watching the half of it and … at first i was like holy shit why did they pick no exit but now i see i’m at the scene where they’re in church and aster texts paul/ellie sth like “you think father shanley knows what’s going on around him?” and ellie replies and she looks at aster but aster looks at paul AND IT’S LIKE NO EXIT:
ines wants estelle, but estelle has eyes for garcin. the configuration feels like the one where estelle is in garcin’s arms but ines does not let them forget she’s here, and makes garcin stop holding estelle. in the half of it, there’s a big difference: ellie doesn’t make her presence known. (EDIT: now that I’ve finished the film…. Yeah. Once Ellie makes her presence known anything between paul & aster falls apart, although it’s because Aster leaves and not Paul. Similar but different at the same time to Garcin being like no, I can’t hold you when she’s (Ines) watching like this.)
there’s other parallels too, like obv. the 2 women 1 man trio, and how paul and ellie are the first to interact and ellie throws a lot of hard truths into paul’s face, as ines does when she’s trying to “break into” garcin.
AND NOW THAT I THINK. IT GOES FURTHER! they’re also direct opposites of their no exit characters:
garcin is fundamentally a coward and a cheater. he might have education but he is unable to admit that he was a bad person. paul on the other hand, may not have much knowledge but one thing he has for sure is that he’s anything but a coward. he acts and tries his best where garcin runs away. (+ garcin and paul share one similarity; their expectations, etc. are shaped by christianity initially : garcin first asking the bellboy where the torture devices and the fire is, as he was expecting a christian version of hell & paul reacting badly initially to learning ellie likes aster. once again if i recall paul says something like “you’re going to hell”…? which brings up the femme damnée pattern that links ellie and ines again)
ines is, simply put, evil. might be why ellie is called aster’s father’s “favourite heretic”; a parallel to ines being a “femme damnée”. but back to ines. she’s fuelled on others’ pain and has no qualms messing with others. she takes up a lot of space and is fuelled by the pain she causes. ellie on the other hand is the opposite, she doesn’t take much space, helps others, and is generally a good person working hard for her family.
estelle in no exit is a very superficial, self absorbed. unbelievably so. she’s a very materialistic and selfish girl who behind a naive exterior hides a rotten core. aster is also a direct opposite to this, as in she does also have an initial image of a pretty girl, etc. but contrary to estelle there is a deeper side to her, a very soft one. what they do have in common is being with a rich boy/man they do not like at first while being poorer themselves ; estelle to get money for her sister if I recall properly???
i suppose hell would be squahamish, since they all “can’t leave” at least at the point I’m at.
anyways I’ll probably add onto this because no exit/huis clos makes me vibrate like a bug
UPDATE: ok a few other things. first thing I thought of was that both ellie and ines “dupe” estelle/aster, albeit in completely different ways.
in ines’ case, she acted like a mirror for estelle and made her believe she had a big red spot on her face, when she didn’t. in ellie’s case she also acted like a “mirror”, but instead of distorting aster’s vision of herself, she distorted the vision of paul for aster.
second thing is that the link between ellie and paul is the opposite of garcin and inès. whilst garcin and ines are linked by their horribleness and cruelty above their attraction to estelle, with ines pointing out that link, paul and ellie are linked by their inherent goodness. they’re good people, hardworking, caring. that’s what links them above their love for aster. 
last thing is, in a sense could the teacher be the bellboy? as in… she opens the “door”, she offers an exit from squahamish (hell) to ellie, who doesn’t take it initially, thus not leaving hell despite the door being open just like in no exit. of course the ending is wholly better and thankfully so because no exit is insane
