Huesera: The Bone Woman (2022) Movie Ending Explained: In Mexican director Michelle Garza Cervera’s “Huesera: The Bone Woman,” two stories are going on simultaneously. In one of those, a woman is being haunted by a (literally) bone-crunching supernatural entity before and after pregnancy. The other one is a story of the self-discovery of the same person, which is carefully wrapped inside the more obvious narrative. Although, with a little attention, you can see what is happening.
The horror genre has come a long way over the last decade, which is evident from movies like this. I admire when a director tries to explore socially relevant themes while following the horror genre tropes, and “Huesera” has done exactly that. This is really fantastic filmmaking by Cervera which a brilliant lead performance by actress Natalia Solián strongly backs.
Huesera: The Bone Woman (2022): Plot summary & Movie Synopsis
The movie opens with a pilgrimage, which a young woman is taking along with an older woman, presumably her mother. The deity they are visiting has a huge, gleaming gold statue with a baby statue at the bottom, making it abundantly clear that the pilgrimage is solely for women wishing to get pregnant. The camera pans to the deity statue from afar, and then it fades away and gets replaced by a shadowy figure engulfed in the fire inside a dark room.
With this opening sequence, the director manages to establish that whatever is going to happen will probably not be good. This sets the very necessary tone of unease, which the audience starts to feel even before getting introduced to the characters and the story.
Introduction
The protagonist, Valeria, the young woman from the opening sequence, is shown having sex with her husband, Raul. The physical act lacks passion, but their marriage appears to be stable. Raul appears to be a nice and caring husband to Valeria. She is a carpenter, he is in advertising (which we find out much later).
Valeria soon gets pregnant. Upon hearing the news, Raul is over the moon.
Who is the Bone Woman?
The Spanish word “Huesera” roughly translates to “The Bone Woman.”
But before getting into that, let us take a look at Valeria’s family. That older woman from the pilgrimage does turn out to be her mother, after all. In a very symbolic manner, Valeria and Raul visit her family on “mother’s day.” Like Raul, Valeria’s parents are absolutely elated with the news of her being pregnant, and so is her aunt. But her sister-in-law Vero does not seem to have a similar kind of enthusiasm.
The relationship between Valeria and Vero seems pretty awkward and cold. As Valeria’s parents and Vero start to discuss going to a party and finding a babysitter for Vero’s kids, Valeria offers to help them. This is not well received by Vero, who clearly does not trust Valeria with her kids. She even indirectly questions if Valeria is fit to be a mother, which understandably upsets her. Raul keeps playing the part of polite son-in-law without saying anything, although he appears to be supportive of Valeria. The other person who seems to be genuinely affectionate and concerned about Valeria is her aunt.
We soon discover why Vero did not trust her sister with her kids. Long ago, while Valeria and Vero were babysitting a local kid, Valeria accidentally dropped the baby. Nothing alarming happened. The baby was safe and sound. But Vero and the others joke about the kid turning out to be a sort of “idiot,” which makes Valeria uncomfortable. While returning home, Valeria and Raul come across a woman called Octavia on the street. We realize these two know her from the past, and there is clearly a very awkward tension going around them.
At night, Valeria is unable to sleep and stands on the balcony to get some fresh air. When she casually gazes into a balcony across the street, she sees a woman doing something which can only be described as twisting and turning the entire body, crushing every bone. It’s something a regular human would never be able to do. Once that is done, the woman jumps from the balcony, and Valeria sees her lifeless body on the road. Utterly shocked and scared, Valeria also screams, wakes up Raul, and takes him to the balcony. But as you would expect, there is nothing on the road. No woman on the balcony across the street. Absolutely nothing substantial for Raul to believe Valeria. So understandably, he perceives it as a result of pregnancy stress.
The Haunting Continues
The bone woman, whom I am going to refer to as “the entity” from now on, does not leave Valeria. As she gets closer to giving birth, the entity’s haunting keeps increasing. One night Valeria hears a knock on the door of their flat, but she does not find anyone after opening it. Simultaneously anxious and curious, she goes downstairs to look, keeping the door ajar. We see the entity entering the apartment and shutting the door. After Valeria frantically pounds on the door, Raul opens it. She tells him that someone has broken into their apartment. But Raul does not find anyone and blames the closing of the door on the open window.
Valeria’s health also takes a toll which concerns Raul. Upon the couple’s request, the doctor tells them that Valeria is pregnant with a girl during an ultrasound. Strangely though, while Raul and the doctor can clearly see the baby on the screen, Valeria doesn’t see anything. However, she keeps this to herself. At home, Raul refuses Valeria’s sexual advance, citing that it might hurt the baby, which frustrates Valeria.
An Old Flame
One of the things I really liked about the screenplay, which is written by Cervera herself along with Abia Castillo, is introducing plot devices exciting enough to intrigue you and then going back to that at a point much later in the narrative.
As I mentioned, the awkward tension between Octavia, Valeria, and Raul, we finally find out that Octavia is an old girlfriend of Valeria after all when the latter visits the former. Even though from their first interaction in the movie, it did seem like Octavia was mad at Valeria, when the two meet, things turn out much differently. Sparks fly as the two rekindle their relationship through a night of passion, and we instantly understand their fiery chemistry.
Getting back to Octavia and revealing things to us at this point is an implication of really clever writing, as we have already seen that the sexual chemistry between Valeria and Raul does not really work, despite Raul, in general, being a decent husband.
Huesera: The Bone Woman (2022): Ending Explained
Valeria does get the opportunity to babysit her sister’s kids. But that goes horribly wrong as the kids give her a really hard time, and the entity also breaks in. Upon hitting the panic button to call the neighborhood watch, help comes quickly. However, nobody finds anything, and an embarrassed Valeria stands without anything to say to her parents and sister-in-law.
To make matters worse, Vero attacks her, and a fight breaks out between them, which abruptly ends with Valeria leaving. Her aunt comforts her, and we realize she is the only one who believes that the entity is haunting Valeria. Instead of going back home, Valeria spends the night at Octavia’s. To get rid of the entity, her aunt takes her to a place where a woman performs a ritual on her. The woman says if this does not work out, then the alternative way out is something really “dark,” which Valeria’s aunt would know.
What happens to Valeria?
Valeria’s tryst with the entity does not end, as the entity continues to make her life a living hell. The crib she makes for her own child catches fire, for which Raul blames her. Her relationship with Raul gets strained as Raul finds out about her and Octavia. However, Raul still seems to be there for her, and to help Valeria deal with the pregnancy, Raul calls his mother. This does help a little, although the entity does not go away.
Valeria’s situation becomes even more complicated when she admits to Octavia that she thinks she wants to be with her. But Octavia only responds with a scoff for never really knowing what she wants. Right after their confrontation, Valeria is again haunted by the entity in the middle of a huge, intoxicated, dancing crowd. Octavia rescues her and takes her to the hospital.
Valeria finally has her baby. Raul, as you would expect, is extremely happy. However, Valeria fails to find any kind of warmth or connection for her own baby.
What happens in the end? Who is really the bone woman?
Valeria’s postpartum keeps getting worse. The entity keeps haunting her, and now the baby. After finding the baby inside the refrigerator one time, Valeria decides that enough is enough. Time to take the extreme measure, which is participating in that “dark” ritual. Octavia takes Valeria and the baby to the secluded place where her aunt is waiting for it.
The ritual begins. Several women start protecting the baby together while performing some kind of chant. Valeria is given a blanket that she has to hold onto inside “that place.” We assume “that place” refers to the darker realm that Valeria is about to walk into.
In the dark of night, Valeria enters a forest and comes across many bone-crunching entities. All the entities engulf Valeria, her bones get crunched. But Valeria keeps holding on to the blanket until all the entities are gone. When she loosens her grip, an entity emerges from the blanket and looks back at a bloodied Valeria. We get to see the face of the entity, and it is none other than Valeria.
We now get back to the opening scene, where the shadowy figure is burning inside the dark room. Now we know who it is.
In the last wordless scene of the movie, Valeria hands over the baby to Raul takes her tools, packs her bag, and leaves the apartment.
What does it all mean?
“I don’t want to be domesticated”
In a flashback scene, this is what Valeria, looking much different from her present self, screams while running with Octavia and a few others from the police as they are being chased for doing drugs.
This very short scene actually tells a lot about her psych. Valeria has tried extremely hard by giving her everything to become something that she is not. It is not at all her fault, as society makes us believe in certain things. Like a woman needs to have a husband and become a mother. We can conclude from what we see that Valeria’s family is not exactly progressive. And the rebel in her died with her brother’s death (a character we never see in the movie) as she decides to become an ideal child for her parents. Marrying Raul and following the regular, predetermined path is probably a result of that.
But what Valeria initially fails to realize is that a person cannot become something they are not, no matter how hard they try. The hard truth is Valeria did not want to become a mother. She kept denying the fact as that would make her someone who is not ideal or normal. At least, that is what society keeps telling her. The bone woman is a tool the director uses to show Valeria’s guilt. As she gets close to the point of being a mother, her guilt keeps increasing; and the bone woman keeps haunting her more and more.
It is hard to tell whether or not most of the unexplainable things that we witness in the movie are happening inside Valeria’s head, but the thing is, it does not really matter. Because what the movie is really about is Valeria accepting her own true self and realizing there is absolutely nothing wrong in not wanting to be a mother or following the path that is set by society. That is why in the final scene, when the entity is getting burnt, we see signs of peace in Valeria’s eyes for the first time in the movie.
While Valeria did not want to be a mother, it is evident that she also wanted to save the child. That is why giving the little girl to Raul, someone who would happily take the best possible care of her, seems to be the only logical choice. It is unclear whether she will go to Octavia, but as I previously stated, the film is about Valeria discovering herself, which she does in the end.
Related Read: Huesera [2022] Review – A bone-crunching folktale that distills the anxieties of modern-day motherhood through the lens of self-deception
Huesera: The Bone Woman (2022) Movie Links: IMDb, Rotten Tomatoes
Huesera: The Bone Woman (2022) Movie Cast: Alfonso Dosal, Mayra Batalla, Natalia Solian
