MovieChat Forums > The Forest (2016) Discussion > Why was only Sarah "spoilers"

Why was only Sarah "spoilers"


The one hallucinating and not Jess. Sarah seemed to be the stable one and yet she got the raw end of the deal while unstable Jess gets away Scott free.the guide told Sarah she shouldn't go into the forest cause she's sad but wasn't Jess also sad if not more and she seemed to not have been suffering at all while she was at the forest.

reply

I think maybe it had something to do with what Sarah said about her looking away from the darkness and Jess looking at it. Maybe it's a face your fears and get over them type of thing. Jess faced her trauma and finally got over it; where Sarah- although seemingly well adjusted person- never did.

Or it could just be bad writing. I'm still waiting to find out where the heck Jess was when they found the tent to begin with.

reply

phyr_ball2 is right. They both saw stuff but goth-chick Natalie Dormer survived because she's the one that faces the darkness.
phyr_ball2 is also right about the bad writing. I think we're supposed to assume that she got lost (no phone signal, magnetic fields screwing up compasses) and somehow survived. The film crew could have made her look a bit more disheveled :S

reply

I believe the sisters were only one person. The Jess is normal, but under extreme stress Sarah comes out and saves her. You never see the two together except in a memory when she is moving across country. When Sarah dies, Jess is taking control again and Sarah dies in the forest, leaving Jess healed from the split.

reply

Except the guide and police refer to them as two separate people.

reply

I'd have to go back and watch it but I coulda swore when the husband finds Jess at the end he calls her Sara a few times then says Jess and she responds. If she was the same person it would make sense because Jess was in control at that time and wouldn't respond to Sara also why would he call her that if they have different hair. I could be completely misremembering it though

reply

Jess at the end he calls her Sara a few times then says Jess and she responds.


That's because they're identical twins. Also, he was looking mostly for Sarah, not Jess. Not to mention, they all pretty much gave up on Jess, along with the fact it was dark.

Now if I could have a second of what I laughably refer to as your attention...

reply

I agree Jess and Sarah are the same person

reply

How on god's earth could they be the same person, they both have different hair colours, not to mention different lives. One lives in Japan and is a teacher, the other lives in America and is married. Sarah went to Jess's school to find out about her, how did she do that if she was lost in the forest pretending to be Jess. How was Sarah having a dinner party with her husband and taking a call from the Japanese police about her sister going missing, if they're the same person.
Jess escaped at the end, whilst Sarah's dead ghost was seen by the guide, again how is this possible if there's only one girl.

reply

I agree Jess and Sarah are the same person


You must have missed the part where the boyfriend asks "Where is Sarah ?"

He would totally let the girlfriend travel 6000 miles to go look for someone imaginary, god you are a bunch of retards here.

reply

there were also several photos which showed the 2 girls when young.

reply

Interesting that you have to insult people.

But here's my take on it (Spoilers):
Jess imagined EVERYTHING up to the minutes they found her (Jess).
That includes the video, the pictures and even Aiden - not to forget the introduction (like the dinner scene in the beginning). Sarah had her own (by Jess imagined) life.
She went into the forest to get rid of her split personality Sarah by facing her fear/sadness and thought that would be the only way to get rid of it eg to heal herself.
The sound is a metaphor for her split personality.
How would she be able to see (not just hear) that her father killed the mother and himself and instead tell the story of the accident? Because she actually saw it. That's when Jess created Sarah. And when she relived the situation and actually faced it in the forest she killed Sarah by doing that (by virtually cutting the wrist).
Her boyfriend knew about Sarah (the split personality). That's why he asked her.

Also:
If Sarah was really her twin wouldn't the search team just go for it if Sarah was near-by and even a slight chance she could be alive and not just let it go after Jess just says she doesn't hear the sound anymore? Wouldn't they look for Aiden also? They say they look for Sarah first thing in the morning to get her out of there. No mention about Aiden.

And the last scene makes also sense in my take on it:
Sarah takes Nichi with him because he was also a fragment of her imagination. He was ignored by everyone while they found Jess - as if he was invisible.

reply

he's right though.

desperately insisting that a simple, rather stupid, rather lazy written mainstream movies has so much hidden meaning is pretty senseless, as well as it is arrogant. there is no indication for what you have guessed, whatsoever.the same way you could write a whole essay about how "home alone" is actually a metaphor about the feeling of alienation in our modern world. if you insist, then you can interpret everything into everything.

if you want to do this speculations, why not simply watch films that go in that direction? watch some aronofsky for christs sake.

reply

This was my thought too, about the boyfriend asking Jess about Sara... There were certainly times while watching the film that I considered that the 'twist' ending would be that Sara and Jess were one person, but by the end it is made 100% they are separate people.

reply

Agree. I don't understand where them being one person is coming from. Besides other points in the movie, this is what I posted in another thread. This is from the end of the movie -

Jess comes out and Saras husband asks "Have you seen Sara?" and Jess says "She's not with you?" and he looks toward the forest. Then Jess says "She came for me." Then he says "She knew you were still alive." Then he says "We go back in first thing."


Even if you weren't sure until then, this part makes it obvious they are 2 different people. If Jess was Sara, there would be no need to go back in the forest to look for Sara.

reply

Dotcom is right, too much speculation on this film, it will never be studied at any time as a classic film, move on.

reply

I actually believe they were separate people. It's made clear that Sara was the one who witnessed her father and mothers suicide and protected her sister from it by covering her eyes (cave scene). Despite the fact that she lies to everyone about it (even herself) she is actually the one with more 'sadness' inside, and more likely to be susceptible to suicide and hallucinations in the forest. Jess did get lost in the woods and did have hallucinations, but because Sara had covered her eyes from witnessing their parents death it's Sara, after reliving all of this that falls prey to the hallucinations, murders Aiden, then kills herself. The writing wasn't nearly as bad as people are claiming. The directing on the other hand was not great.

reply

It's made clear that Sara was the one who witnessed her father and mothers suicide and protected her sister from it...


You have the twins mixed up... Jess witnessed the aftermath of the murder/suicide.

reply

No, Sara was the one who witnessed the murder/suicide and then protected her sister Jess from seeing it. Sara had trouble dealing with it, so she made up a story to tell herself that it was a drunk driver who killed her parents, when we clearly see that in Sara's flashback scenes, she and her grandmother going down the basement stairs and coming upon her parents' bodies.

None of those flashbacks are from Jess' point of view. They are all told by Sara.
_________________________________
"I'm sorry, but.." is a self-contained lie.

reply

They really didn't show enough of Jess to know what she went through but when she came out of the forest and saw Saras husband, she seemed like she wasn't sure if it was real or not. They way she touched him and everything. So maybe that was to show she was also having hallucinations.

reply

That forest definitely penetrated her bhole.

reply

Sarah lied about how they died to the reporter and i think that she also may have lied about who tried to commit suicide.
I dont think Jess ever tried to suicide, i think Sarah was the one that tried only because the forest messing with her proved that it was sarah the one that was troubled amd had sadness in her heart.
there is no proof to show sarah tried to kill herself but i think she saw the ghosts because she was too messed up.

also i think it was sarah the one that saw her parents bodies, not jess.

reply