Monolith (2023) Movie Ending Explained: “Monolith” (2023) tells the story of an unnamed ex-journalist who loses her job because of poor judgment while covering a story. She is now a podcaster who does shows on various bizarre things in the world called ‘Beyond Believable.’ She is trying to develop a new story for the podcast when she stumbles upon an anonymous email. Things start to get interesting for her as she gets a lot of listeners, but the story itself is increasingly fascinating. One thing leads to another, and things fall apart for the podcaster when the bizarre story gets personal.
This article contains spoilers.
Monolith (2023) Plot Summary:
A Haunting Past and a Mysterious Email: What Pulls the Podcaster Back In?
The film begins with a man narrating a story about something that happened to his mother and him. When he was a child, someone took pictures of his mother and family. The person was a stalker, and the family called the cops. When the podcaster asks for the picture, the man says the cops didn’t have any record of the man and had lost the camera. The podcaster doesn’t believe the story, so the man reminds her about when she did a poor job as a journalist.
In the next scene, the ex-journalist and now podcaster apologizes to the public for not backing up her sources before publishing her article. She now introduces her podcast ‘Beyond Believable.’ She listens to all the voicemails and emails she has received. One of the voicemails says they have put their neck on the line to help her get back into the spotlight. She receives a lot of hate emails. Among those emails, she notices an anonymous email with the word “Bricks” and says the truth will come out.
The email also has a number. She calls, and a lady named Ms. King picks up the call. The unnamed podcaster explains her profession and about the anonymous email. She asks Ms.King about the brick, brick but the lady hesitates to discuss it. However, she convinces Ms. King (Floramae) to tell her story. Floramae tells her that she used to work for someone for many years. One day, out of nowhere, all the owner’s furniture was scratched. The owner blamed it on her daughter Paula, but Paula denied doing any such thing. However, even Floramae didn’t believe Paula and felt maybe her daughter did do it. The owners fired her, and that’s when she received the brick. Floramae describes the brick as something black and powerful.
Cursed Objects or Portal to Another Dimension?
The owners took the black brick and sold it to a German art collector. Since the family owed them for the destroyed furniture, they took a bit of a payment from the brick. The podcaster tries to ask how the brick came into their possession, but she does not reveal it. She says that she can feel the power of the brick and feels something is not finished.
This intrigues the podcaster, and she calls the German art collector Lang. She asks Lang if he remembers buying a black brick from an Australian man many years ago, and surely Lang remembers. He says he has many of them. Lang reveals that when he was younger, he also received a brick. Lang says when he received the brick, it was in his house. Upon scanning it with some new technology, they could see various symbols inside each brick. He believes his brick speaks directly to him.
He also tells her that before he received the brick, he had strange visions, and the brick always spoke to him. Moreover, he received the brick when his brother died, and he didn’t feel bad about it. The podcaster decides to broadcast the episode. Now that the podcaster has produced a hit podcast with thousands of listeners, people want to talk and know more about the brick. After the first episode, the podcaster receives more calls saying they have all received the brick. A woman named Laura also received a brick, and she always wanted to talk to someone who would understand it. She says that she also had visions but couldn’t eat anything. Upon further inquiry, Laura says she has thought about smashing the brick but feels it’s trying to tell her something, and she needs to listen.
Spreading Madness? Black Bricks Fuel Visions and Fears – Is the Podcaster Next?
The podcaster starts to map out different locations on the map to see where the bricks have emerged. Another man calls the podcaster and tells her that she needs to stop doing the podcast as this feels like a disease he might catch. His grandfather received a brick, and before that, he had stopped eating. His grandfather had an illegitimate child with another woman, and he didn’t know until he saw the woman somewhere. Before he died, he was found whispering to an empty chair, apologizing to the child. He also had visions, and now his father is going through the same thing, and he is worried that he will receive the brick as well.
The podcaster finds an article written many years ago by a journalist, Shiloh Lowden, from London, and it’s about research the government was conducting at that time. The symptoms mentioned are similar to the black brick case, and she reaches out to the journalist. Lang sends the podcaster the scans he had made years ago, and she asks her friend from MIT, who specializes in linguistics, to check the scan. He reveals that he has not seen such a thing before, and it does not match any script from any language.
The podcaster gets a package containing a USB delivered to her doorstep. She watches a video of her when she is nine on her birthday. She hears herself saying all the great gifts she’s received and mentions getting a black brick. The podcaster freaks out and tries to connect with her dad to learn more. By then, she has nausea and other symptoms. There is shredded paper, and she pieces it together and sees a symbol similar to one of the symbols seen in the scans Lang had sent.
Can the Podcaster Unravel the Conspiracy?
She confronts Lang if he is playing a prank on her, and he denies it. She asks him to show the bricks to her immediately. He complies and sees a lot of black brick collections. However, Lang is losing himself as he starts to see his brother, and the call goes dead. The podcaster submits the next podcast. Shiloh Lowden reaches out to the podcaster and tells her it was back in the day the research was conducted, and if she thinks there is a connection, she can dig deeper. The podcaster analyses the video and realizes something.
She confronts Floramae, asking if she used to work for her parents. Her daughter Paula takes the call and tells her that because of the podcaster, her life was ruined, and she needs to fix this. She accuses the podcaster of being jealous of her because her parents would do things for Paula. She gets a call from her dad, and he tells her that the podcaster was the one who told her that Paula had done that to the furniture.
He also says Paula was violent, and it was scary, and they had to fire them. They also called the police, and Paula was asked to move, and a fine was put on the family. Floramae had found the black brick on their property, and it was art, and they didn’t know its value. Since it was found on the property and she had picked it up, they took the brick from Floramae. Her dad tells her to let this go, as all families have secrets. The podcaster deletes the recording. The podcaster goes to the washroom because of a terrible stomachache, but she pulls a black brick from her mouth.
Monolith (2023) Movie Ending Explained:
Did the Podcaster Kill Her Dark Doppelganger or Escape a Mass Delusion?
She gets angry and destroys the brick. In a while, the brick takes the shape of the podcaster. It is an exact duplicate copy. She tries to converse with the duplicate, but it destroys the recording device. The podcaster then runs into the wood, and the replication follows. They fight, and one of the podcasters is killed by the other. The podcaster jumps back in for the recording and says that they have a secret to share and they are the only ones willing to share it, and once they do, everything will change.
The film’s ending is open-ended, leaving viewers a lot of room to interpret the story. In the end, when the podcaster kills the duplicate, it can mean many things, and one of them can mean that the podcaster has managed to kill the other selfish, jealous self that Paula knew the podcaster to be. It can also mean that everything was a hallucination, and she managed to fight this disease by killing the duplicate. The film explores many ideas with one story and leaves the interpretation to the viewers.
The black bricks can be a figment of imagination and a mass imagination. They manifest from the information fed into many people, making them real. The book also explores the idea that they could be aliens, especially regarding the scans of the brick when the linguistic experts confirm that they aren’t from any language on Earth. The other idea could just be that they are a mental disorder or a disease.
The stories of everyone who received the black brick before receiving it were going through trauma and processing grief. The black brick can be a symbol of killing that ugly self of each human. Another possibility is that considering the podcaster is an ex-journalist dying to get back to work and get the spotlight, this can be perceived as a scenario to get the numbers, fame, and money. The last possibility seems like a farfetched one, but it is left to the viewers to take what they wish from the end.
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