I Think We’re Alone Now(2018)

After spending a considerable amount of time living with Del (Peter Dinklage) and helping him clean up his town, bury the dead, and improve some of their living conditions, Grace (Elle Fanning) tells him one night that she has to tell him something, and it concerns where she came from. Del tells her that she can tell him about it, whatever it is, but all Grace does is kiss him.

The next morning, Del wakes up in the bedroom of Grace’s house (having evidently slept with her the night before) to the sound of other people’s voices coming from downstairs. He arms himself with Grace’s handgun and goes down to investigate, and he finds Grace sitting at the kitchen table having breakfast with a married couple, who introduce themselves as Patrick (Paul Giamatti) and Violet (Charlotte Gainsbourg). He takes a seat next to Grace, who doesn’t look happy at all, and as he talks to Patrick and Violet, they tell him that they are Grace’s parents, which she confirms to Del despite having told him a while back that they were dead. Patrick and Violet then inform Del that they are from Palm Springs, California, which is populated by thousands of people who also survived the unexplained apocalyptic event; Del never knew about this because he has never left his town or tried to establish communications with anyone outside of it. Del soon tells Patrick, Violet, and Grace that they all have to leave now, then heads outside to get into his truck and head back to the library, where he resides.

Grace follows him out and tells him that Patrick and Violet are not good people and that they are not her biological parents; when she got to California, she was paired with them against her will. Del points out that she told him that he and her were the sole survivors when she first came to his town, and she replies that she had to say that because he wouldn’t have let her stay if she didn’t; she had been travelling alone for months and he was the first person she saw. She begs for Del to let her come with him, but he angrily refuses and drives off. As Grace is in her bedroom packing up her stuff for the return journey to Palm Springs, Violet comes in to talk to her, and it is revealed that Grace had told Violet all those months ago that she was going to run away and wanted Violet to keep it a secret from Patrick. Violet explains that she got worried about her, so she broke her promise to her and told Patrick. She tells Grace that she needs to come back home because she doesn’t think that she can handle this forced family situation all by herself, and she promises that they will make it right this time and that they have to be a real family.

Patrick later pays Del a visit at the library to talk to him, but Del is in no mood to converse with him. Patrick tells Del that he is clearly a guy who has things figured out and they could use a guy like him out on the West coast, and he tells him that they have a team of doctors that are coming up with new, cutting-edge ways to harness the complexities of the human mind. Del tells him to leave, and Patrick agrees to, but he writes down his address for Del in one of the library books before he goes. He then rejoins Grace and Violet back at Grace’s house and they begin the journey back to California, and Grace starts to cry as they go.

Del tries to resume the solitary life he led before Grace came, but it isn’t long before loneliness consumes him and he finds his existence unbearable. He eventually decides that he needs Grace in his life and resolves to travel to Palm Springs, find her, and bring her back here. After finding the book with Patrick’s address in it, Del takes his truck and drives over to the barricade of cars blocking the main entrance to his town, and once he gets there, he walks to the other side of the barricade and takes one of the abandoned cars to start his trip. After driving nearly non-stop for two days, only stopping once to switch out his car for another one when it runs out of gas, he reaches the outskirts of Palm Springs during the last hour of sunlight and sees that the city is indeed fully populated.

Del drives up to the front of Patrick’s and Violet’s house, then gets out and sneaks into the backyard and up to their patio door. He looks through the window and sees Patrick and Violet in the kitchen, and Violet soon spots him, but she doesn’t say anything to Patrick about it. Del returns to his car and decides to wait there until Patrick and Violet go to bed, and once they do, he will sneak in, find Grace, and get her out of there. Later, once all of the lights in the house are shut off, Del takes out his handgun and heads up to the front door, which he finds has been left unlocked. He quietly snoops around the house until he finds Grace sleeping in her bed, and he sees that she is hooked up to two monitors with various tubes, wires, and sensors stuck around her head, plus the scar on the back of her neck has been freshly stapled up. He wakes her, and after she says “Did Del come back?”, he apologizes for letting her go. Grace looks at him and then starts to detach everything connected to her face and head, with Del assisting her.

As dawn breaks, Del and Grace make their way towards the front door, but they cross paths with Patrick and Violet, who have just woken up. Del asks Patrick what is wrong with him and what he was doing to Grace, and Patrick explains that she was undergoing a procedure to wipe out all the negative emotions and memories of the apocalypse from her brain (especially the memory of losing her birth parents) so she won’t have to live with any of it for the rest of her life, and everyone else in Palm Springs has had this procedure done to them. As Patrick exclaims how wonderful it is that no one has to be burdened by the horrible memories of the past anymore and they can just focus on a happier present and future, Grace momentarily panics and shoots and kills him. Violet is not upset about this, however, and she briefly tells Del and Grace about the daughter that she had who died in the apocalyptic event, suggesting that the memory modification procedure is not 100% effective. She then grabs her purse and leaves the house for parts unknown.

Later on, Del and Grace leave Palm Springs to return to Del’s town. However, as they go, they take in the sight of all of the happy residents and react with discomfort, knowing that their happiness was not naturally created.