I guess the message that Rich Flu’s ending was trying to convey is that no matter how hard we try, we are always going to be slaves to our materialistic desires. [Spoiler Alert] Laura Palmer, originally named Jake, traveled to the other end of the globe so she could protect her daughter, Anna, and especially herself, but it turned out, in the end, Laura’s journey didn’t teach her anything She remained obsessed with her watch and was willing to do anything to get it back. Maybe some people don’t really understand the meaning of selfless sacrifice. This holds true especially in Laura’s case, who saw everything in life as transactional.
In the second half of the film, I was really struggling to understand why director Galder Gaztelu-Urrutia was so focused on Laura’s journey and why he was not giving us the answers we yearned for. For example, where did the swine flu come from, who created it, and is there any cure for it? The thing is, Rich Flu isn’t that kind of film that would give you all the answers in the end. It’s an abstract narrative trying to make a commentary on the rich. So, with that in mind, allow me to take a detailed look at Laura’s journey in the film and point out how she undermined the sacrifices made by her loved ones just because she couldn’t get over her own demons.
Sebastian Snail Sr. Dumped His Money On Laura
I guess the very beginning of the film made it clear that it was going to be a very trippy sci-fi experience where the audience wouldn’t be getting any conclusive answers to what was happening in the film’s universe. Laura, the main protagonist of the film, worked for a film production company run by Sebastian Snail Jr. Well, the brat was a rich man’s son who always treated his subordinates like trash, and Laura, being just one of the employees, couldn’t do much about the decisions Snail Jr. took. She just heard the stories pitched by the filmmakers and writers and conveyed the same to Snail Jr., who, even though he didn’t have a pinch of knowledge about cinema, always had the last say, as his rich father was the one bankrolling everything.
Now, as the rich flu took over the whole world, Snail Sr. devised a scheme and decided to expand the philanthropy department. In simple words, he handed over his wealth to the shareholders of this new department, and Laura, who always wanted to lead a life of luxury, fell into the rich man’s trap and signed the documents. And as soon as he dumped his money on these poor individuals and made them his scapegoats, he sent them to different parts of the world to spend his money, giving them a chance to save themselves from the newly engineered pandemic. He sent Laura to an auction at Buckingham Palace and asked her to bid as high as possible. At first, Laura didn’t really understand the intention, but once she witnessed the death of King Charles and the ongoing chaos in London, she quickly understood what the rich man’s charity was all about. Snail Sr. disappeared from the scene, while his son was infected by the rich flu and died soon after. In the film, the infection was represented by glittering white teeth, obviously implying how focused the privileged are on health and hygiene, especially on the exterior, so what could be a better way to announce their impending doom other than those shiny teeth? The rich flu was targeting the billionaires and world leaders, and therefore, to save their lives, the privileged and the wealthy started destroying their assets or started distributing their wealth so they could escape the virus before they got infected. For some, it worked; for many it didn’t. Meanwhile, the rest of the world was infected with Plutophobia, where the lower and middle class developed hatred against the rich, and asked them to leave the community or quarantine themselves so as not to spread the virus.
Laura Reached Barcelona
As soon as the pandemic spread across the globe and all the metropolitan cities in the first world countries started burning in chaos, Laura’s motherly love for her daughter, Anna, suddenly showed up. This was the exact same woman who forgot her daughter’s birthday and later skipped it just to attend a meeting with Sebastian Snail Sr. Now, just imagine how she could have saved her own life by not getting rich if she would have decided to choose her daughter over her own materialistic obsessions, but she didn’t. So here she was, trying to dump her money on her assistant, Christian. This was the man who had been with her through thick and thin with Laura, but the moment he saw her true side—how she tried to throw him under the bus to save her own life—Christian decided to part ways with Laura for his own good.
Now, Laura, all by herself, finally got on a private helicopter to reach Barcelona, where her daughter was staying with Laura’s mother, Martha. At the beginning of the film, when Laura’s husband, Toni, approached her before the screening and requested her to come back to Barcelona and keep the family from breaking up, Laura humiliated him and told him to his face that his “one bed, ready meal shrug of a lifestyle” wasn’t what she wanted for her daughter. The new pandemic was making Laura go back to the life she despised. With Christian gone, Laura had no one to ask for help except for the husband she wanted a divorce. With all the cities burning and rich people being quarantined, Laura was forced to take shelter in her mother’s village, which she’d once hated. And more than that, Laura had planned a perfect future for Anna but forgot to ask her what she really wanted in life. That poor child only wanted her parents to stay together and be there for her when she needed them, but they couldn’t do that for her because of their personal grudges.
Tony Made an Ultimate Sacrifice
Rich Flu revealed that Laura’s parents were artists who, through their art, often fought against tyranny and inequality. In Laura’s hometown, one could spot graffiti made by her father that said, “sell your clothes but keep your ideals,” and as ironic as it could be, Laura, who likely grew up in poverty, didn’t learn a thing from her parents. She always had this idea of luxury that her idealistic parents couldn’t give her, and therefore Laura left her town to earn herself the lifestyle she’d always desired. The film didn’t reveal what exactly happened to Laura’s father, but it could be speculated he likely walked out on the family when Laura was very young, which might have had an effect on her psyche and on her fear of losing things in life.
As soon as Laura arrived in the village with Toni, the villagers refused to take her in. The townsfolk didn’t want any rich person or outsider to bring the virus to their tight-knit community, and protested outside Martha’s to send her daughter away. This was the moment when Martha decided to leave the city and take Anna, Toni, and Laura to the mountains of Tanzania, where her friend lived in a big house he had built, which was completely self-sufficient.
Long story short, Laura and her family didn’t get anywhere safe but ended up in a refugee camp on an island of Lampedusa, Italy, also known as “the door to Europe,” which, as the name suggests, is a gateway for migrants from Africa trying to reach Europe. Now here, Laura learned the true meaning of poverty, though it didn’t have much of an effect on the capitalistic ideas that were deeply engraved in her mind. At the beginning of the film, Toni narrated a story to Laura about how he wanted a happy ending for his family, with the couple holding hands near a beach. And even though his dreams never came true, he did prove his love for his family by making the ultimate sacrifice. Before leaving Barcelona, Toni had signed the wealth transfer documents, which she had prepared for Christian. Toni handed over the contract to the man in the village named Pablo, who likely submitted the documents, making Toni one of the richest persons in the world and, in turn, saving Laura from the virus. Well, as Toni said, she finally got a rich husband, just what she’d always craved, though Toni had to pay with his life to fulfill Laura’s selfish desires.
In the aftermath of Toni’s death, Laura and her family spent a few days in the camp. In the meantime, her mother, Martha, devised a plan for their escape. The refugees created a makeshift raft that looked similar to the one in the painting “The Raft of the Medusa.” Irony is, the same painting Laura had bid for at the auction in London became her reality in the end. Life made her realize the true meaning of the painting by making her go through the pain and suffering of the people in it. The scene further comments on how the rich always enjoy “misery” in the form of art, which they proudly put up in their drawing rooms to show off their wealth to their other rich friends, but no one ever questions the motive or purpose behind such artistic expression. I am not an expert, though I do understand that the artist, Theodore Gericault, who made the painting wanted to express the sorrows and hardship of life through his work, which, in the simplest terms, isn’t what wealthy people bother themselves with. They only value art because art has monetary value.
Martha Didn’t Make It Either
At night, while Martha, Laura, Anna, and Anna’s new friend Yoleen, along with other refugees, were on the makeshift raft, they were attacked by the Libyan speedboat, because of which the group got separated. Before leaving the island, each member of the group was given a map so that they would be able to find their way to the meeting point. After the shipwreck, Laura finally reached her daughter and Yoleen, but her mother was nowhere to be seen. It turned out Martha had sacrificed her life so she could buy the rest of her family a way out of the mess. The scene was quite messy, but it looked like she’d donated her organs to arrange safe passage for Laura, Anna, Yoleen, and other refugees.
Laura Couldn’t Be Cured
Now, I am not quite sure what Laura, Anna, and Yoleen’s final location was. Correct me if I am wrong, but it seemed like they’d found the self-sustaining community in Tanzania that Martha was talking about. Here, each individual made a contribution to the close-knit community by engaging in physical work and sharing the fruits of their labor with everyone around. The group also arranged a ceremony at frequent intervals where every new member had to give away all their materialistic possessions that they had brought with them and put them in a bowl. After they had done so, the rest of the group were given a chance to take one item from the bowl, which they could keep till the next ceremony. The next time, they had to give away their previous possession and take a new one with them. Now, Laura had to give away her watch, the one that was likely the first thing she had bought when she traveled to Spain for the first time. It was kind of a souvenir for her, and a part of her personality which she didn’t want to part ways with, but eventually had to. And every time the ceremony took place, Laura tried to get back her watch, but someone would pick it up before her. Laura could have waited for her turn to get her watch back, but it seemed like she didn’t have the patience to wait that long, and therefore decided to barter for it with a woman who was in custody of her watch. Laura had picked up a nail file from the bowl, which she used to clean some seashells and later offered them to the woman who had her watch.
Rich Flu’s ending revealed a grin on Laura’s face, filled with greed and malice, suggesting that she was willing to go to any lengths to get back her worldly possessions, as she couldn’t live without them. This Laura had been living in the wilderness too long, and it wasn’t the life she wanted for herself. She wanted to live in mansions, wear the most expensive dresses, but her life in the end turned out to be the complete opposite of her aspirations. Everything she once hated became a part of her new reality. And even though Laura might not get infected with the rich flu, seeing as she wasn’t rich anymore, she wouldn’t be able to survive in the community for long. Either she would take her own life or she would be kicked out of the group because she couldn’t calm her demons. The thing is, the rich flu virus only targeted people based on wealth, when to make things better, it should have targeted those corrupted by luxury, and Laura was a prime example of such a person. Even the end of the world failed to teach her a lesson, and by falling prey to her worldly desires, she only undermined the sacrifices her husband and her mother had made to get her to safety.
Meanwhile, Anna had pretty much settled into her new life. The ending suggests that she might want to start anew with her new friend and potential love interest, Yoleen, which is to say that even though Laura might want to leave the place in the near future, Anna wouldn’t follow her, as she and her mother are completely different people right now. Laura won’t die, but she won’t be able to live either. She has become a slave to her own desires, and no matter how far she has traveled, she has failed to run away from her own greed. I believe I have covered pretty much everything in this really abstract film, but if you think that there’s something I have missed, then feel free to drop a text in the comment box below, and I’ll try my best to address the same.
