L’Arminuta Movie: Ending Explained Film Based On The Best-Selling Novel by Donatella Di Pietrantonio
After searching for answers on the mysterious attitude of the one who until then he had called mother, the Arminuta will find the long-awaited answers in the film's finale in chiaroscuro.
At the end of his journey, after many attempts to discover the truth, L’Arminuta will understand what was hiding behind his mother’s disappearance and silence. The girl is in fact left by her father in a country house where her “real” family lives suddenly, without any kind of explanation, so much so that she is convinced that her situation will be temporary due to a sudden illness of her mother. In this new, impoverished and rustic reality, the girl will have to learn to live in a new, more Spartan and rigid way, forgetting the affection and the comforts she had lived in the city, near the sea, before her reality was suddenly upset.
L’Arminuta Movie: Ending Explained
The big question around which the film revolves concerns the putative mother of the protagonist: where did she go? Why does he send her money and occasionally goes to the farmhouse where his daughter lives but always avoids meeting her? If the breadwinner she now lives with is her true blood mother, why has she been raised by another woman so far? The answers – long hidden by a curtain of silence from the new Arminuta family – arrive suddenly at the end of the film and are destined to hurt. However, now alongside the protagonist there are people able to show her genuine affection, even if often not in words.
Arminuta’s Mother is Pregnant
Adriana, the little sister, reveals to the protagonist the key news to decipher the behavior of Arminuta’s aunt and putative mother. The little girl, worried that the newcomer still wants to leave, leaving her new family, after a fight yells the truth in her face: her mother has never thought of returning to take the Arminuta. With her first husband (the carabiniere) she never managed to conceive a child, so she asked her husband’s sister in great economic difficulty to “adopt” her daughter unofficially, promising to raise the child together. The promise was not kept, so much so that the Arminuta knew nothing about her real family.
The woman in the meantime began a clandestine relationship with what became her new partner. Arminuta’s mother finally managed to get pregnant, as she has wished for years. She then separated from her first husband to live with the new partner and father of her daughter, who however vetoed the girl raised as her own daughter by the woman. Since not even her father wanted to take charge of her, the protagonist was sent back without much ceremony or explanation to her native family.
Disturbed by the revelation, the girl runs to her room to retrieve some money and leaves by bus, for the seaside town where she used to live. By insisting on her old neighbor, she manages to get her mother told where she currently lives. The Arminuta crosses it on the street. The woman is surprised and her eyes are filled with guilt. He shows her a photo of his daughter, as if to clear himself, and invites his daughter for years to lunch in the following days.
The Swim in The Sea
The film ends with lunch. The Arminuta takes Adriana, her little sister with her recommending her not to make her look bad: she tells her not to eat anything with her hands and, since she does not know etiquette, suggests that she copy her every gesture. Upon arrival, the atmosphere is cordial: the mother’s new partner is also affable with Adriana. When the four sit at the table to eat, the girl begins to cry from the bedroom. The man expects no one to get up from the table to control the situation, arguing that it is just a whim. The child’s mother is in obvious difficulty but does not dare to transgress what the man has ordered her. Instead Adriana will get up and go to check on the baby girl, who was crying relentlessly because she had a little hand stuck in the bars of the bed.
At the sight of Adriana holding her daughter in her arms, the man verbally assaults her asking her how she dared to touch her daughter. At this point the Arminuta gets up, thanks for lunch and leaves after the first course, taking Adriana with her. The two decide to go to the beach and take a bath. Despite her fear of water, she follows her sister into the waves. This time the Arminuta pays attention to her, because she is no longer distracted by Vincenzo and by the memories of his old life. The two are linked as sisters.
How Does The Film L’Arminuta End?
The protagonist goes to dinner with her ex mother and her new partner together with her little sister Adriana. Here she understands that the couple’s new daughter will grow up without love, because her mother is the succubus of an authoritarian and malevolent man, under her affable appearance.
After lunch, Adriana and the protagonist go to the sea: this time the little sister will also enter the water.
What does Arminuta mean?
It is a dialect word that means “she who has returned”. In the film, the term is used only once, by one of the protagonist’s brothers to describe (and criticize) her.
