YMMV / Talk to Me

• Alternative Character Interpretation:
  • It's never actually proven that the evil spirit talking to Mia isn't her mother. If it is, was she never the loving mother she appeared to be, or did the other spirits drive her insane?
  • Did the spirits actually care about Riley, or was it an elaborate plan to get Mia's soul?
  • Some of the spirits contacted give conflicting information. Were any of them telling the truth about anything? Or were they just telling different lies to suit their own conflicting agendas, or simply to confuse the living?
• Base-Breaking Character:
  • Most people either dislike Mia because of her irrational actions that drive the film's events or find her to be a compelling portrait of how ugly addiction and grief can get.
  • Likewise, viewers' opinions towards Jade are highly polarized. She's often considered either a terrible sibling and a hypocrite, or the only sane character of the main group.
• Rooting for the Empire: At least when it comes to Mia's continuous haunting; the plot is, for some, enough of her fault for the spirits' torment of her to feel more deserved than horrifying.
• Spiritual Successor: To Hereditary. Both are bleak, pitch-black movies that examine typical haunting/possession tropes through the lens of grief and depression, and feature children being horrifically hurt and dark endings involving the teenage protagonist dying and being taken over by something paranormal.
• Squick:
  • Under his possession, Daniel makes out with Jade and Riley's dog. We even see his face covered with dog slobber and hair after the deed is done.
  • A ghost manifests in Mia's room and starts sucking on her friend's toes. However, the scene transitions revealing that Mia was the one doing it.
• Tear Jerker: Mia seeing Max, who has recovered from his injuries, in the hospital at the end and running towards him and begging him not to leave her, only for it to be revealed that she died and is now a spirit.
  "DON'T LEAVE ME!"
  • Alternately, Max actually did die from his wounds and the vision Mia sees is of him going to heaven. Either way, Max will be seperated from his wife and child for the rest of eternity.
• The Woobie: So, so many.
  • Mia herself is still grieving her mother, and in order to keep her mind off of it, she begins toying with malevolent spirits, which ends up violently injuring her best friends brother, which she takes all the blame for. As the movie goes on, a spirit who appears to be Rhea manipulates Mia, causing her to stab her father and almost kill Riley. At the end, she dies in a car crash and is now trapped on the other side of the embalmed hand.
  • Poor Riley is only 14 when he's looped into a dangerous game, possessed, severely hurt and hospitalized, and tortured by spirits in limbo. You just want to give the poor kid a hug. Luckily, he survives, but Mia's death will definitely take a toll on him.
  • Max's wife commits suicide, his daughter grows distant, she attacks and nearly kills him at the moment he tries to reconnect with her, and she later ends up dying.

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