Sometimes, as humans, we fail to measure the weight of our own actions, and in our sheer ignorance, push a person off a cliff. We don’t often realize the consequences of our actions until it is too late, and that’s what happened with Benjamin. The young boy committed suicide when Sophia McElroy, the daughter of a powerful U.S. senator, bullied Benjamin, and later a journalist named Jake Mills, publicly harassed him through his news sensationalized news report. Benjamin’s father, David couldn’t bear the loss and therefore decided to avenge his son’s Wrongful Death by taking it out on the people who forced him to take his own life.
David kidnapped Sophia and Jake and locked them up in a torture chamber designed like an escape room where the rules were simple: they needed to confess their crimes and take responsibility for what they did to Benjamin. And if they don’t? Well, they would have to die a painful death. Wrongful Death is a tense, emotional story, but the terrible acting detracts from it. The film is about seeking justice and revenge, but as you already know, the cycle of pain never truly ends. So, the question here is: will Sophia and Jake confess and survive, or will David’s revenge be their final punishment?
Spoilers Ahead
Why did David want to take revenge?
Wrongful Death does not give us any clue in the start of the film about why Sophia and Jake are trapped in a torture room, until the very end when the truth is revealed: David Moore wanted to avenge his son Benjamin. So what really happened was, ten years earlier, when Benjamin and Sophia were still in school, Benjamin was completely in love with Sophia, even though he knew he didn’t stand a chance with her, especially since Sophia was the rich, snobbish daughter of a senator. Though Sophia was fully aware of Benjamin’s feelings, she still toyed with him as she enjoyed the attention, and she and her friends used to bully him, mock him, and humiliate him in front of everyone. It started off as mere jokes until the worst moment, when Sophia and her friends made Benjamin wear a girl’s dress in front of everyone at school, and Benjamin couldn’t bear the shame and embarrassment, so he stopped going to school, and eventually, took his own life to escape the pain.
Sophia on the other hand, moved on with her life without any guilt or regret, and continued as the spoiled brat she always was. Meanwhile, Jake, a local journalist, reported on Benjamin’s death in the newspaper and made the tragedy the talk of the town. But you can imagine how for David, Benjamin’s father, the pain never went away. He watched as Sophia and Jake carried on with their lives without any consequences, and from that moment, he vowed to take revenge on them. That’s how the torture chamber came to be—David’s twisted way to make them pay for what they did to his son.
What happened to Sophia and Jake?
As the movie begins, Sophia and Jake were found unconscious and naked in a strange torture room where neither of them had any idea who the other person was, and even worse, they couldn’t remember their own identities. It felt like something in the room had made them forget everything, and that’s why they both naturally grew suspicious of each other, as both Sophia and Jake thought the other person was there to kill them. But in reality, every move they made was part of David Moore’s plan. The situation became more terrifying when his voice asked them to confess their sins. But how could they? Both Sophia and Jake couldn’t even remember their own names, let alone their sins. They were starving and thirsty, and they quickly realized that if they didn’t follow the speaker’s commands, both Sophia and Jake wouldn’t get any food or water. Escape seemed impossible. Their first task was brutal—both had to cut their wrists and let the blood fill a bowl. (Ridiculous, right? But it’s a movie after all!)
Somehow, Sophia and Jake survived and were rewarded with some water, clothes, and a banana. Then came the next task—a crossword puzzle, and this is when Sophia saw the name “Benjamin,” and it triggered a memory, therefore, she thought maybe this Benjamin had something to do with the sin the voice talked to her about. Time was running out, and both of them began to realize they weren’t alone in this nightmare. Two other people had seemingly already died before them—one woman, possibly the school headmistress, and Sophia’s best friend, Maria (who was later found alive). Naturally, this terrified them. Sophia and Jake realized they could both be next, so they started to dig through their memories to try to figure out what they had done to deserve this. As Sophia tried to piece everything together, Jake suddenly turned on her, as he thought he had to kill Sophia to survive. But this was all part of David’s twisted plan—he wanted them to destroy each other. Sophia, in a panic, defended herself as she found a rope in the room and managed to strangle Jake to death. At first, they had tried to work together to escape, but it had quickly turned into a fight for survival.
After Jake was dead, David finally revealed himself to Sophia. He explained the entire situation—why they were there, how this was all about avenging his son Benjamin’s death, and how both Sophia and Jake were doomed from the start. Sophia was desperate and started to cry and beg for her life by acting all innocent and pretended to be sorry in the hope that her fake tears would save her. For a brief moment, it looked like David might let her go, as he became emotional too, but then, reality hit him as David realized that if he let Sophia go, she would twist the story and go back to play the victim to gain sympathy on social media about the kidnapping, and no one would ever know the truth about what Sophia had done to Benjamin. David couldn’t let her get away with it. So, as Sophia tried to escape, David followed her and, in the end, shot Sophia from behind.
In Wrongful Death’s ending, it had already been too late, when Sophia’s father, the state senator, arrives with his informant, “the German.” Sophia was long dead and there was no way to bring her back. But the ending revealed a very surprising turn of events as it revealed that, David Moore wasn’t working alone. The real mastermind behind the plan was Lou Cefair, who was known for his brutal methods to punish those he believed deserved it. And it looked like this was just the beginning, as, at the end of the movie, another young girl and her mother were found in the torture chamber. The girl is most probably one of Sophia’s friends who may have been involved in Benjamin’s death. So, it seems Lou Cefair has just started to punish everyone connected to Benjamin’s death, and the cycle of revenge and pain seems far from over.
