![]() ![]() When this incident proves less-than-fatal, “What Keeps You Alive” becomes a game of survival between one badly hurt woman and a second who’s not only out to kill her, but has apparently disposed of prior girlfriends in the same ruthless way. A jolting turn of events at the 20-minute mark re-configures our notion of who’s the likely victim and victimizer in this relationship to a drastic degree. Yet they are headed somewhere else entirely, it turns out. Given that this is a thriller, we suspect we know where things are headed. However, our immediate attention is on Jules’ reaction to discovering her wife had female acquaintances before her - she seems jealous and sulky beyond all reason. It’s a brief, awkward reunion for the two women - which Jackie later explains as resulting from the mysterious drowning death of a third friend years ago, an event she was questioned by police over before being absolved of wrongdoing. A light shining in this now-seldom-occupied house attracts the attention of Jackie’s childhood friend Sarah (Martha MacIsaac), who lives with her husband (Joey Klein as Daniel) in a home directly across the lake. Jackie ( Hannah Emily Anderson) and Jules (Allen) are celebrating their one-year anniversary with a weekend at a woodsy Canadian cabin that’s been in the former’s family for generations. Nonetheless, it’s an entertaining and well-crafted effort from a resourceful indie team who’ve scored enough respectable base hits to date (also including “Grave Encounters” and “Extraterrestrial”) that one might reasonably expect them to deliver a home-run any time now. Jules's ending means that she is suffering in the woods without anyone to do the humane thing of putting her out of her misery since she killed Jackie.A year after putting his recurrent star Brittany Allen through one kind of mill - chased across the desert by a tireless zombie - writer-director Colin Minihan provides her with another life-imperiling ordeal via “What Keeps You Alive.” This thriller about a lesbian couple whose weekend takes a drastic turn is less one-note as a narrative conceit than “It Stains the Sand Red,” though it too ultimately stretches inspiration a tad thin. The animal suffered because her first shot did not kill it. This references how the bear died when Jackie shot it. It is highly improbable that anyone could survive that fall, so it's more likely that she died slowly. Due to the brutal injuries that cover her body as well as the, presumably, several broken bones, it is highly unlikely that she survived after gasping for air. Whether or not she really did is up to the interpretation of the viewer. It is implied that Jules may have survived the fall. ![]() ![]() As the camera pans away from Jules's presumably dead body, a gasp for air is heard off-screen. The ending of What Keeps You Alive is filled with symbolism and a very bizarre twist. The bear stands for everything wrong with Jackie, her senseless murders, and alludes to her impending death. Her malevolent behavior has existed since childhood. When she sees the bear in the midst of dying, the film reveals that the animal did not ever intend to cause her harm, and that Jackie killed it just do it. When she initially killed the animal, it seems that she felt threatened. The bear symbolizes that she was unable to stay alive despite killing Jules, Jenny, and all of her other wives. As Jackie clings to trees and searches through the woods for help, she becomes disoriented and dies from a stroke, but not after seeing the bear she killed when she was younger. ![]()
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