Awareness Movie Ending Explained: What Happened to Ian and His Powers? Who Are Ian’s Real Parents?
The science fiction film Awareness features an engaging plot around Ian, an eighteen-year-old with abilities to create realistic projections and mind control. Ian and his father, Vicente, lead a clandestine life, engaging in petty theft to survive. However, Ian yearns for freedom and, after an oversight, unleashes his abilities, drawing the attention of the mysterious Agency and a man with similar powers. From October 11, 2023, it is available on Prime Video Awareness. This is the new film with Pedro Alonso from Money Heist and Maria Pedraza from Élite. Directed by Daniel Benmayor, it offers a compelling plot with a cast that immediately attracted the attention of subscribers to Amazon’s streaming platform. The film tells the story of Ian, played by Carlos Scholtz, a teenager who lives on the margins of society, capable of manipulating people’s minds with visual illusions. The boy is chased by a secret agency. But Ian‘s life changes completely when he discovers that he isn’t the only one with these powers.
Awareness Movie: The Story Plot
The protagonist of the Awareness plot on Prime Video is Ian, a rebellious teenager. The latter exploits his power, which allows him to manipulate people’s minds by creating visual illusions, to survive and organize scams. The boy makes money together with his father, Vicente, played by Pedro Alonso. The two are poor, but his father still doesn’t allow him to commit serious crimes. Ian had always been told that his mother had similar powers and that she was taken to a laboratory for experiments. For this reason, he is not allowed to go out or make friends, as Vicente fears that his powers will be discovered.
Ian, however, is not satisfied with his life. One day, together with his father, he is caught while he is stealing. The boy uses his powers over the shop owner and the police to save the day. The next day, in an arcade Ian is kidnapped by an organization called the Agency. At this point, a man who has the same powers as Ian intervenes but is unable to save him. The Agency also kidnaps Vicente. It turns out the Agency is fighting another organization, called Awareness, which helps people like Ian. While the Agency works to maintain democracy, Awareness intends to manipulate the people in power. The man who attempted to save Ian is thought to be the last remaining member of the second organization and the most powerful.
Awareness Movie Ending Explained: What Happened to Ian and His Powers?
Dr. AdrIana Levin explains to Ian that the Perceivers use their abilities to control the world, so the Agency tries to combat them. To convince him to help them, she motivates him to enter Vicente‘s mind and discover the truth that she is hiding from him: he is not his real father, and she stole him from the laboratory. AdrIana needs Ian‘s blood to extract the formula that can give and take away the powers of the perceivers. Dr. Kominski created that formula and made sure that the perceivers could not reproduce, however, it seems that something went wrong since Ian has no traces of the formula, that is, he inherited his powers from his parents. While the Perceptor breaks into the Agency facilities making the rest believe that he is the doctor, an agent named Esther (María Pedraza), who works for the Consciousness, helps Ian and Vicente escape. Ian re-enters the mind of who he thought was his father and discovers that the answers are in Warsaw, so he robs a bank to look for Kominski.
The perceiver breaks into the hotel where Ian is hiding and after reading his mind, leaves. Later, Vicente tries to convince his son to do the right thing, but the boy no longer trusts him. In the place of his memories, the protagonist of Awareness discovers that his mother is Urszula Kominski, the scientist’s daughter. AdrIana, who receives orders from the American, seeks out Vicente to help him convince Ian to join the Agency and train to defeat the Mule. Meanwhile, Esther reveals that she works for the Perceiver, who explains that he is her real father and that he was part of a secret program from the 1950s. When the war ended, they decided to eliminate all the Perceivers, but the most powerful one, known as the Mule, mastered the third power and created Consciousness.
Although the Agency manages to capture the Perceptor, they do not obtain the formula and the man manages to escape using his powers. Shortly after, father and son reunite in Spain and Ian has the opportunity to meet his mother, who became very ill after an operation carried out by the Agency. The perceiver asks Ian to decipher the formula in the memory his mother implanted in his mind, but the Agency arrives before that happens. The death of his mother intensifies Ian‘s powers, and he gets rid of his enemies very easily and unlocks the third power.
Ian seems ready to force AdrIana to take her own life, but Vicente appears and tries to make him realize that the Perceiver is manipulating him. Seeing the boy’s confusion, he makes Vicente shoot himself and takes Esther hostage. Before dying, Vicente asks his son to see his memories and discover the truth: his mother asks her to take him. At the end of Awareness, Ian confronts the Perceiver and when AdrIana helps him realize that Esther is not real, he shoots him. After the death of the recipient, Ian promises to think about AdrIana‘s proposal, but for now, he leaves with Esther, he no longer wants to give her up even if it is a loophole. Before leaving, Ian notices that AdrIana also has a loop, it is the American to whom he reports. Who is behind that? Will there be a sequel?
Who Are Ian‘s Real Parents?
During the film Awareness, Ian discovers that he can read minds and thus learns, through Vicente‘s mind, that he is not his father. The latter took him away from his mother and never told him the truth. Now the Agency wants to use Ian‘s blood formula to eliminate the powers of all those who possess them. This formula was created by Dr. Kominski, a scientist who then made sure that these people could not reproduce. In Ian‘s blood, the Agency can’t find the formula. The boy inherited his powers from his parents. This is why Ian is so powerful: he is the first natural perceiver and could have a third power, which could also manage the will of people.
Meanwhile, an agent, Esther, helps Ian escape with Vicente. The man who previously tried to save him also comes looking for him. Ian, however, is hiding from him because the Agency has warned him that she intends to force him to join the Awareness organization. Esther takes Ian to a safe place and then helps him rob a bank. Meanwhile, the two grow closer and he begins to have feelings. Eventually, the mysterious man finds him, reads his mind, and steps aside for the time being. Afterward, Ian confronts Vicente and accuses him of kidnapping him and forcing him to live like a pauper. He decides to leave him alone and go away with Esther to Warsaw to look for Kominski.
Ian finally discovers who his mother is: Urszula Kominski, the scientist’s daughter. Not only that, but he also meets the perceiver again, who reveals to him that Esther works for him and that he is her father! The man tells him that together with his mother he was part of a program that had the aim of creating spies in the 1950s. After the Cold War, the Agency began to search for all the perceivers but was unable to kill the most powerful one. The latter created the Awareness organization to protect all perceivers.
The Identity of Ian‘s Father
As the story unfolds, the film Awareness reveals that Ian‘s father is a former perceiver, a volunteer in the secret program that began in the 1950s, after World War II. This program, known as “Operation Disinfection”, aimed to create agents that could read minds and create illusions, ideal for espionage during the Cold War. The program aimed to end the existence of the perceivers after the end of the war, due to the fear that they would turn against the world. However, a perceiver known as “The Mule” escaped the Agency’s agents and formed the group Awareness made up of other perceivers.
Vicente‘s Betrayal and the Truth About Urszula?
The revelation that Vicente, Ian‘s father, was a former perceiver, shocks the young man. Vicente had stolen Ian from the Agency to protect him, under the guidance of Urszula, who wanted her son to grow up away from conspiracies. Ian realizes that the only person who truly deserves to be called father is Vicente, and he is tragically killed by the mysterious perceiver. At the end of the film, Ian confronts the perceiver who pursued him, the latter holding Esther hostage. A mind control battle unfolds, and Dr. AdrIana teams up with Ian to defeat the perceiver. However, something strange catches Ian‘s attention. AdrIana states that the perceiver could not be holding a woman hostage, as this was a constant projection of him. The revelation that Esther was an illusion created by the perceiver surprises Ian.
How Vicente and Urszula Die?
Towards the finale of Awareness, Ian reunites with his mom. The woman, however, cannot move or speak, as the Agency has operated on her brain in the past. The father tells Ian that his mother destroyed the formula created by Kominski and implanted it in Ian‘s mind with a memory. Now his dad wants to get it and so Ian reads his mother’s mind to find that memory. The woman, however, does not allow the man to see her. To avoid this, Urszula dies. Furthermore, the Agency manages to locate Ian and this time sends a small army of armed men to capture him. When Ian manages to control these men, he is revealed to have the third power. The boy thus manages to eliminate them all. When Dr. AdrIana arrives, he reveals that his father is lying to him.
Meanwhile, Vicente also tries to make Ian understand that his dad is manipulating him. Ian loses control and almost gets AdrIana and all of her men killed. Vicente manages to stop him and tries to make him understand that he raised him like a son. In the meantime, however, his father arranges for him to shoot Vicente. The latter has Ian read his mind, although he knows he won’t survive this. In this way, Ian discovers that his mother begged Vicente to protect him. Ian finally understands that Vicente sacrificed his whole life to keep this promise and that he loved him like a father. Before dying, Vicente asks Ian to never give up.
Who is Esther? And Why Ian Kill Vincent?
In the Awareness finale, Ian is now aware that his father does not love him and that he is using him for the formula. The man, however, kidnaps Esther and Ian chases him. By holding the girl at gunpoint, he manages to get the boy to do what she says. AdrIana reveals another truth when she reaches Ian: only he can see Esther. She is not a real person, but an infinite projection that her father created in her mind. At this point, Ian shoots his father and kills him. As Vicente did, the boy subsequently sided with neither organization. AdrIana assures him that he is no longer under anyone’s control. Not only that, but she also explains to him that she has been working with an American man all this time. The Awareness movie on Prime Video ends with Ian realizing that the American man isn’t real, just like Esther. Thus, the protagonist understands that someone has inserted the presence of this man into AdrIana‘s mind.
