It might sound judgemental for saying out loud that infidelity is the most common plague that has taken over modern families. We are aware that infidelity isn’t a new world crime, however, the means of successfully cheating on our partners have widened. The film Faithfully Yours is believed to be a romantic thriller, where there is nothing romantic or thrilling. The film seems to be a weird celebration of infidelity. The thrills which were supposed to run chills through the spines of the audience seemed staged and fell flat. The film has twists, but so blatant and so meaningless, that you would be bored. The protagonist, Bodil is a family lawyer, who lies to the police without the blink of an eye knowing what consequences it can have. Being a lawyer herself, her behaviour seemed to be a mediocre culprit. Furthermore, she seemed to be naive, which a person of her rank isn’t supposed to be. The ending would leave you bitter and vexed. Also, there was a character in the film, who seemed important but had no follow-up story and the character was not even once mentioned later. So, in a nutshell, brace yourself to be disappointed.
Spoilers Ahead
The Holiday
Two friends Bodil and Isabel planned a weekend trip to Bodil’s beach house. Bodil was married to a Milan who was a doctor and had a son. Isabel was married to a writer Luuk. As the two friends boarded the train, the audience understands that the weekend trip was a facade. Isabel had a different plan and it was clear that she was cheating on her husband. She brought Bodil to the trip as a cover-up. She leaves her phone with Bodil, knowing that Luuk, her husband had put on a tracker. You must feel soured to imagine how low a person can stoop down to monitor their respective partner’s move. The other thing that is beyond infuriating is that even after knowing how paranoid and jealous the husband was, Isabel was still with him even though she was cheating.
Bodil’s task was to message Luuk from Isbel’s phone to update wherever they were. As she stepped into their beach house, Bodil was surprised to see Yara, her sister there. It was pretty clear that the sisters don’t see eye to eye for some reason. Isabel had planned the weekend’s activities for Bodil. Bodil follows it and ends up in a talk show by a famous writer Michael Samuels. Don’t be surprised, Bodil will attend the show and would end up being intimate with the speaker. So, technically, both friends cheated on their partners. The only difference is Isabel being true about it and Bodil putting up the mask of an ideal wife.
The Muddle
The next morning, Luuk called Isabel on her phone and Bodil receives the call. Luuk tells her that he had fractured his foot and wants Isabel to board the earliest train. Bodil calls Isabel on her other number and informed her about the situation. Isabel said that she would not be able to catch the earliest train, but would check out of the hotel and meet her at the beach house to collect her phone. Soon, Samuels and Bodil walk towards the beach. There Bodil clearly states that she would probably pretend not to recognise Samuels if they meet in public. Hearing this, Samuels leaves the beach and Bodil goes for a swim. On her way back, Bodil saw a man in a white coat and a hat whistling to a dog. The dog, a hound comes rushing and his mouth was smeared in blood. As the dog jumps over the man, his white shirt is stained with blood. Suddenly, Bodil was shocked and rushed back only to find a blood pool at her entrance and Isabel’s suitcase. She calls the police and as they came to investigate, Bodil lies about Isabel and also she doesn’t mention the man or the dog.
Bodil informs her husband Milan and Luuk about the incident and they both arrive at the beach house. Undoubtedly, Luuk blames Bodil for the disappearance of Isabel. Bodil confesses to her husband bout Isabel’s acts and he suggests that she talks to the police. Bodil hires a lawyer and then goes up to the station and informs them about Isabel. The police find it hard to trust Bodil as she kept important information hidden and misled the police. Soon, the police found the image of a deceased Isabel.
From this point, the story gets more meaningless and dull. At every possible turn, Bodil throws Isabel under the bus. It is established that she is an obnoxious liar and a pathetic human being. In the meantime, footage of Isabel was retrieved from the hotel and it appeared that she was with another woman. The other woman was Yara. Luuk tries to pin down every blame on Bodil and Milan tried to provide medicine after medicine to Luuk to ensure he is healthy. Yara came to visit Bodil and find out which other countries she was red-listed as the police confiscated her passport. She told Bodil that probably she was the one who was supposed to die and Isabel was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. To add to the dullness, Bodil began to suspect everyone.
She finds out her husband was spying on her and had installed hidden cameras. She saw multiple footage of her and Samuels’s intimate moments. She took the evidence to the police and the files go missing without any significant reason. She again visits Samuels and saw that he had a piano. A string of his piano was missing and so she ran away from the place as it appeared Isabel was murdered by a string. As she walked out of Samuel’s house, Milan came to pick her up.
As she questioned Milan, he confessed that he gets aroused seeing her intimate with other men (you would be tired of the sick mentality of the characters). But, Bodil is not convinced, she wanted to inform Luuk that something was wrong with Milan and they probably should leave. However, Luuk had overdosed himself, Fortunately, Milan and Bodil found him at the right time and saved his life. But Bodil was still not convinced that her husband was a good man. She knocked him down with a Taser and tied him up. But Luuk approached her and said she was the reason everything went topsy-turvy.
‘Faithfully Yours’ Ending
In the end, we find Luuk chasing Bodil with an axe. Bodil runs to the car only to find out that it was messed up. She ran to the ocean and being a swimmer, she was able to save herself and killed Luuk. Luuk’s body was later recovered and the police found pieces of evidence about Luuk’s dark motives and that he hired a killer. Bodil’s act was considered an act of self-defence and she was off the police radar for the entire thing. Surprisingly, the police hands over Yara’s passport to her for they could not find her (please tell us if you understand the logic behind this). As Bodil goes to Yara’s place to return her passport, the landlady said that Yara had left for a private airport. In the airport, Bodil finds Yara and Isabel together. She was shocked and then Isabel told her how they framed Luuk but as their plan was taking too much time to put a restraint on Luuk they had to put up the act (your head will hurt at this utter stupid plot twist). To add to the frustration, Bodil hugs Isabel and says she is glad that she could meet her again and hands over Yara’s passport and the story ends.
The film is utterly stupid and lacks the depth of ideas and research. We could still rate a three-star for the story build-up and that’s everything about it. The rest of the film is dull, boring, and is a sheer waste of time.