Among the many 2024 horror movies, A24’s The Front Room likely had your jaw dropped when it comes to how the whole story wraps up between a married couple and the elder family member who comes to live with them. After seeing the movie, I had the pleasure of speaking with Brandy Norwood about the twisted ending for her return to the genre, and she has some solid thoughts on how things shake out.
What Happens At The End Of The Front Room
This is where we get into SPOILER territory, so if you haven’t seen the movie yet, feel free to bookmark this for later. You’ve been warned!
While Kathryn Hunter’s Solange initially presented herself as the defenseless stepmother of the husband of Brandy’s Belinda, Norman, as the movie unfolds, it’s not long before the audience begins to realize they should not have taken her in. She’s a lot more than an extremely religious and manipulative elder, considering she flashes some evil smiles Belinda’s way to stretch her capabilities and creates more work for the new mother (and her nervously working husband), who ends up changing diapers for her baby and cleaning the excrements for her stepmother-in-law as well. Plus, there’s Solange performing some odd religious ritual on Belinda’s child and attempting to claim herself as the mother or proudly being part of the racist group Daughters of Confederacy. The whole thing is a total nightmare.
At the end of the movie, we’re led to believe that Solange peacefully died in her sleep one evening, but as we later learn, it was Belinda who murdered her to end her own misery, via suffocating her with a pillow. The murder allows the couple to inherit Solange’s wealth and for them to live out their dreams as a couple. During my screening, a viewer clapped, and I got it. Solange was absolutely the worst.
What Brandy Told Us About The Twisted Ending
During my interview with Brandy and Kathryn Hunter, we talked about the weird parallels to Cinderella and how important sound was to the character of Solange being so terrifying. Here’s what Brandy shared about the ending when I asked her about her thoughts:
Well, I think in the end, without giving so much away, I think after going through such a journey with Belinda, just finding her way, finding her integrity, finding her worth her value, fighting for her life, fighting for her family, fighting for her baby, you get a sense of liberation for her. You get a sense of victory for her in the end. And,I hope that people take away that from her character.
Even though Belinda straight up kills her stepmother, as Brandy shares in the instance of the movie, it’s a “victory” for the character to stand up for herself after the abuse she gets from Solange throughout the movie. Sure, it’s messed up, but so is the situation of A24’s latest horror flick I won’t soon forget. In other words, clap away, I guess...
Now that you’ve survived The Front Room, you can check out what other upcoming A24 movies and upcoming horror movies are on the way. And here’s hoping Brandy returns for the I Know What You Did Last Summer sequel coming up next year!
