Red Lights Ending Explained: What’s Going On With Tom?
Red Lights is a movie that plays out in two parts. The first part establishes the world, introduces the characters, and just eases you into the Red Lights story. However, the second part goes fully unhinged, in the best way. The 2012 movie is an exciting thriller that really becomes stronger because of its ending. Red Lights stars Cillian Murphy, Sigourney Weaver, Robert De Niro, and Elizabeth Olsen. It follows Tom Buckley (Murphy) and Margaret Matheson (Weaver) as they investigate people claiming to be psychics, mediums, and other supernatural beings.
Their main goal is to prove that these people are frauds. Tom and Margaret clash when it comes to Simon Silver (De Niro), one of the most famous psychics. Red Lights is all about beliefs, con artists, showmanship, and the existence of the paranormal. The Red Lights ending really drives home some of these themes. Like many other great psychological thrillers, it ends with a captivating movie twist. It’s one of those movies with wild endings.
Warning Red Lights spoilers are ahead. Proceed with caution.
What Happened At The End Of Red Lights
Tom goes to confront Silver but before he can, one of Silver’s men attacks him in the bathroom. He’s badly beaten but makes it back to the show to challenge Silver’s powers in front of everyone. Meanwhile, Sally (Olsen) and Ben (Craig Roberts) work to figure out if there is any proof that Silver cheated during the test to prove his psychic abilities. They discover that he not only used a watch to receive coded answers but he’s actually not blind.
During the performance, Silver and Tom proceed to yell at each other. Silver claims he will use his power to harm Tom. Tom continues to call him a fraud. Then suddenly the room begins to shake. After it stops, Silver asks Tom how he did that. Tom throws a coin at him, which he catches and exposes that he can see. Tom walks away as Silver continues to shout at him demanding to know how he did it.
The final scenes show Tom as he releases Margaret’s son from life support. He also writes her a letter explaining his regrets for not telling her before she died the truth about him. He joined her team because he had been searching for others like him. He has now accepted what he is and wishes he told her that there was something beyond death.
Tom’s Journey Of Self-Acceptance
In many ways, Red Lights is a coming-of-age movie and a hero’s journey film. It’s less about Tom’s journey of self-discovery and more about his journey of self-acceptance. He has known that he was a psychic all throughout the film but kept it hidden from everyone, including the audience. The final moments of the film reveal that he’s not a non-believer but someone who believes and knows the truth and has been running from that fact most of his life.
In an interview with The Scorecard Review, Red Lights writer and director Rodrigo Cortés explained how he wrote the film with self-acceptance at the forefront. We see this throughout the movie but it doesn’t become completely clear until we know the twist. Once you know that Tom is a true psychic with various abilities, you understand why exposing Silver and others like him is so important to him. It’s one of the great thrillers that the story doesn’t fully form until you know the ending.
After knowing the twist, you understand his obsession and steps toward madness. He isn’t being stalked by Silver in the way the audience believes. Instead, he’s full of guilt for hiding his true self from Margaret. He could have given her some peace if he only told her the truth before his death. He accepts himself because he has seen the consequences of denying it. Tom also finally experiences inward peace and freedom because he embraces his powers and identity.
How Red Lights Tricks The Audience
Red Lights is a movie that enjoys tricking the audience. It leaves a lot of breadcrumbs about what’s happening throughout the movie. However, it sets itself up as a movie about con artists, hoaxes, and frauds. Therefore, it conditions you to believe that this isn’t really a movie about paranormal activity. We have no reason to suspect that Tom actually has powers. Nevertheless, he tells us the truth in various scenes. The most important one is when he’s with Sally showing her a few magic tricks. In this scene, he tells Sally (and the audience) that they created the magic by looking in the wrong direction.
Everyone looks at Silver as maybe the one who has psychic abilities. We’re led to believe all this paranormal stuff begins to happen because it’s Silver sending his rage toward Tom to scare him. In actuality, it’s Tom losing control of himself, so his abilities begin to malfunction. Even during the Red Lights promotional stage, the marketing team hints to the viewers to not trust what’s happening in the movie. The posters (via We Are Movie Geeks) show the cast with taglines such as “Don’t trust your eyes” and “What do you think you know”?
This is very much a movie about being tricked into believing something that isn’t real, and it does that by also tricking the viewers into believing a false reality. Paranormal activity does exist here but just not in the way the audience may think at the beginning of the movie.
Tom And Silver’s Relationship And What It Represents
Tom and Silver are linked in a way that all great heroes are with their one major foil and villain. These feuding duos remain a constant in each other’s lives. Sometimes they put their differences aside for a common goal, but they’re always going to be enemies. Silver is the Joker to Tom’s Batman. They exist to antagonize the other and represent two opposite sides of the same coin.
Tom is someone who probably hates that he has powers and wants to stay out of the spotlight as much as possible. Silver probably wishes he had powers and loves the spotlight. In order for Tom to stop Silver, he must expose himself. They are connected in a deep way so that in order to destroy one, you must destroy the other.
Now, one can also look at it as Tom frees himself by exposing his powers. He can embrace his true identity but there is also a chance that he will never know external peace again. People will want to find him because of the incident. Tom can no longer just exist in the shadows.
Can You Trust The Ending?
Tom isn’t the most reliable character. He tells Sally a story to imply that his mother may have been a victim of one of these fake psychics. Then later he says she’s a homemaker. You never quite know what’s the truth with Tom. He’s not fully an unreliable narrator because most of his lies are to hide his secret. However, it does put into question what’s real and what’s not real in terms of the twist.
It’s a possibility that Tom could just be going through a state of delusion. As Cortés points out in his interview with Tribute.ca, Red Lights is a movie all about beliefs. According to him, many people who believe in a higher power (or even the nonexistence of one) have confirmation biases, because they look for things to confirm their beliefs. This can also relate to the audience in that they may look for clues to either confirm or dispute Tom’s psychic abilities. However, Cortés has only spoken about the ending as truth. He even implies in an interview with Joe Robberson that Tom survives the bathroom brawl because he’s otherworldly.
In Cortes’s vision, Tom very much is what’s revealed at the end: a man with psychic powers.
Red Lights is one of the best movies to watch on Peacock right now. Many may not consider it the best Cillian Murphy movie, but it’s one of my favorites because of the Red Lights twist ending and how it makes you question everything that happened before it.
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