An autistic kid connects with a bunch of ghosts, who happen to be her mother’s aunts. It does seem like the ghosts are asking for help, but that’s not quite the case. We’re talking about the Spanish horror film The Aunts (Las Tias in the original language) here, which aims for an emotionally devastating ending. But you don’t feel much of the impact thanks to a lackluster screenplay that takes too long to build up, only to hurry the big payoff in the end, which doesn’t properly clarify everything. That’s obviously a major flaw in the writing that lets the film down. I’m going to try breaking down the plot and the ending in this article, but I must warn you that some of it is going to be my own interpretation.
Spoilers Ahead
What happens in the movie?
You hear someone begging Mariana to help them in a trembling voice while you’re greeted with horrifying things on the screen. The floor of an old house is covered in blood, there’s a toppled-over wheelchair, and a woman is lying dead on the floor—her body is covered with blood. Another woman, also covered in blood, sits in a tub and slits her wrist. The call for help only manages to reach Mariana’s answering machine, and she doesn’t pick up. That’s all the tease you get.
Now onto the main story: Mariana and her eight-year-old autistic kid, Lola—who is completely non-verbal—move into the same house, which is now empty. The reason she has moved here is in pursuit of an experiential treatment for Lola, suggested by family doctor Manuel. The idea is to make Lola talk by approaching the treatment in a holistic manner that includes keeping the little girl away from cell phones and other electronic gadgets. Mariana’s marriage with her husband Ernesto is on the verge of ending, although he seems to be very concerned about Lola. Her decision to move to the old house (which belonged to her aunts) bothers him so much as he’ll have to travel three hours every time he wants to see his daughter. Meanwhile, a new romance has brewed between Manuel and Mariana. The doctor seems to be really nice and very helpful with Lola, unlike the husband. Speaking of Lola, right after moving to the house, she starts experiencing the presence of something supernatural (even though she doesn’t say anything). It is, of course, the ghost of the aunts. Lola also starts to sleepwalk, which is something she hasn’t done before.
Does the treatment work?
Well, we don’t really see much of the treatment other than Mariana asking Lola to pick a card standing in for emotions like anxiety, sadness, frustration, or anger. Then there’s harmonization, which is basically inducing a state of harmony for the little girl. It’s not quite possible to tell if the treatment really works, but Lola does start talking. Of course, the ghosts of the aunts have a lot to do with that. Mariana doesn’t understand what’s happening as Lola initially refers to the aunts as her friends. She is too happy to focus on the fact that her daughter is talking anyway. However, Lola doesn’t seem to talk in front of Ernesto and Manuel. Later, though, Manuel gets to hear Lolas scream during one of the nights he’s staying over. The little girl keeps getting drawn to the bathtub, where one of the aunts slit her wrist in the beginning.
The movie could have done away with Lola’s autism and focused a bit more on the aunts. I mean, nothing would have changed if Lola was a normal child who was contacted by the ghost. Not only does the autism angle not work, it needlessly convoluted the plot. Anyway, when Lola finally mentions that her mother’s dead aunts—Liliana and Eugenia—are her friends, Mariana obviously doesn’t believe it. However, she gets alarmed when Lola says Liliana lost a baby and was always sad. Aunt Liliana did have a mental illness issue throughout her life.
What really happened to the Aunts?
The good doctor Manuel is not so good after all. It turns out that upon learning Eugenia and Liliana had a lot of money, the guy tried his best to trick them into giving their wealth to him. He seduced Liliana and got her pregnant, only to end the relationship abruptly. Liliana soon lost the baby and ended up killing herself. How Eugenia died is not quite clear thanks to utterly confusing writing that refuses to explain things like this, but I would put that on the doctor as well. What he failed to do, however, was manage to convince Eugenia to sign the necessary documents to hand him over everything.
When Mariana finds out about what Dr. Manuel did to Liliana, she confronts the doctor, but he appears hurt by the fact that she would even entertain the thought of it. Following a basic horror movie trope, Mariana finally realizes she has to get out of the house with Lola for good at the worst possible time—the middle of a night with torrential rain outside. But she can’t wait, as she is now certain that the ghost of Aunt Liliana is a very real thing. Just when Mariana is about to go away with her daughter, Lola sleepwalks to the tub, and the ghost of Liliana drowns her in front of a horrified Mariana. Police fail to do anything regarding the matter, of course, and it ultimately comes down to Mariana to save her daughter. Even in a state of extreme agony and despair, Mariana smartly figures out that her daughter is in another realm—with the ghost of the aunt. She even manages to communicate, and Lola lets her know that the aunts are mad at her for not helping them when they were alive, and now, they’ll only release Lola in exchange for a life.
Does Mariana die while saving Lola?
This is where it gets really problematic. Sure, what happened with the aunts was really tragic, and they probably would have survived had Mariana responded to the call for help. But blaming Mariana and taking away her innocent child is clearly not the way to go and makes the aunts a bunch of evil ghosts. Even after Mariana poisons and kills Manuel, they refuse to leave Lola. Realizing the only way she can save her daughter is by offering herself to the aunts, Mariana goes into the tub and slits her wrist without any hesitation. Shortly after, Ernesto finds his wife dead in the tub, while a very disheveled-looking Lola stands nearby. Six months later, we see Ernesto selling the place while Lola is around. When Lola turns back for one final time, she sees the aunts and Mariana, all of whom are probably going to remain stuck at the house for eternity. This clearly indicates Mariana had to sacrifice her own life in order to save her daughter’s life. That makes her a great mother, but this is a movie that is trying to be preachy about taking care of the elderly, remember? That’s the very reason it should eventually be forgotten.
