Posted by Produced in the Netherlands, Faithfully Yours is an exciting movie released on Netflix in May 2023. After meeting a surprising success at the Dutch box office in 2022, the film was released worldwide on Netflix a few months later, attracting lovers of crime stories. The plot gets increasingly complicated while it evolves, and the ending has a shocking twist that needs to be explained: let’s understand everything here.
You can watch the official trailer for Faithfully Yours here on Youtube.
Faithfully Yours plot & ending explained: Isabel’s plan
At the beginning of Faithfully Yours, we follow Bodil and Isabel, two friends with a secret agreement: they will cover each up, pretending to be in museums and cultural events, whereas they will actually unleash their instincts with private affairs and transgressive nightlife. The plan for the first night is that Isabel will have a room in another hotel and go in an exclusive nightclub, while Bodil will attend a cultural conference, taking pics with both phones.
We see Bodil getting intimate at her aunt’s home with Professor Michael Samuels, while Isabel has fun in the nightclub in another place. The morning after, Isabel’s husband, Luuk, calls Bodil: he twisted his ankle and needs Isabel back home. Bodil calls Isabel, the plan for the weekend is canceled. Isabel will stop at Bodil’s place to collect her phone and then return home. Meanwhile, Bodil goes swimming in the sea, and Michael is with her. When Bodil returns to her aunt’s home, we have the first plot twist: the entrance is covered in blood, and Isabel’s trolley is there.
From that moment, it’s all about understanding what happened to Isabel. Someone sends Isabel’s phone to the police, and we discover the pictures of her dead body where Bodil found the blood. Meanwhile, the police find a message on the dark web, where a killer confirms “mission accomplished” to a client named Zadkin. Someone hired a hitman to kill Isabel, apparently.
Two more plot twists drive the viewers of Faithfully Yours in different directions that need to be explained. Police find the footage from Isabel’s hotel, and we discover that Isabel returned to the hotel room with Bo’s sister, Yara. That night, Yara visits Bodil and reveals two crucial elements: first, Yara and Isabel have been dating for a long time, and they were planning to leave together; second, the hitman was hired to kill the woman at their aunt’s place that morning, implying that the real target was actually Bodil.
Before this insight, we suspected Isabel’s husband, Luuk, who would have hired the hitman to kill his wife. After understanding that Bodil was the target, we (and Bodil) suspect Bodil’s husband, Milan: he even had recordings of her affairs in that home, so he has the motive to kill her. When Bodil runs away scared, she goes to Michael’s home and discovers that his piano is missing a string. If that’s not a coincidence, Michael is the hitman and approached Bodil on purpose because he had to kill her.
The truth is in the middle, and Faithfully Yours explained it at the ending: it was Luuk hiring the hitman under the false name Zadkin, the protagonist of the last book he published. But the target was really Bodil, responsible for convincing Isabel that her relationship with Luuk had to stop. Luuk wanted Bodil dead so he could win Isabel again. When Bodil understands this, she escapes and kills Luuk in self-defense.
Everything seems clarified, except for the last big plot twist: Isabel is actually alive and is leaving with Yara. How is it possible? It’s Isabel the one that explained it in the ending scene of Faithfully Yours. Isabel discovered her husband’s plan to hire the hitman and kill Bodil, and uses this knowledge to her advantage. She contacts the same hitman and reaches an agreement with him: they will stage Isabel’s murder, pretending that the hitman killed the wrong woman. That way, she obtains two goals: her husband will be arrested (Isabel trusts Bodil’s ability to understand what he did), and she will be free to live her new life with Yara while everyone believes she’s dead. Bodil understands everything at the last minute and blesses Isabel and Yara for their future life. This also means that Michael is not the hitman, and the missing piano string was just an unfortunate coincidence.
Many plot twists, tons of misleading suspects, and an explanation that works perfectly: this is what made viewers fall in love with Faithfully Yours.
