Run 2020

Diane Sherman’s journey begins with a poignant moment: the premature arrival of her infant daughter, Chloe, whom she later encounters in an incubator, surrounded by medical professionals. Seventeen years later, the scene shifts to Pasco, Washington, where Diane is dedicated to homeschooling and caregiving for Chloe, who lives with a constellation of chronic health issues - arrhythmia, hemochromatosis, diabetes, and paralysis. As Chloe awaits her acceptance letter from the University of Washington, she’s also grappling with her mother’s increasingly controlling behavior.

The tension builds when Chloe discovers her mother’s secret stash of green capsules, which Diane insists are part of her daily medication. Unbeknownst to Chloe, these pills are actually meant for her mother, and she begins to uncover the truth after snooping on her mother’s pharmacy label. Her attempts to research Trigoxin online are thwarted by their broken internet connection, so she turns to a stranger for help, who reveals that it’s a treatment for heart conditions - but in red capsules, not green.

As Chloe’s suspicions grow, she asks her mother to take her to the movies, and during the film, she sneaks across the street to confront the truth. At the pharmacy, she learns that the green pill is actually a muscle relaxant meant for dogs, which could cause leg paralysis if ingested by humans. As Chloe suffers an asthma attack, Diane appears out of nowhere, asking bystanders to clear a path before injecting her with a sedative.

Chloe awakens alone in her bedroom, locked and trapped. Despite her mother’s attempts to disable their phones and mobile stair-lift, she manages to escape the house, badly injured. She flags down the mailman, but when Diane arrives on the scene, she kills him after failing to persuade him to turn Chloe over.

As Chloe lies helpless in her basement prison, surrounded by her wheelchair and chains, she uncovers a dark family secret: photos and documents that reveal her mother’s real daughter died shortly after birth, and that Diane had stolen baby Chloe - who was once able to walk as a small child. The truth shatters the illusion of their relationship, leaving Chloe with an uncertain future.

As Diane bursts into the scene, offering a fresh start with Chloe, the latter’s accusatory gaze pierces through Diane like a dagger. With a hint of venomous sarcasm, Chloe accuses Diane of fabricating illnesses for personal gain, daring her to reveal whether she was ever genuinely afflicted. Diane vehemently denies these allegations, insisting that her sole intention was to aid and support Chloe throughout her ordeal.

Undeterred by Chloe’s skepticism, Diane quietly fills a syringe with the noxious black substance she had been experimenting with in her beaker, previously shown to contain household neurotoxins. As the tension builds, Chloe seizes an opportunity to escape into a storage room, where she finds solace in a bottle of organophosphate. This desperate act forces Diane to hospitalize her protégée.

Chloe’s awakening finds her weak and silenced by intubation, confined to a hospital bed. Diane, ever the opportunist, creates a Code Blue emergency off-screen and abducts Chloe before she can shed light on her supposed “suicide attempt”. As they navigate through the prison corridors, Chloe manages to subtly manipulate Diane’s wheelchair, momentarily halting its descent down a stopped escalator. Meanwhile, a diligent nurse stumbles upon Chloe’s disappearance and alerts the authorities, prompting security personnel to track them down.

Diane’s reign of terror ultimately ends with her being shot as she brandishes a gun at the pursuing guards. Her lifeless body tumbles down the stairs, a poignant testament to her own destructive forces.

Seven years later, Chloe still navigates the world in a wheelchair but has made remarkable progress, regaining partial use of her limbs. Her regular visits to Diane, now bedridden in prison, provide an unsettling contrast between the two women’s fates. As Chloe prepares to depart, she nonchalantly dispenses the canine muscle relaxants she had smuggled into the prison – a grim reminder of the very same medication Diane had once administered to her – and whispers an eerie “I love you, Mom” to her captor.