A person who seeks revenge keeps their own wounds green. And that can be the most basic explanation to Brian Andrew Mendoza’s debut film, Sweet Girl. Numerous times, his protagonist/s try to walk away from a tragedy, but some voids pull them back each time, urging them to fill the grave holes before moving on. What lies ahead is a story about a sweet girl and her bond with her parents. Rachel loses what she loves the most, and the conflict puts forth a question, will she be able to bring them back?
Streaming on Netflix, Sweet Girl is a family thriller film. It stars Jason Momoa and Isabela Merced in the lead roles.
Plot Summary
Sweet Girl begins with a cliffhanger scene that portrays a middle-aged man, Ray Cooper (Jason Momoa), running away from a police squad. The law enforcers corner Ray on a stadium top, and to evade arrest; Ray jumps into the river.
The timeline flows back in time and depicts the past events. Ray is a family man with a beautiful wife, Amanda, and teenage daughter, Rachel (Isabela Merced). His world gets turned upside down when Amanda is diagnosed with cancer. To save his wife, Ray leverages everything, but the only available cure for her type of cancer is Infirmam.
Ray and Rachel support Amanda through her treatment that brings the family closer to each other. In the meantime, Dr. Wu informs about an upcoming treatment, Spero, that will bring new hope for Amanda. However, the drug is pulled off from the market as its competitive brand, BioPrime, the makers of Infirmam, bribes the manufacturers to avoid cost competition.
Later, in a live news debate BioPrime CEO, Simon Keeley gets a call from Ray. He threatens to kill Simon for his monopolistic practices and delay Spero’s release that can save his wife’s life. Congresswoman Diana Morgan of Pennsylvania accuses Simon of bribing competitors to shelve generic brands of drugs. Still, Simon avoids the hit with his sweet talk and ideal capitalistic ideas. 6 months later, Amanda leaves a void in the family while Ray and Rachel begin an everyday life.
The inevitable strikes again when Martin Bennett contacts Ray, seeking his help to publish a story on BioPrime. Martin meets Ray on a subway train and informs him about a source that has disclosed BioPrime’s malpractices leading to Simon Keeley. He needs Ray’s story to bring the matter to the general public, but Ray denies any involvement due to a lack of evidence. However, before Ray can step out of the train, Amo Santos stabs Martin Bennett. Ray tries to catch the hitman but finds out Rachel has followed him to the station. Ray gets severely injured and stabbed while Rachel falls unconscious.
Twenty-four months later, Ray is obsessively investigating and tracking Simon Keeley and people in his inner circle. Rachel tries to stop her father from committing any grave crime, but sometimes revenge is inevitable.
‘Sweet Girl’ Ending Explained
Blood and revenge go hand in hand. Following his pursuit, Ray ended up killing Simon Keeley and one bodyguard at the Unicef Charity auction. He became an outlaw and quickly left Pittsburg with Rachel. Sarah Meeker from the FBI found out about Ray through his death threats on the live news debate years ago. Ray planned to run away to Toronto, but two other hitmen attacked him on the way. To save his daughter, Ray had no other option but to kill them as well.
With four deaths on his hand and more to follow, Ray failed to connect the dots and decipher the conspiracy. Simon was dead, but before dying, he accused his partner, industrialist Vinod Shah of hiring the hitman Santos who killed Martin Bennett. Ray hunted down Vinod to procure answers, but before he could spill out the beans, Santos shot Vinod dead.
Ray found Santos in a diner and, without creating a scene, inquired about his employer’s name. With a little bit of spice to add fun, Santos gave him a name, Congresswoman Diana Morgan (running for the senate). As soon as Ray and Rachel came back to Pittsburg, the police squad followed them and cornered Ray. The scene connected to the opening sequence where Ray was seen jumping into the river. However, this time, the same scene brought new revelations along with it.
So, Ray died two years ago when Santos stabbed him. Rachel went through trauma after losing her parents. For her tragedy, she blamed BioPrime, Simon Keeley, and all others connected with it. It could be speculated that due to her accident in the subway station and the tragedy that followed, Rachel developed Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID). She created an image of her father, Ray, in her mind and embarked on a blind revenge pursuit to kill down her family’s tormentors. But on another side, Rachel was morally conscious and thus contacted Sarah Meeker to help her stop Ray and his bloody revenge.
In the story until now, Rachel was the one who killed Simon Keeley, the two hitmen at the motel. She was the one who orchestrated a plan to interrogate Vinod, and she met Santos at the Diner. For this reason, before leaving, Santos especially greeted Rachel and quoted, “Rachel, I’ll see ya soon.“
After Rachel’s DID was revealed to the audience, she freely hunted down Diana Morgan without the mask. Santos tried to stop her, but she stabbed him to death. Rachel infiltrated Morgan’s office and threatened her to confess her crimes. She admitted taking the bribe to fund her election campaign and accepted hiring Santos to kill Martin Bennett. After the confession was made, Rachel left Morgan’s office without much ado. Later, it was revealed that she secretly recorded Morgan’s confession on her phone and mailed it to FBI agent Sarah Meeker. The FBI arrested Diana Morgan for further investigation and her involvement in the BioPrime case.
In the end, Rachel boarded a flight and left the country. She left behind her past and wounds, as she already mentioned that the memories of her parents were fading away. Ray’s closing voiceover hinted that Rachel was done living the life of her parents (pointing to her DID). This new journey would probably be her own, her new beginning.
“Parents and their children. Where do we stop… and they begin?”
Sweet Girl is a 2021 Thriller film directed by debut director Brian Andrew Mendoza. It stars Jason Momoa and Isabela Merced in the lead roles.
