• • • • • • • • •

** OBVIOUS SPOILERS **

.

.

.

.

So, the film ends by revealing Emma Stone was an alien the entire time and Jesse Plemmons' paranoia was correct. After something (we never learn what) causes his bomb vest to go off and kill him, and Emma Stone is spared, Stone teleports back to her spaceship and she concludes with other alien comrades that humanity (which turns out was their project) is not worthy of living seeing how they treat one another. She pops some kind of bubble that functions as a literal kill switch and kills off all of humanity on Earth.

The films concludes with a montage of people collapsed across the globe while Marlene Dietrich's rendition of "Where Have All the Flowers Gone" plays. Framed in these shots are beautiful images of nature, animals walking around, and eventually the sounds of birds slowly entering the soundtrack after the song concludes. It was mentioned earlier that birds would return to repopulate areas they initially left if they felt it was safe (or something like that).

The film does end on a very sad note of humanity dying. But I don't think Lathimos actually wants humanity to be exterminated because for that to happen would mean an actual eradication of every living thing, including nature. Rather, (I think) it's trying to show is how much humanity has destroyed the land they live on and how much beauty could come back if just the smallest effort was put in place. It's trying to be hopeful by exaggerating the circumstances but actually saying, "Look, this is what we could have if we stopped fucking around so much." and I think that's actually kinda nice.