Abandoned Man (Metruk Adam, 2025) Movie Review & Ending Explained: Does Lidya Stay Back with Baran?

Çagri Vila Lostuvali’s “Abandoned Man” (Original title: Metruk Adam, 2025) revolves around an ex-inmate who struggles to forge a life outside jail walls. In his re-entry into civilian life, there are many bumps, a test of his character in crisis. But he will have to fling himself through the maws of life. Hope has to be rebuilt and reassembled from distress and dire circumstances, faith to be cobbled together in the repose of strangers and loved ones alike. To put himself back into life’s grind, one has to commit and believe. There must be conviction and certainty in wrenching back joy and vitality from life, despite the passage of horrors and terrible things.

In many ways, the film is about the faith that life still has to offer beauty and happiness. It’s about the heart slowly mending and trusting in kindness and benedictions. There can still be a silver lining if one learns to look for it. There are difficulties and hardships, and one must shoulder and square up for disaster along with unexpected showers of grace. This is a journey of second chances and revivals.

Abandoned Man (Metruk Adam, 2025) Plot Summary & Movie Synopsis:

Baran has had a tough, skewed life, where he has been bundled with woes by his own father. He was forced to sign up for prison time and take the burden of his older brother’s crime. The latter had been involved in a hit-and-run. At fifteen, Baran is tasked with paying for the sins of his brother. He doesn’t even protest that much. His own mother and father are unkind and wholly unsympathetic to him, dismissing his concern and apprehension. They are only interested in their older son, shipping Baran away to torture in prison. He’s left in a thankless, terrible space with nothing to fend for himself.

His father had thought that Baran being juvenile would scrape him out of too much drawn-out misery in prison. His elder brother, who was above eighteen, would have been dealt a more severe hand. But Baran’s father’s calculations don’t pan out as intended. For Baran, months dragged into years, nearly fifteen. It’s because Baran killed a few security guards in order to save himself and his brother from sexual assault that extends his imprisonment. His elder brother, Fatih, has been guilt-stricken, unlike his parents.

In the present day, Baran does try to get a grip on life. But tragedy and violence aren’t too far behind, still streaking temporality and landscapes he encounters. Fatih and his wife haven’t been having the smoothest of married lives. His wife, Arzu, is barely made privy to his decisions, the churn of his genuine emotions. Fatih wanted Baran to stay with him at their house, but the latter is unwilling, retreating. Baran is only happy to be around his friend, Esat, who is also grateful to him. A fraudster has taken away all his money. He also struggles to find a place.

How does Fatih’s accident change Baran’s life?

Baran discovers Fatih has been gravely injured in a drunk driving incident. Arzu also passes, leaving only their daughter, Lidya, alive. Fatih slips into a coma. Baran feels compelled to take care of Lidya. Lidya could have been put in foster care, but Baran builds a deep, loving relationship with her, unmarred by the association between Baran and Fatih. Initially, though, Baran is reticent and reserved in his affection. He doesn’t wish to plunge into the relationship of caring for his niece right away. Baran sells away possessions to take care of his brother’s hospital expenses.

Esat’s boss, Musa, has a huge garage, but doesn’t want Baran to work for him. Musa’s earlier kindness has mostly faded; he has witnessed his family die before him, but Baran’s difficult situation gradually awakens in him a dose of compassion and consideration. Eventually, Musa decides to repose trust in Baran, seeing the hard work and dedication the hapless guy puts in to prove himself. Musa entrusts Baran with a place to stay and gradually grows tender towards Lidya.

Abandoned Man (Metruk Adam, 2025) Movie Ending Explained:

Does Lidya stay back with Baran?

Baran saves up enough and opens his own garage. The bond between him and his niece deepens into something vital, each relying on the other immeasurably and inexorably. Finally, Fatih’s health improves, and he’s released from the hospital. The father reunites with his daughter. Baran is left with inevitable pangs in the bittersweet act of letting Lidya go, but knows this relationship is secure and too strong to weather short changes of affection and time’s passage. Taking care of Lidya turns Baran into a responsible man, capable of leading his life with a sound financial sense and no further fluctuations. It’s a coming of age for Baran as much as it has been for Lidya.

Abandoned Man (Metruk Adam, 2025) Movie Review:

Buried somewhere in here is a charming, abundantly likeable story of a man and his niece forming a connection that grows into a mutually propelling relationship. It’s not one-way, but both have to learn from the other and be open to receiving love and significant strength. The acting is serviceable, but there’s not much here by way of subtle, specific writing that can pull together the entire film. It mostly registers in fits and sparks, otherwise dissolving into a generic narrative of a young person showing an older individual a path to a new, surer life, one that has space for joy and growth.

Ada Erma has enough charisma and conviction to arrest one’s attention whenever she flits across the screen. One also wishes she were utilised in a far more intelligent, layered film, where her evident talents wouldn’t get so trundled past in a mess of sloppily built characters and their equally slapdash trajectories. Her gifts get stamped over, and one had hoped the film would be smarter to make good use of her. Is it too much to ask for a film where realisations and equations could have been traced with more care, patience, and tact?

The tenderness in the film could have bloomed brighter had not there been a slew of contrivances in how Baran’s life smoothly folds into place with Musa’s change of mind. As the latter wakes up to kindness, Baran gets it all sorted. This neatness with which the resolutions arrive in the narrative takes away an accrual of gentleness which the universe too can show if one is ready to put their best foot forward. Where is the tough grind of sheer instability, of not having finances in place and realising everything is in brutal disarray?

“Abandoned Man” gives off the veneer of a man rebuilding from scratch, but the journey it establishes is too pat to be believable, and thereby, investing emotion becomes a tall ask. Unlike the idealised fictions the film sells and projects, life is more vengeful and erratic. No benevolent strangers are waiting around the corner, eager to see if one is being. That Baran gets his garage so fuss-free diminishes the stakes and emotional realism. It cuts away the more amiable energy the uncle-niece track would have otherwise gathered in spades.