baby's crib with the owl looking down from a tree - a scene we later learn refers to the orphanage where her daughter Kate was left). That is why I believe Sophie mourned so deeply the loss of her own mother, who was probably supportive of Sophie keeping the child while her more "rigid" Australian dad did not (and there are brief remarks within the film that Sophie and her dad did not get along well - at least in earlier years). Recall too that Mara told Sophie by the water's edge that she also had had a daughter "out of wedlock" when she was very young, but would never give up her daughter (hint-hint Sophie!) - but she was fortunate to find her husband that accepted this (something we learn at the end of the film that Sophie never told HER husband about). But this was not true either. Mara's child was the product of an earlier marriage between Mara's husband and his previous wife. That remark by Mara was meant to put yet another guilt-trip on to Sophie for having "deserted" Kate (Mara's alter ego).

I think the main theme of this film is the deep sadness and subsequent life-long dispair many women may experience when they have to give up children born out of wedlock. This all-to-common situation, which has been played out over the centuries, damages both mothers' and childrens' psyches. The story of Mara is one which tries to show the depths to which such emotional damage can extend - all the way to psychopathic thinking and even homicidal behavior.

wow! How stupid am I? Didn't get that Kate was Sophie's daughter! But when I was watching the end, and she was looking and cutting pictures, I thought the photo of Sophie's child and Kate looked alike. But wasn't sure that was Kate or Myra. Thought the movie was okay. Maybe more of a Lifetime movie. There's a reason I never saw previews for it at the theaters.

Excellent point! All this talk about Mara taking Kate's identity, etc, seems nonsensical when you bring up the woman at the party who says she's Mara's mom. who IS she, then?

All in all, a horribly executed movie that left a lot of confusion in viewers' minds and tons more questions unanswered than not. Too bad Emily Blunt's great talent was wasted on this one!

There's a good reason why this WENT STRAIGHT TO DVD and was never screened in the cinemas.