Directed by Philip Koch, Brick introduces us to a couple who find themselves stuck in a very strange situation. For the longest time, they couldn’t wrap their head around what was happening, whether they were actually witnessing what they thought they were or if it was merely a figment of their imagination. But soon they realized that they were actually stuck in a life-and-death situation, and they needed to find a way out as quickly as possible. So let’s find out what exactly happened to them and if they were able to make it out of that situation.
Spoiler Alert
What happened with Tim and Olivia in the past?
We got to know at the beginning of Brick that things were not really fine between Olivia and Tim. Tim kept getting these flashes where he saw Olivia on a hospital bed, crying her heart out. Olivia had had a miscarriage, and life was never the same for the couple after that tragedy. Olivia needed Tim to be there for her, but the man just shut himself off and drowned himself in his work. He was a game programmer, and he used his hectic work schedule as an excuse to hide from the world. Olivia tried time and again to share what she had been feeling with him, but to no avail. There were times when Olivia felt extremely lonely, and she didn’t know whom to rely on. Having a heart-to-heart would have definitely helped them out, but Tim didn’t want to do that. So one day, Olivia decided that she would take that old van of hers and just leave for Paris, without thinking about anything else. She knew that she and Tim needed to give in to their impulses and take some risks, as only then would they get their lives back on track. She told Tim what she wanted to do, but he just couldn’t make up his mind, as firstly he had too much work piled up due to the postponement of the release of a game he was working on, and secondly because he still wasn’t ready to deal with his emotions. Olivia told him that if they didn’t go to Paris, then they would get stuck in the same old loop their entire lives. Olivia was obviously upset, and she realized that it was likely that time would never change him, and he would continue to be like a wall that just refused to absorb anything. Olivia packed her bags and told him that she was going to Paris alone and she had no hopes from him. She tried to open the door of her apartment, and that’s when she realized that something strange had happened.
Was Yuri Hiding Something From The Others?
In a shocking turn of events, Tim and Olivia realized that it was a black-colored wall that had suddenly appeared and blocked their entrance. They checked all the windows, only to find out that the black wall covered their apartment from all sides. They tried breaking it, but even with a drilling machine, they couldn’t. They heard voices coming from the adjacent apartment, and so they drilled a hole in the wall and tried to find out if their neighbors were also encountering a similar issue. Ana and Marvin, two drug addicts, had rented the adjacent apartment, and they too were losing their minds as they couldn’t figure out what was happening with them. There came a time when Tim broke through the wall and entered their apartment, as he felt that Ana’s life was in danger. But it wasn’t so, as they realized that they had just consumed a lot of drugs, which made them lose their minds, and the situation made their trip even worse. Olivia was an architect by profession, and she realized that they could use the tunnel in the basement to escape from the apartment using an underground railway track. They decided that they would drill holes and go down the floors, as that was the only way they could get there. Mr. Oswalt, an old man suffering from various health issues, lived on the floor below them with his granddaughter, Lea. Oswalt was a bit apprehensive about the intentions of his neighbors, but eventually he realized that Tim and the others meant no harm to him. The group together found out that the man who was overseeing the entire redevelopment of their building, Friedman, had been killed by somebody. Both his hands had been severed, and his phone had videos of the black wall that surrounded the entire apartment. On the next floor, the group met Yuri, a suspicious-looking man who told them that he was a good friend of the flat owner, Anton. He told them that Anton had had a heart attack, and at that moment, it was a bit hard for them to believe him. Yuri made it pretty clear that he didn’t want them to find a way to go outside, as he believed that the black wall was created to save them from whatever was happening in the outside world.
Lea, through the research material that Anton had left behind, figured out certain things that Yuri hadn’t told them about. Apparently, Anton had been able to find a way to break open those black walls. Lea noticed a scar on Anton’s neck, and she realised that he had been strangled to death; it hadn’t been a heart attack. Just around that time, Tim, Marvin, and Ana found a secret room in Friedman’s flat, where the CCTV footage from all the flats was being stored and displayed on computer screens. Tim and Marvin started watching the old footage, and they realized what exactly had happened with Anton. The moment they realized that Yuri was Anton’s killer, they hurriedly went back to his apartment, only to find out that he had not only killed Lea but also burned down all the notes that Anton had left behind. Though Friedman was keeping an eye on everybody (which I believe was solely out of his lecherous instincts), I don’t think that had anything to do with the origins of those black gates/walls. Also, I do not think that at any point he conspired with Yuri or tried to go against Anton. In fact, I believe that Friedman would have wanted to get out of the apartment as much as Anton or anybody else.
Did Tim And Olivia Find A Way To Unlock The Black Wall?
Yuri tried to attack the others, but Marvin and Tim were able to overpower him. They tied him to a chair and went to the basement to find a way out of the godforsaken palace. But to their horror, even the basement exit was blocked, and it had that same black wall in front of it. Tim and Olivia decided that they wouldn’t give up hope, and they would try to figure out what exactly Anton had found out. They realized through the CCTV footage that Anton had created a code through which the doors could be unlocked. Anton was a programmer, and he worked at Epsilon Nanodefense, whose headquarters had caught fire just before those black walls covered the building. Tim was himself a game creator, and he realized that he just needed Anton’s mobile to get that code/program and open the gates through the walls. It was a huge relief for Tim when he realized that the door just had to be scanned via that app that Anton had created, just like we scan the QR code on a payment portal. Another catch was that there were 4 different points on the black door where the magnetic field was the strongest, and they had to be scanned in a particular order. They first scanned the blocks without knowing the order. The door sort of liquefied, but the moment Ana tried to cross it, she got stuck. Unfortunately, she died a painful death as the door closed once again, slicing her body in two halves. Marvin was beyond horrified, and he knew that in that moment, he had lost his will to live. Marvin took his own life, leaving Tim and Olivia to themselves.
How Did Yuri Die?
Tim got a hold over his emotions, and he figured out that every time a particular block was scanned, the phone camera flashed, but the number of times the camera flashed was different with every block. Tim and Olivia were able to figure out the order by going through the CCTV footage, counting the light flashes, and then connecting the dots. They were just about to escape from there when Yuri attacked them out of nowhere. The man had been able to free himself, and he didn’t want to let them go out of there alive. But Olivia and Tim together were able to overpower him, and in all probability, he succumbed to his injuries at the end. Tim and Olivia were finally able to escape out of the building, and what they saw shocked them beyond any measure.
Was There Contamination In The Outside World?
In Brick’s ending, it came to be known that Epsilon NanoDefense, the company where Anton worked as a senior programmer, was the reason why those coded black walls had covered almost the entire city. The system had detected malware, after which the default defense system had been activated. Tim and Olivia got into their van, and it seems they will move out of there and try to put that harrowing episode behind them. But, that said, there were still a lot of things that they, and I believe even the law enforcement authorities, weren’t aware of. I think if the makers decided to come up with a part 2, we would get to know if that malware was put in the system intentionally or not. I think that the fire that was caused in Hafen city could have been the doing of somebody who wanted control over the company’s internal system to get access to all the information. Because unless the system detected a threat of that magnitude, the default defenses wouldn’t have been activated in such a manner. I think the authorities will conduct a thorough investigation and get to the root of the matter. It could be possible that the entire incident was just the start and part of a greater conspiracy that aimed to target the entire country. I have a feeling that if there is a part 2, Tim and Olivia will find themselves at the helm of affairs once again, no matter how hard they try to escape and start afresh.
