Netflix’s Intrusion is the latest in a string of domestic thrillers to become popular on the streaming service, but what is the movie’s big twist—and does it all add up? 2021 has been a stellar year for psychological thrillers. The domestic thriller, in particular. is undergoing something of a revival as a new miniseries or movie crops up every few weeks featuring marriages built on lies, affairs leading to murder, and other staples of the potboiler sub-genre.
Recently, Netflix’s wild Clickbait featured a faintly ludicrous twist ending that re-contextualized the entire series, and now Intrusion has managed to outdo even that goofy thriller. Starring Freida Pinto as Meera, a woman moving into her dream home with her dream husband Henry while in remission from breast cancer, Intrusion is a wild ride filled with deception, death, and sex. Naturally, Intrusion comes with a twist ending, but as if often the case with domestic thrillers, it is not one that necessarily makes much sense on a rewatch.
When Intrusion begins, Meera and Henry are a blissfully happy couple moving into their new home (designed by Henry himself). Soon, two men break into their abode and Henry kills one, hospitalizing the other. This sets in motion the thriller’s twist ending, as Meera begins to question Henry’s nonplussed reaction to the break-in and unravels a complex web of lies.
Meera follows her husband when he claims he’s running an errand, only for him to secretly visit the hospital. Meera soon discovers that the second man who broke into her house died in hospital, sparking her suspicion. She visits his house and learns he is Dylan Cobb, father of missing girl Christine. When Meera confronts Henry about this, he claims Dylan was a contractor who extorted him for more money and broke in when he refused to pay. However, Meera later watches footage that Dylan recorded for the police wherein he claims Henry is a danger to his daughter. This prompts Meera to snoop around Henry’s office, where she discovers Christine chained up in a secret room.
Meera knocks Henry over the head after Intrusion’s twist ending is revealed, apparently killing him with immediate effect. However, some viewers struggled to believe that this one quick blow alone would be enough to kill him instantly, and it may be more likely that Henry is simply just temporarily unconscious. Still, this would buy Meera enough time to free Christine and alert the authorities, meaning the question of whether or not Henry is definitively dead is not necessarily one of paramount importance, since he does not return to attack his wife or captive in a last-second surprise.
The revelation that Henry has been the villain all along does work as the thriller’s big M Night Shyamalan-esque plot twist—if anything, the twist may work too well, as Henry's potential to be the antagonist makes so much sense that many canny viewers will have worked out the surprise long before his wife manages to piece it together during the climax. There are not too many red herrings on offer during Intrusion’s action (more on that later), meaning the killer almost has to be Henry. Meanwhile, the mounting evidence pointing toward him means that, by the time Meera finds a flash drive full of incriminating evidence in act two, it would be more of a twist to find out Henry wasn’t the guilty party.
Before the twist ending of Intrusion, viewers could conceivably believe that Christine’s father Dylan was the one who killed/kidnapped her. The fact that he left a message for the police, that he broke into Henry’s house, and Henry claimed the laborer was extorting him all add up to a damning portrait. However, Intrusion never pushes the idea that Dylan was responsible for his daughter’s disappearance too hard, with the movie’s main misdirection being a much more obvious red herring.
When Meera does some investigating and heads to Dylan’s trailer park home to search for clues, she encounters an unhinged and paranoid man who threatens her. This unidentified man takes Dylan’s video camera (which, Promising Young Woman-style, was addressed to the police and contained vital evidence in case Dylan died before returning home) from Meera and destroys it before telling her to leave. Later in the movie, the character is arrested, which Meera assumes is in connection with Christine’s disappearance. So, who is he? Ultimately, Intrusion never explains who this man was, and it is pretty obvious once Henry’s villainy is revealed that the threatening trailer park character is a red herring designed to throw viewers off Henry's scent.
Initially, the fact that Henry is unfazed by killing a man during a home invasion is the first clue that something is off about Meera’s husband. While she’s not surprised that he handled the dangerous situation, the fact that Henry dismisses the death tells Meera that he isn’t entirely normal. The extent of Henry’s evil is not clear until the ending explains that he kidnapped Christine, but the fact that he lied to his wife before visiting the hospital is another clue to his duplicity. Similarly, the gun that Henry uses to kill the intruder is one his wife didn’t know existed—meaning further lies and deceit would not be a surprise, even if the nature of Henry’s secret is a lot darker than just a hidden weapon.
Like so many movies in the domestic thriller sub-genre, Intrusion’s trashy exterior belies a pretty compelling central message. The movie’s ending warns viewers to never allow love to blind them to the reality of what their partner is capable of. Meera’s reticence to come to terms with Henry’s evil extends Christine’s ordeal and contributes to the death of Dylan, much like the killer twist ending of What Lies Below relies on that earlier domestic thriller’s heroine opting not to think the worst about her mother’s new paramour for the plot's twisted machinations to make sense. Ultimately, Intrusion serves as a grim warning that often the most dangerous threats can come from inside one’s own home.
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