The Front Room ending explained: What happens between Solange and Belinda?

The latest A24 psychological horror film has hit theaters, and it's getting some seriously mixed reviews from critics and viewers alike. The Front Room, starring Brandy and Kathryn Hunter, is about a couple with a newborn who is forced to bring in an estranged stepmother with all kinds of weird and dark habits.

We're introduced to the primary couple, Belinda and Norman (Andrew Burnap), as they prepare for their newborn daughter's arrival. Then Norman receives the tragic news that his father has passed away from stomach cancer, and his stepmother Solange (Hunter) needs a place to live in exchange for basically her entire fortune, which would allow the couple to pay off their home mortgage and more. It's understandably an enticing offer. Major spoilers ahead for The Front Room.

The showdown between Solange and Belinda comes to an ugly head

The Front Room moves along quickly, with things between Solange and Belinda escalating rapidly before ultimately ending with Solange's death. Initially, the movie makes it seem like Solange just died in her sleep. She does lay there yelling, "Why can't I die?" over and over again one night.

But then, in the movie's final moments, it's revealed that Belinda was finally pushed too far and snapped. She went into Solange's room that night and suffocated her with a pillow. It was kind of an anticlimactic ending to the Solange x Belinda showdown, in all honesty, as the movie seemed to be careening toward a more explosive finish for the pair.

Solange and Norman's twisted relationship

One thing that The Front Room makes abundantly clear is that Solange was abusive toward Norman when he was a kid. And there's something still considerably...twisted about their relationship even in adulthood. Belinda picks up on it since she starts having warped hallucinations about them, like one particularly visceral nightmare that seemed like it was straight out of the Barbarian playbook—showing a dream (or nightmare) version of Solange breast-feeding a fully adult Norman.

But it also makes sense that Belinda had some of these doubts since she couldn't get Laurie to latch on and feed. Since the death of their previous child, Wallace, Belinda has struggled with insecurities about being a mother and part of her felt threatened by what she assumed was some mystical power Solange was wielding over her child, husband, and the entire house itself.

In the end, it doesn't seem like Solange had any actual mystical abilities, but she definitely got into Belinda's head enough to distort the way she saw her own home, which is plenty disturbing on its own.

The Front Room is now playing in select theaters.