Opening Image

The movie begins with Jessie packing a newly purchased slip, her husband, Gerald is also seen packing as he places two pairs of handcuffs in his bag. The opening image establishes that Jessie is submissive towards Gerald. The slip is to her husband what the dress she wore when she was younger was to her father. Both men derived pleasure from them despite Jessie disliking it in both scenarios. The slip and the handcuffs represent Jess being bound against her will.

Theme

On the drive there, Gerald places his hand on her thigh but she moves it away by holding his hand in her’s. This tells us that all’s not well in their relationship and he reassures her by telling her that the trip will be good for them. However, she remains uncertain.

Set Up

The song, ‘bring it on home to me’ is played on the radio and Jessie turns it off as the song is associated with some bad memories.

They run into a stray dog eating a dead animal on the road and they both react in different ways. Jessie is more sympathetic and wonders if the dog is lost and if it has a collar on, while Gerald just honks at it until it moves and remarks that someone ought to do something about them. Additionally, we also hear news reports of break-ins and grave robberies.

They arrive at a house by the lake, which is similar to a house she had lived in when she was younger. This aspect is further elaborated upon when she begins reliving the horrors of her past.

She decides to feed the stray dog with expensive meat and it develops a taste for it, having moved up from eating roadkill. However, the dog runs away when Gerald shows up (it is known that dogs have a sixth sense that helps them identify “bad” people). On their way inside, Jessie notices that they’ve left the front door open. The act of feeding the dog represents Jess’ habit of complying to the needs of the men in her life.

Catalyst

Having agreed to try and reignite their marriage, they decide to try new things in bed but Jessie is caught off-guard when he shows her the handcuffs. Gerald reveals that he has a rape fantasy and has her cry out for help. He then proceeds to refer to himself “daddy”, creating a parallel between him and her father.

Debate

Things go too far and Jessie tells him to back off. They admit for the first time that their marriage has failed as Gerald says he’s no longer attracted to her. He tries to force himself on her but suffers a heart attack and dies.

Break into Two

With Gerald dead and Jessie tied up to the bed, she keeps calling for help but no one responds.

B Story

Having heard Jessie screaming, the stray dog from earlier walks in and begins eating Gerald’s flesh. The dog here represents a ticking clock as it’s only a matter of time before he’ll be done with Gerald and moves on to Jessie and also how she won’t last long without food or water. It also represents the insatiable hunger of the men in Jessie’s life who keep moving on from one woman to another (in her father’s case, from his wife to her) to achieve sexual gratification, just as the dog moves on from roadkill to high quality meat to a recently dead body to one who’ll die any minute now.

Fun and Games

She begins hallucinating that Gerald is alive and talking to her. He blames her for the dog and reminds her of a misogynistic joke he made a long time ago and how she let it slide even though it made her upset, convincing herself that that’s not the man he really is. This is how she covered up an incident with her father as well.

Through Gerald, she analyzes the situation and realizes that no one is coming for help. She imagines breaking free and creates a false Jessie to go with the false Gerald. They’re meant to represent the harsh truths about the situation that she can’t face on her own, the false Jessie is everything she wishes she could be in real life, strong and self-sufficient. False Jessie tells her that she’s been running away from her problems her whole life in hopes that they’ll go away on their own, but that isn’t an option now.

Gerald tells her that he had been taking Viagra for 6 months and even though she knew it she ignored it. When they tried having sex without it, he couldn’t get an erection until he started getting rough, this revealed a a side of him she didn’t know existed, and again this is just as how her father had revealed a side of him she had never seen before.

False Jessie diverts her attention to that glass of water above her but she’s unable to drink from it, she’s told that she’ll have to do better than that since by eating Gerald’s body, the dog is doing what it has to to stay alive and so should she. She’s reminded of the price tag of the slip which she uses to form a straw.

Having exhausted herself, she falls asleep. Later at night, we see that there’s something out there that’s scaring the dog and when Jess wakes up, she sees someone standing in the shadows. She assumes that she’s imagining the stranger as well and that in her mind that’s what death looks like. Gerald is then seen wearing a familiar shirt and he calls her mouse before she passes out again.

Midpoint

In a flashback we see a young Jessie arriving at a lake house with her family. She seems to be very close to her father but doesn’t get along very well with her mother. The family decides to go boating but Jessie and her father stay back to watch the solar eclipse. Her father asks her to sit on his lap for old time’s sake and she reluctantly agrees. As the sun gets blacked out, her father’s true nature surfaces and he masturbates to her. As he does so we hear the same song from earlier on the radio, ‘bring it on home to me’.

Back in the present day, the dog comes back knowing that his next meal is waiting. Jessie is forced to come to terms with her issues and face that the incident with her father is what led to her marrying something similar to him. The dog is then compared to her father and her husband as they’re all vile creatures who are constantly on the hunt for their next prey. She tells us about a dream she had wherein her younger self is trapped in a well filled with rotting secrets that she’s kept hidden while a woman watches her from above during a solar eclipse. She says that she never knew who the woman watching her was but somehow she knew that she would never reveal her secrets. The woman is meant to represent Jess’ older self who still struggles with the trauma and the younger self in the well represents how the secrets have cost her her childhood as well.

Bad Guys Close In

Jessie notices bloody footprints and can’t figure out if they’re real or not. If they are real then the Moonlight Man will be back for her again tonight. The incident in her past makes it clear why Gerald gave the stranger the name that he did as during an eclipse, the moon essentially blocks out the sun and light it emits, so the stranger is meant to represent death and complete darkness.

Jessie is still unable to face the situation she’s in and starts losing hope. She’s taken back in time again but this time it’s when her father spoke to her after the incident. Before her dad walks in, Jessie wonders if it was all her fault and maybe the dress she wore was too short and lays it on her bed just like she laid out the slip in the beginning of the movie. Her father manipulates her into never speaking of the incident, by telling her that her mother would blame her for what happened. Throughout the conversation, her father was able to maintain eye contact with her as he fed her lies but when he admits that what he did was wrong, he isn’t able to look at her. Lastly, her father blames the whole thing on the eclipse and Jess is relieved thinking that if that’s true at least it’ll never happen again.

All is Lost

Young Jessie lies down on her bed with her arms spread out, mimicking her state in the present time and also representing that it was since that moment that she’s been bound by her shackles. She’s then startled by the Moonlight Man licking her feet when in reality it’s the dog who’s doing it, this tells her that it’s only a matter of time before the dog eats her.

Gerald tells her no one would even notice she’s gone as she’s always kept her distance due to her secrets. People would only find their bodies after they notice Gerald is missing. At her lowest point, Jess admits defeat and passes out.

Dark Night of the Soul

Jessie sees her younger self during the eclipse and notices that she’s bound by the handcuffs as well. Her younger self urges her to remember and not bury her past as she already has everything she needs to survive. She recalls the night after the incident when her family is having dinner and she crushes a glass in her hand after she sees her father place his hand on his wife’s womb. To Jess, he’s just naming his next victim. As she and her father head to the bathroom, the light in the dining room becomes darker and darker, showing us how she’s forced to keep her family in the dark.

Break into Three

As an act of embracing her past, she decides to cut her wrist which will allow her to slip her hand through the cuff. False Jess reassures her that it will work but she’ll need to move past while False Gerald is still trying to hold her back.

She states that cutting her wrists will cause a lot of blood loss which is why it’s used as a common means of suicide. Gerald asks her how she knows all this and though she doesn’t respond, it’s clear that she’s often thought about killing herself in the past. However, this time she’s using her trauma to give herself a chance at survival. Having become stronger and no longer relying on her false self to face facts, she bids it farewell. However, the entire time the dog continues watching her, waiting for her to become too weak and die.

She manages to get her hand free and then uses the key to unlock the other cuff. Before she can make it to the car keys, she passes out and wakes up to the dog trying to eat her.

Finale

Once again, the dog senses a presence and hides in fear, the Moonlight Man is back. Jess keeps telling herself that he’s not real and gives him her wedding ring as a means to allow her to pass. This act also represents her leaving her toxic relationship behind. As she’s about to drive away, her vision of Gerald waves her goodbye. She’s seen driving through the eclipse as a representation of her leaving her past behind as well.

Eventually she loses control and hits a tree but people from a house nearby come to her aid. After some time passes and she continues recovering, she writes a letter to her past self and a means of lessening her burden. During her recovery, she continues to have nightmares of the Moonlight Man, who’s trying to drag her back down. She starts a foundation to help other children who have been abused and ensures that she ho longer hides from her past and she shares her story with every victim.

One day, she sees reports of a man breaking who resembles the Moonlight Man, he’s known to breaking into people’s houses and eat parts of their bodies, the same parts that Gerald was missing, meaning while the dog did eat his share so did the stranger. Eventually he only stuck to targeting males, which is why he spared Jess. She realizes that the only way to truly be rid of her experience would be to face the stranger. She arrives at his sentencing and watches as the man who’s meant to represent darkness turn into her father and her husband, she then remarks that he’s shorter than she remembers. This is also the first time the stranger is seen speaking as he was probably impressed with how Jess was the only one who wasn’t afraid of him and turned her back to him when she left the house, that’s why he repeats the same thing she told him.

Closing Image

Having faced her demons, she triumphantly walks towards the sun which is no longer eclipsed, representing her new found freedom from her past and her toxic relationship and thus forming an opposite of the opening image.