“Nuclear” was a film I chose to watch last night, and other than having an abandoned nuclear power plant on a bleak Welsh landscape, I’m not sure why I did… and yet, by the end of the movie I had more questions than answers.

Emma is a 14 year old girl that we see running through the woods at the start of the movie. These are the same woods where we see Emma’s older, half-brother, chasing down and then “kicking the shit” out of Emma’s mother and leaving her in the woods “for dead”. After her brother has gone, Emma goes to her mother, who surprisingly starts to stir from her deathly pose upon Emma’s touch. And Emma and her mom begin the road to flee from the violent son. *And at this point, it is unclear to me that this was her son. In my mind, it was more plausible that this was the woman’s husband/boyfriend.

Mother is played by Sienna Guillory, who I last saw in the remake of “The Time Machine” where her character dies early, oft, and repeatedly, and provides the impetus for Guy Pierce’s genius to try and bring her back into his life, alive, by changing the past. But almost “monkey’s pawish-ly” no matter the change, the outcome is always the same, her untimely death(s). *And Guy Pierce appears in one of my favorite Sci Fi films, “Prometheus” but is unrecognizable to me there.

SPOILERS: I have to admit that after seeing the son/brother kicking his mother violently in the woods and leaving her motionless body there, I thought there is no way that woman is still alive. And was surprised when Emma touches her, and she begins to stir.

So as Emma is driving their getaway “taxi” with the word BITCH scratched on one side, her mother’s violent reaction to seeing the Japanese lady causes Emma to wreck the station wagon. Mother and daughter walk on, leaving their taxi, and find an abandoned house which they break into.

Somewhere, the Japanese lady serves us tea with an explanation regarding those that are killed quickly being unable to process it all at once. *In my recent visit (a week or so ago) to the Mitchell’s, one of the boys explained about a special “woods” in Japan where a high percentage of people visit to commit suicide. And at the very first, upon seeing the Japanese lady, this is what I thought of. Every time the Japanese lady appears to the mother, there is a foreboding sense that something bad is going to happen to the mother.

The house is abandoned, but signs on the walls lead you to believe this house is used by a religious group. Perhaps by monks who have taken a vow of silence. There is running water. Then there is electricity. Emma is able to start a fire in a fireplace. And, eventually Emma picks up a phone in an attempt to call her father. *When she picks up the phone, and it is working, I am asking myself “who” would leave an unoccupied house in this condition? Are there more of these homes? If so, I would like to come visit for a while and save any money I might have spent on hotels/motels. I’ll try to not even break a window to gain entry. And now I think, did Emma even try turning the doorknob to get in. Or, if you are going to leave the electricity and water on, why not leave the door unlocked as well. Okay, maybe you would give a key to anyone who actually was supposed to visit.

When Emma’s father calls her back, he tells her that her mother’s dead body had been found in the forest. And, it is here that I begin to question all reality, up to this point. Sure enough, Emma goes up to the bedroom and no sign of mom. Only one set of dishes in the kitchen, only a single toothbrush in the bathroom. And we are let in on Emma being so traumatically affected by her mom’s death, that she has refused to accept her death, yet.

Emma’s half brother arrives with a half-hearted explanation that he could “smell” Emma at one of the way stops. *I found this an unbelievable explanation. And, if he was already dead, what is the meaning of his finding the abandoned taxi, and pulling off the duct tape that is covering the scrawled word BITCH.

Eventually Emma and her brother meet in the abandoned nuclear plant, and she pushes him into a reactor pond, which we have already been told, by “the boy” is something deadly. You don’t go swimming there. It’s radioactive! Emma knows this is a “no no,” but she hesitates and then jumps into the water to rescue her brother.

Now Emma’s brother asks her why she did “this” to him, and shows her his blood stained T-Shirt. Apparently, she had used a knife she had to stab him at some point, in the stomach, in the woods. And, he seems to disappear from beside the radioactive pool, Emma’s imagination? And, we see what is apparently his lifeless body, sitting and propped up against a tree, in the woods.

Now, I am really questioning what we can trust from Emma’s perspective. Her mother was dead in the woods. Emma was driving by herself, when she wrecked the taxi. Emma’s mother was never with her in the abandoned house. Her brother never came to the abandoned house, because Emma had killed him with a knife and he was laying dead, back in the woods, against a tree. He had never been pushed into the reactor pond, so Emma had jumped in alone.

I’m going to have to re-watch the ending, because Emma returns to the woods, apparently driven by “the boy” in his blue van.

One valid question might be, did the brother actually kill their mother. Or has Emma imagined the whole thing, killing her mother & brother.

Hell, I don’t know.