Look Away is a 2018 horror movie written and directed by Assaf Bernstein. Maria (
India Eisley) is a shy high school student who is bullied by her peers, pushed around by her only friend, and berated by her superficial father for not being popular. After a particularly rough day, Maria’s reflection starts talking to her, introducing herself as Airam, and soon offers to temporarily switch places in order to "fix" Maria’s life. Maria initially refuses, but after being publicly humiliated and assaulted by her bully, acquiesces to the swap.
Provides examples of:
- Abusive Parents: Dan chastises Maria's lack of social life and is generally emotionally neglectful and abusive. He prioritizes appearance and status to such an extreme that he suggests specific plastic surgery for his daughter, and even decided to let one of his babies die when she was born ill and deformed.
- Attempted Rape: Implied. After Airam embarrasses him in front of his friends at school, Mark later threatens her during hockey practice and waits for the rest of his teammates to leave before he sneaks into the girl's locker room while he thinks "Maria" is in the shower. Luckily, Airam is waiting for him in the corner, dislocates his knee with a hockey stick, and then effortlessly intimidates him into silence.
- Bully Brutality: Mark forcefully pulls Maria's arm and drags her face down on the ice for several feet.
- Clingy Jealous Girl: Lily knows Maria has a crush on Sean, and threatens her to stay away from him. When she sees Sean helping Maria skate at prom, she "accidentally" knocks her over and doesn’t help her.
- Defiant Strip: Maria/Airam does one in front of her father in the final act just before she kills him.
- Dirty Coward: Being a bully, Mark absolutely folds when he meets her father and when Airam turns the tables on him twice.
- Downer Ending: Maria/Airam ends up killing her father after he reveals that he wouldn't love her if she was deformed like her twin; and whom he killed because she was deformed. While she gets rid of the murder weapon, makes it home, and reconciles with her mother, Sean and Lily are still dead, and the lead police investigator has all but told her that he knows she's responsible and is coming after her.
- Fan Disservice: Maria/Airam ends up naked more than once. But, considering that she's an abused teenager suffering a mental crisis, it's Played for Horror. Especially in the climax when she confronts her (abusive) father and strips completely naked in front of him before killing him.
- He Knows Too Much: When Sean starts to piece together that Maria, really Airam, has something to do with Lily’s death, Airam murders him by bashing his head in with a lamp.
- Incest Subtext: Loads of it:
- Airam first appears to Maria whilst the latter is masturbating, acts as a Knight Templar Big Sister Yandere toward her throughout the film, and the two switch places by kissing.
- Airam strips naked in front of her father, pleading with him to tell her she’s beautiful and that he’d love her even if she weren’t, and both Airam and Maria have an underlying desire for their father’s affection.
- Karma Houdini: Second only to her father, Mark is by far the worst of all three of Airam's victims. But while they're murdered, Mark merely gets bashed in the knee with a hockey stick.
- Laser-Guided Karma: After spending the entire movie being not only an Abusive Parent to Maria and an Abusive Husband to his wife, cheating on said wife, and killing Maria's twin simply because she was deformed, Dr. Dan Brennan ends up on the receiving end of some well-earned retribution. Starting with his exposure of having an affair, it ends with Maria/Airam confronting him at his office and slitting his throat.
- Loving Bully: Airam recognizes Mark as this, and once she takes Maria's place, she publicly taunts him about it when he tries to harass "Maria" after the prom.
- Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: It’s never explicit if Airam really exists as Maria's dead twin or if Maria has some sort of dissociative disorder.
- Meaningful Name: The name Airam is Maria spelled backwards.
- Oh, Crap!: Lily has one when Airam falls onto the ice one last time and the latter gives her a Death Glare when she doesn't say or do anything to help her again. This then leads to Airam chasing Lily on the ice until Lily panics, loses her footing, falls, and slides head-first into a concrete lip, killing her within seconds.
- Only Friend: Lily is Maria's only friend, but she's also a terrible friend. Airam recognizes Lily's behavior for what it is and literally chases her to her death.
- Psycho Lesbian: One interpretation of Airam's actions is that she is incestuously obsessed with Maria.
- Yank the Dog's Chain:
- After hearing Mark and his friends snicker about Maria at the movies, Dan seems to feel bad for his daughter, and tells her to come to his office the next day for a birthday surprise. While Airam is suspicious about his intentions, Maria is excited and believes he’s going to buy her a car. Airam's suspicions turn out to be correct, as instead of a car, Dan offers to pay for plastic surgery to fix Maria's so-called "imperfections," devastating Maria and infuriating Airam.
- At the prom, when Maria falls on the ice and isn't helped up by Lily (who also prevents Sean from helping her), Mark doesn't laugh like the rest of the school and instead offers her a hand, which she reluctantly takes. Instead of pulling her up, though, Mark cruelly drags her across the ice, resulting in several scraps on her skin and tearing her dress.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: After Airam apparently dislocates Mark’s knee with a hockey stick, he isn’t seen or mentioned again.
