A24's Under the Silver Lake is quite a contentious film, and it isn't difficult to see why. David Robert Mitchell, of It Follows fame, has crafted an extremely detailed and convoluted neo-noir mystery. Whether the movie is an everlasting masterpiece which can be re-watched and analyzed forever or a meaningless disaster really depends on who's talking about it, and somehow, both sides seem to be able to come up with equally convincing arguments.

What both fans and detractors of Under the Silver Lake agree upon is that the film is difficult to understand. This is a big part of the appeal for fans, who love how much there is to dissect and how many secret details there are to look at. Loaded with cryptic storytelling and red herrings, the fact that Under the Silver Lake is complicated may be the one aspect of it that's universally agreed upon.

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What is Under the Silver Lake about?

Under the Silver Lake centers around Sam, played by Andrew Garfield, a washed up, out of work LA resident stumbling incoherently through life. Sam has little interest in getting a job or paying the rent he's extremely behind on. He instead spends his time spying on any women in his vicinity, obsessing over symbols and ciphers in elite society, and chain smoking. After getting caught spying on his new neighbor, Sarah, and being invited by her to her apartment, Sam becomes immediately infatuated with her. The two make plans to get together the next day, but Sam wakes up to find that she and her two roommates have inexplicably moved out overnight. Sam begins to try to find out what happened to her, and when he deduces that she was killed in a car accident alongside a local billionaire, he becomes singularly obsessed with discovering the truth about what happened.

The film invokes the modern fear of a surveillance state, as well as pointing out the ways in which many people who fear such a thing the most play an equal role in its existence. Sam constantly worries about being followed, vocalizing to those around him that he worried about this long before his search for Sarah began. He suffers from hallucinations, imagining shadowy figures stalking him at night, as well as a naked woman in an owl mask who he hallucinates coming after him and a conspiracy theorist friend of his. Sam, however, has no issue being the stalker himself. He is very willing to follow suspicious figures for an entire day in search of information, but also follows and observes women out of simple perversion, even observing a woman in her own home using a drone. The movie says that everyone is constantly afraid of being watched, oblivious to the fact that they themselves are doing the watching.

At its core, however, Under the Silver Lake is about the dangers of losing yourself in a fantasy. Sam obsesses over finding a girl he knew for a single day, traversing all over the city, harming others, and risking his own safety in the name of a quest that he has decided has legitimacy. While he indulges in his own delusion, his real life is falling apart. As he is not making payments on either, he loses his car and his apartment. He makes no attempt to stop either one from happening, instead choosing to lie constantly about both. When asked about his car, he says it's in the shop. When asked about work, which happens frequently, he says it is going well to anyone asking, even his loving mother. Essentially, Sam ignores his actual problems and loses himself in fictional troubles he feels he has a chance of fixing, because in reality, it's only him deciding what victory there means.

Under the Silver Lake's Ending, Explained

As Sam's sanity seems to dwindle away ever further, he begins piecing together all the disconnected bits of evidence he has managed to come across. He maps out the chess move inscribed on a bracelet owned by the deceased billionaire, a bracelet which also features the acronym 'NPM' and a range of numbers. Sam figures out that this stands for Nintendo Power Magazine, which he happens to own a stack of. The Legend of Zelda map on the corresponding numbered pages happens to be a perfect fit for a map of Los Angeles included in a cereal box. The cereal box in question had been owned by a local zine author Sam was in contact with, who believed the map was the key to his own undisclosed conspiracy. Sam is then able to deduce which sections of the map represent designated spaces on a grid by using the cipher he pulled from a pop song.

This combination of benign, ridiculous clues seems like it would undoubtedly lead to nothing, but unbelievably, Sam's detective skills actually work out and lead him to his answer. Sam comes across a hut occupied by an old man and three young women and threatens them for information. They reveal that they are taking part in a secret ritual where rich men select three wives and trap themselves in tombs underground, in emulation of Egyptian pharaohs. With no hope of escape, the groups bring enough food only for six months, believing that before that time is up their souls will ascend directly to a sort of paradise. The man reveals that the billionaire from the car accident was faking his own death in order to perform this ritual, and Sarah and her roommates are his brides. The group of four is already sequestered in their underground tomb.

Sam calls Sarah and tearfully explains to her that he has been looking for her and that she has made a mistake, and she calmly responds that there's no way out now, so she may as well make the best of things. Sam agrees with the sentiment, and the two talk briefly before saying goodbye. A mysterious figure called the Homeless King threatens Sam into silence, and he returns home in silence, with nothing left to do but watch his apartment be entered by police ready to evict him.

Sam has technically succeeded at his mission, but he walks away empty-handed. His obsession with finding Sarah gave him an escape from his own miserable life, allowing himself to think of himself as a hero, sacrificing himself to rescue a damsel in distress. In reality, he is a creepy and pathetic man, chasing after a woman who did not want to be saved in the hopes that she could in turn rescue him. He deludes himself into believing that their single night spent getting high together was a meaningful love connection, and that reuniting with Sarah would bring happiness back to him. With that hope dashed, he has nothing left but the wreckage of his real life.

Beyond not bringing Sarah back with him, Sam also failed to expose the brainwashing of the masses as he'd hoped to. Sam obsesses over symbolism and hidden messaging in media and popular culture, theorizing that there are secret signs meant only for the elite to pick up on. Instead of finding a carefully organized indoctrination machine, however, what Sam finds is something that even he can recognize is insane. There is no paradise awaiting the rich men and the women they've trapped underground with them. Every group who seals themselves in a tomb is doomed to death by starvation, with no hope of rescue. The only difference between Sam and those above him on the ladder was having the means to make their insane delusions a reality.

Under the Silver Lake has amassed a cult following who posit that the movie itself houses an assortment of secret clues and ciphers to be uncovered. This is, of course, all in good fun if not taken too seriously. It is interesting, though, that the film itself seems to be warning against engaging in such practices. It's dangerously easy for someone to get wrapped up into blaming the world around them for the way they think and the life they lead, instead of taking charge of their own life. If someone believes there are secret enemies all around them, that may become all they can see.

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