WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Sweet Girl, now streaming on Netflix.
In Netflix’s Sweet Girl, while it seems like Jason Momoa‘s Ray Cooper is killing people involved in the Big Pharma conspiracy that indirectly caused his cancer-ridden wife to die, the final act confirms it’s a fake-out. The Ray taking down henchmen and evading the FBI is actually a projection of his traumatized teenage daughter, Rachel (Isabela Merced).
It turns out he died in the first act — confirmed when the FBI confronts Rachel atop a baseball stadium. A montage shows how she had dissociative identity disorder, projecting her dad to fool viewers. However, if you paid close attention, clues were dropped earlier as to what was really transpiring.
Rachel’s Fighting Skills
Two years after the train incident where Ray got stabbed, Rachel’s training in Ray’s gym. However, her dad isn’t there and she proceeds to nearly choke a guy out. She clearly has a beast inside, and the coach not chiding is an indicator he understands she has anger issues. It’s PTSD as she was beaten badly too in the fight that took her dad.
This shows she has the power to take guys down, which is what Ray does at a charity gala, using similar MMA skills to incapacitate and kill BioPrime’s CEO, Keeley, and his goons. Notably, when Ray hits the road and uses a cord to choke a thug, he leaps off a balcony to snap the guy’s neck. He also uses his own body weight to hurl himself and the other assassin through a window. If this were really the burly Ray, he’d be able to do these things with one hand rather than struggling.
Rachel’s (Lack of) Gun Skills
When Ray and Rachel hit the road afterwards, they set up shop temporarily in the wilderness outside Pittsburgh. They know Keeley’s people will hunt them down, so apart from the usual hunting traps, Ray decides to use a pistol in target practice. He says it’s like using a hunting rifle but he can’t hit the target, remonstrating like a kid.
This teased it was Rachel here, being a fed-up brat. She was only taught to use hunting rifles as her dad didn’t believe in handguns. There’s no way the real nature-loving Ray would have kept that pistol to protect them as he was more about bare-knuckles, knives and other objects that didn’t involve bullets.
Rachel Being Name Checked
When Ray sets a trap for Keeley’s boss, Vinod, as he corners him in a tunnel, Vinod yells that he doesn’t know who he’s messing with. He calls Ray a “scared little…” but doesn’t get to finish the sentence as Amos fires a shot, hitting Vinod in the head. Vinod was clearly going to call Ray a scared little girl.
In addition to this, when Amos sits down with Ray at a diner to discuss their final fight, he only addresses one person. Rachel is next door, visible in a booth, but Amos makes it clear he’s got one target left to cross out. It’s confirmed as calls Rachel by name, saying he’ll see her for the final showdown in Pittsburgh, indicating it’s one person at the diner and not two people in his presence.
Amos’ Sad Story
There’s another clue dropped in this same conversation when Amos says he’s just like Ray. He recounts how oppressive forces came into his farm town and killed his family. He survived and became an assassin, exacting revenge by slaughtering them.
He’s proud to see Ray doing the same, sticking up for what’s right, but coupling this with Vinod’s words, it’s clear Amos is referring to how Rachel, like him, is a small child who’s been made into an instrument of death by circumstances out her control. Attentive fans can tell he’s referring to them as kids driven by revenge, specifically tailoring his story to relate to Rachel and not a middle-aged man.
Agent Meeker’s Words
Rachel keeps contact with FBI agent Meeker to let her know she’s spectating as Ray kills. But in all their chats, Meeker keeps telling Rachel to say her own name. She’s clearly helping her with a mental trick to remember her identity. The fact she doesn’t ask about Ray much and keeps asking Rachel if she wants help says it all.
Rachel even hangs up when Meeker makes headway, so it’s clear the agent figured out the deal with her personalities. Meeker also tells her partner she wants to save Rachel, not Ray. It’s obvious she knows Ray’s gone and Rachel thinks she’s the dad, which is why Meeker also mentions objects that belong to Rachel alone when she raids their old home. Her stuffed toy, Paloma, is the subject of their chats, not anything that has to do with Ray, his motivations or his intentions.
Clues From Ray Himself
The opening of the film has Ray jumping off the stadium when Meeker tries to get through to him. But after the train incident, the movie has a dramatic lull to allow Rachel to see her dad as if he’s dying. It Ray were going to live, this scene wouldn’t be dragged out to draw emotions. It indicates the Ray later on is indeed fake. More so, his voice-over in the opening indicates what’s to come.
“Sometimes I wonder, are these my memories, or are they hers?” Ray says. “Parents and their children, where do we stop and they begin?” he continues, hinting at muddled identities. The fact Rachel admits to Ray later on that she’s losing memories of her mom suggests she’s becoming another person. Throw in the scene in Rachel’s apartment after the train incident where Ray materializes out of nowhere in a window reflection, it’s obvious he’s a figment of her imagination.
Directed by Brian Andrew Mendoza, Sweet Girl is streaming on Netflix.
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