The character of Lina in The Conference, played by Katia Winter, is well-rounded, having a strong voice of her own. Her individuality makes her stand out from the rest of the people at her office. The actress is known for the significant roles she played in award-winning series like Dexter and Sleepy Hollow. Streaming on Netflix, the Swedish film has been directed by Patrik Eklund, and it is worth mentioning that even in a gore thriller, the director has been able to shape the character of the protagonist quite well. The Conference can be compared to other gore slasher films like Wrong Turn, Final Destination, The Babysitter, and others. Lina dares to question the injustice that her company has caused to a farmer and his family by uprooting from their land. This costs her some ugly stares from her colleagues. How she manages to find proof of the wrongdoing and seek a way out of the frenzy created by an unknown killer in the middle of the woods is yet to be found out. Will she make it out of the woods alive? Let’s see!
Spoilers Ahead
What were Lina’s fears?
Lina is seen to be a reticent character, not sharing a lot of her problems with people. She is asking Cleo, the physical trainer, about some of her personal issues and asking her if the activities would be too much of a stress for her because the doctor had asked her to stay out of them. She seems to have rejoined the office after a long break. She is welcomed by Amir into the team as they are talking about her rejoining. He also tells her that he should have been there for her when Ingela was straining her with a lot of work. Later in the conference, when they are discussing the budgets, we see her raising a concern about the budget that was not allotted for Palsson, the farmer whose land had been overtaken by their company to build the shopping complex. She also says that she does not remember signing the consent papers, raising concern among the other employees. She is, however, silenced by Jonas, who tells her that she has been embarrassing him in front of Ingela by denying her own signatures. He also raises concerns about her mental health and says that she must have forgotten that she had signed the papers.
Later, Lina is seen discussing with Amir the fact that she had not signed the papers and that it would be evil not to compensate Palsson and his family. She is informed by Amir that Palsson killed himself after his land was overtaken by the company. Later, the group of colleagues is seen playing all kinds of sports in the forest. Cleo takes them all out for ziplining and asks Lina to take part in it. Her internal insecurities do not let her participate in the sport, and she is made fun of by Jonas and his accomplice Kaj, as they call her “fragile”. Unable to take the humiliation, Lina goes back to the cabin. She sneaks into Jonas’ cabin to find proof of his fraudulent activities.
Was She Able To Find Proof Against Jonas?
After sneaking into Jonas’ room, Lina goes through his laptop and finds all the evidence against him. She finds out that he has signed a contract with another company that had a better offer and that he has leaked all the information about his current company. She also finds out that her signatures were forged by him and Kaj to ensure that no compensation for the land was paid to the farmer and to make her look bad in front of the other colleagues. She gets all the information transferred to her pendrive and tells Amir and Nadja about the scam. As she directly approaches Jonas to confront him about it, he wants to talk to her privately about it. As they go into Jonas’ room, he tries to seduce her at first, and when that fails, he tries offering her a better job at the company that he had made a deal with. She turns down all his offers and threatens to inform the police about his fraudulent activities. This brings out the loyalty of Lina to her workplace and her potential to not waver in any situation.
How Did She Manage To Escape The Killer?
The sudden entry of a killer into the official party takes everyone by surprise, and they try to figure out who it could be as the killer walks in wearing a mask. First, the people serving at the resort were taken down, and then all the colleagues of Lina were targeted one by one. Jonas and Lina start running in the same direction in the forest when Jonas gets severely injured by one of the traps set up by the killer. Lina helps him up, and they both try escaping in a boat to the other side of the shore. When they are on the boat, Jonas forces her to give him the pendrive to destroy all proofs against his fraudulence, then kicks Lina off the boat. Lina swims back up to the shore and is again chased down by the killer. While trying to escape, she finds that Amir has come to her rescue. They then run back to the cabin to stick together with their fellow colleagues to survive the menace.
Lina comes up with the idea that they should use the zipline to escape the forest. They all listen to her and run to the forest, only to be chased and separated by the killer. Amir, however, sticks to Lina, and they both go abroad on the zipline. Initially, Lina was reluctant, but with Amir’s help, she finally managed to do it. As they are about to reach the other end of the zipline, they see a death trap set for them by the killer on the other end of the shore. Amir gets stuck in the trap, but Lina is saved miraculously. On reaching the other shore, she finds a toolbox where she finds cell phones, from which she calls the police. Just after that, she is again attacked by Jonas, out of nowhere. In self-defense, she kills him by ripping apart the skin on his forehead, where he had already been hurt before. Later, she gets rescued by the police along with her other colleagues, Nadja, Tourjorn, and Eva.
Final Words
The ending of The Conference was quite abrupt, as the killer’s identity could have been revealed by the protagonist herself. The killer was identified as Palsson, the farmer’s son, who was seeking revenge for his father’s death. It is almost a mandate that the antagonists meet their end at the hands of the protagonist, but in The Conference, it was not so, as Nadja was the one to kill the murderer and save the others. The film, however, had the scope for a better exploration of the character of Lina, which they did not utilize to the fullest. Despite certain loopholes, the film does not have any cliffhangers, bringing a sense of relief to the audience that the killer would not again rise from his grave and murder the remaining members. However, there was a lot of gore used in the film, which could have been avoided to a certain extent.
