Nowhere has been a huge hit on Netflix, clocking up a huge 29.9 million views in its second week to mark another genre smash for the streaming service.
The thriller centres on pregnant Spanish refugee Mía who, in a dystopian reality, is forced to flee Spain when it's taken over by a totalitarian dictatorship which is targeting pregnant women.
Mía and her husband Nico (Tamar Novas) decide to pay for a clandestine trip to Ireland by sea, but are separated into two different containers. Soon, Mía is all alone when her container is knocked into the ocean by a storm.
With limited space and resources, the heavily pregnant Mía faces the biggest challenge of her life. If you were too tense to watch it all unfold, let's delve into the ending of Nowhere to reveal whether Mía survives against all odds.
Nowhere ending explained
Over the course of the trip, Mía sorts out all kinds of situations in order to survive.
That includes giving birth underwater during a storm, eating her own placenta out of starvation, stitching herself with wires after getting a deep cut on the leg, and making a fishing net with multicolour earphones.
By this point, Mía has to survive if only because she damn deserves it. She manages to open a hole in the ceiling, allowing her to explore her surroundings, fish, and send multiple SOS messages locked up in food containers.
At one point, her husband calls her – how that phone still has battery left, we don't know – to say goodbye, since he's been shot while trying to find her and doesn't have much time left.
This is a gut punch for her, but she needs to keep fighting for her newborn Noa, even if now she knows nobody is coming for them.
Nowhere's most critical point arrives when the container sinks.
Placed in an ingeniously constructed cradle that floats thanks to attached food containers, Noa has disappeared from Mía's sight in the dark and misty night in the middle of the ocean.
Luckily enough, a whale passing by splashes water on Noa's face and makes her cry, signalling her position to her mother.
However, their situation is still quite precarious, as Mía is in the water in the cradle, just like Jack held to Rose's table in Titanic – and we know how that turned out.
While drifting with no land in sight, Mía finally lets go of all of the regrets that were burdening her.
Her pain comes from the loss of her other daughter, Uma.
When the Spanish regime took over, they were locked up at home with only Nico being able to leave the house to find food. One day, Uma insisted on going out, and her mother finally agreed, if only for five minutes.
It didn't take longer than that for some soldiers to take her away. Mía feels responsible for what happened, and she's carried that guilt aboard the container. When it sank, some of that pain eased.
Almost at the end of the nightmare, she finds forgiveness for herself. "I did everything I could," she tells herself, over and over.
For a moment, this feels like the end for Mía.
An Irish boat finds baby Noa floating in her cradle. As they get ahold of her, they notice a rope made of wires attached to the cradle that goes into the ocean. They pull, bringing Mía out of the water.
After a very long and intense CPR session, Mía wakes up. She's alive; both of them are.
Nowhere ends with mother and daughter hugging as the Irish sailors who found them take them safely to the shore.
Nowhere is available to watch now on Netflix.
Deputy Movies Editor, Digital Spy
Mireia (she/her) has been working as a movie and TV journalist for over seven years, mostly for the Spanish magazine Fotogramas.
Her work has been published in other outlets such as Esquire and Elle in Spain, and WeLoveCinema in the UK.
She is also a published author, having written the essay Biblioteca Studio Ghibli: Nicky, la aprendiz de bruja about Hayao Miyazaki's Kiki's Delivery Service.
During her years as a freelance journalist and film critic, Mireia has covered festivals around the world, and has interviewed high-profile talents such as Kristen Stewart, Ryan Gosling, Jake Gyllenhaal and many more. She's also taken part in juries such as the FIPRESCI jury at Venice Film Festival and the short film jury at Kingston International Film Festival in London.
Now based in the UK, Mireia joined Digital Spy in June 2023 as Deputy Movies Editor.
