‘A Normal Woman’ Has A Predictable Ending With A Touch Of Ambiguity

WARNING: THIS ARTICLE CONTAINS MAJOR SPOILERS

In many ways, A Normal Woman has exactly the ending you’d expect it to have, albeit spiced up with a touch of ambiguity. And this, I think, is the point. The Indonesian psychological thriller is about the potential perils of materialism, obsessive body image, and self-serving secrets, and you watch those kinds of movies to get the catharsis you’re looking for. That catharsis can only really come from the rejection of its ideas and escape from the prison they create.

Thanks to this, a lot of the movie is easy to parse. But some of it is mired in metaphor and symbolism, and a little trickier to unpack. Luckily, I’ve given it a thorough once-over, so I reckon I’m perfectly positioned to explain some of the finer details and answer what it all might mean.

What Is Milla’s “Illness?”

The plot of A Normal Woman revolves around Milla, the wife of a very successful businessman and influencer-type, contracting a mysterious illness that causes her to break out into a nasty rash – which she scratches until her skin sloughs away – and experience other horrifying symptoms, such as visions of bloody children raked with shards of glass who call her by a name, Grace, that she doesn’t recognise.

This is one aspect of the story that isn’t explained by the ending. Milla’s condition remains nebulous, completely unexplainable by the various medical professionals whom Milla’s husband, Jonathan, and his mother, Liliana, go to for advice. In some horror movies, it would be explained by demonic possession or some such, but A Normal Woman isn’t that kind of movie. Instead, we’re to understand that Milla’s “illness” is an outgrowth of the lie she’s living and the stress associated with maintaining it.

While this isn’t explicitly confirmed, it’s strongly implied. Nothing Milla does throughout the film heals her; on the contrary, the only time we see her rash-free is at the very end, in a speculative flash-forward that imagines her completely freed from the influence of Jonathan, his family, and even Milla’s own mother, Novi. Her illness is her life; the only way to heal it is to flee.

Who is Grace?

Whenever Milla sees visions of the bloody girl, she’s referred to as “Grace”, a name she doesn’t recognise. When she approaches Novi and their long-time employee, Irah, for more information about who Grace potentially is, Milla is only met with suspicious denial. It’s only through the arrival of Erika, a make-up artist who Liliana employs, who just so happened to be friendly with Milla during her childhood in Surabaya, that a breakthrough occurs.

As it turns out, Milla is Grace. Her original name was Grace Camilla. As a child, she suffered a terrible accident in which a giant pane of glass fell on top of her, badly disfiguring her. The trauma left her with amnesia, but the resultant reconstructive surgery turned her pretty, which Novi decided to capitalise on. She reinvented Grace as Milla and ensured that she married into money, leveraging her newfound good looks.

Looping back to the idea of Milla’s illness, it’s strongly implied that her rash and other symptoms are simply an outgrowth of this deception; her body physically rejecting the persona forced upon her.

What Is Erika Up To?

Even though Erika is instrumental in allowing Milla to recall who she really is, her motives aren’t altruistic. She isn’t an out-and-out villain, but like Novi before her, she sees an opportunity in Milla’s circumstances to better her own.

To this end, Erika begins to ingratiate herself into Milla’s family, becoming invaluable to Liliana, flirting with Jonathan, and even helping Milla’s daughter, Angel, to become more comfortable with her own appearance. After a while, Milla even helps in this regard, styling Erika in her expensive clothes and jewellery ahead of Liliana’s party, allowing her to blend even more completely into Milla’s former role.

We see in a brief scene that Erika is struggling, being sexually threatened by a creepy landlord, so on some level, we understand her point of view. And if Milla’s fate is ultimately to leave the family, it stands to reason that she would be replaced. However, there’s a little bit of a sinister undercurrent in Erika deliberately mimicking Milla’s pose in a large family portrait that is hung in the house. That doesn’t imply the surest sense of self, but based on how Jonathan and Liliana conduct themselves, I’d say she’s welcome to them.

Milla’s Escape

Eventually, Milla realises that the only way she can heal is to leave, so she resolves to return with Irah and her son, Hatta, to their humble hometown. However, Angel doesn’t want to go with her. This life of luxury is all she has ever known, and however hard it might sometimes be, she wants to stick with it. This is the only aspect of A Normal Woman’s ending that I find a bit confounding, since given everything Angel has seen and experienced thus far, it’s almost inconceivable that she would be better off staying behind.

Milla accepts her decision, though. Novi tries to prevent her from leaving, demanding that she at least pay her back “what she owes”, so Milla does the rational thing and cleaves her own face open with a pair of scissors. It’s a symbolic gesture, Milla saying that the way she looks is the least important thing about her, rejecting her mother’s prettified ideal. Novi gets a bit physical, so Milla throws her against a mirror, which is not only thematically fitting but knocks her out for long enough for Milla to escape in the back of Hatta’s truck, hidden amongst the garden waste.

As she’s being driven away, Milla has visions of an idyllic, humble life in the village. Her rash is gone. The scar on her face from the scissors incident remains, though, implying that this is more a vision of the future than fanciful wishful thinking. A Normal Woman doesn’t confirm this to be the case, but it leaves the audience believing it probably will be, which is almost the same thing.