Genre: Fantasy/Dark
Director: Niki Caro
Writer: Grim O'Grady
Based on the novel by Melissa Albert
Cast: Haley Lu Richardson, Sandra Bullock, Ellen Burstyn, Douglas Booth, Michelle Yeoh, Domhnall Gleeson, Thomas Jane, Helen Mirren, Jessica Sula, Anya Taylor-Joy
Plot: Alice (Haley Lu Richardson) and her mother Ella (Sandra Bullock) had been living on the road for years. When Alice was younger, she once traveled with an unknown man for 14 hours before police found her. He claimed to know her grandmother Althea (Ellen Burstyn), but Ella says he was just a crazy fan of the grandmother's books. Ella got a letter at a place they had only lived in for a day. Ella tells her daughter that her grandmother Althea died and that they are free. Alice is surprised that she feels sad at the news since she had never seen her grandmother. She asks if they are going to the estate called the Hazel Wood. Ella says no and leaves.
Alice and her mother have always been plagued by bad luck. Everywhere they lived, bad things, such as flooding, invading wildlife, and even accidental deaths, happened. After Althea’s death, the two settled in Brooklyn as Ella dreamed of a future for Alice who believes she could never settle down. She starts her shift at a coffee place called The Salty Dog. Then, Alice sees the man from her childhood in the shop. He leaves and disappears into the crowd outside before she can confront him. Back in the table, Alice feels weak and collapses at a table, realizing that the man was reading Tales from the Hinterlands, written by her grandmother Althea.
As a child, she was thrilled by the book, and once started reading a story called Alice Three-Times before her mother took the book away. Back in the present, Alice leaves her job. However, she is paranoid, believing the man is watching her. She takes the train home and wonders if her mother lied about not knowing the man. She reads her favorite Vanity Fair article about her grandmother and how she went missing in the woods for a time. Before Althea wrote the fairy tales, she had gone on a trip. She returned to the United States three years later and wrote Tales from the Hinterlands which became a sensation. After marrying a few times, Althea moved to the Hazel Wood. As a child, Alice had believed her grandmother was a fairy godmother. Now, she sees Althea as arrogant for never trying to contact Ella. Alice explains that Althea’s second husband killed himself, and Ella spent 14 years trapped at Althea’s estate.
Alice returns home where she hears her step-father Harold (Thomas Jane) call Ella trash. Alice tries to enter their room, but Ella says she is fine. However, Harold slams the door open and accuses Alice of looking at him like he is a monster. At Ella’s request, Alice wanders to the kitchen where her step-sister Audrey (Jessica Sula) finds her and insults Alice for her cheap clothes and previous living conditions. Alice leaves for her bedroom and tells the reader that she does not feel like she belongs. A few hours later, her mother wakes her up and tells Alice that she married Harold because she wanted to rest. Alice thinks that her mother deserves peace and decides not to tell Ella about the man as they both fall asleep.
Alice avoids Audrey, as her sister may be in an abusive mood. In the car, Audrey tells Alice that a divorce is imminent because Harold took a day off work. This means he is already planning a visit to the marriage counselor to pretend like he tried to fix the marriage. While Alice is not surprised, she is upset because Ella was happy settling down. They reach the school and Alice talks about how alone she feels always being the new kid. She keeps expecting to see the man as she heads to class. That afternoon, she attends drama class to find Audrey missing, forcing Alice to pair with Ellery Finch (Douglas Booth).
Alice says that Finch is the wealthiest student in the school and is smart and nerdy. He is the only student who pays attention to her aside from bullying, and he knows that she is Althea’s granddaughter. Despite trying to ignore him, Finch always shows up and even leaves his family and friends to talk to her when he sees her. Alice believes she is connected to Finch in some way. Back at drama class, the two read lines together. After, Finch asks to see her outside of class. Even though Alice knows she will leave town soon, she agrees. Alice is confused about her feelings toward Finch. She says that Finch’s mother had committed suicide, and Alice thinks that Finch acts happy to survive.
After school, Alice waits for Audrey and the car but neither show. Instead, a rickety, yellow cab arrives and the driver asks her to get in. Alice runs away and nearly gets run over by a bus. When she gets home, she finds the door to Harold’s building open and the doorman missing. She uses her key to take the private elevator to Harold’s apartment where she expects to find Ella packing. However, she arrives to a rotten stench and an empty apartment. She tries calling her family, but no one answers. After looking around for a bit, Alice heads to her room where she finds an envelope with nothing inside but a title page for the story Alice Three-Times. Alice runs back to the lobby, still unable to call anyone. She checks the garage, but the car is still there. She leaves the building, thinking that the envelope had either been a trick or a message. She decides to try and find the Tales from the Hinterlands.
Alice jogs to FInch’s apartment in the richest part of town. She tells the doorman she wants to see him. As Finch comes downstairs, she begins to cry and he takes her upstairs. As they reach the apartment, Finch tells her that his parents are out and he is excited that she is visiting him. They sit down to eat and Alice tells Finch that she needs a copy of Althea’s book. He is surprised that she has never read it, but claims that a young boy stole it from him. Alice tells him that she found a small scrap of story when she reached out to Althea’s fans, but no one has ever posted it online and it is rarely sold in stores. While she was reading the clip, the camera on her laptop had turned on. Later, when she opened the laptop again, Ella caught her and snapped at Alice, telling the latter that Althea did not want to be Alice’s grandmother. Finch pulls Alice out of her thoughts to take her to the third floor where he shows her a picture of Althea. He claims that both Althea and Alice look like they are hiding their feelings. Finch is surprised to learn that Althea is dead as no news site had reported on it. Alice tells him Althea does not talk to fans, but does not know why. Finally, Alice says she will accept Finch's help.
They return to Harold’s home, but Harold pulls a gun on her. Alice asks where Ella is, but Harold grabs her. Audrey stops him and tells Alice that they were all kidnapped by people calling themselves Hinterland, but she and Harold were released. Harold grabs the gun and tells Alice to get out. Alice complies and swears to never come back.
Finch tells Alice they should call the cops, but she begins to panic over her mother’s loss. He helps her sit down and says again that her mother must have been taken by people from the real Hinterlands. He tells her a theory that when Althea disappeared, she actually went to the Hinterlands, which many people believe is a country in the north. Finch thinks Althea may have stolen the stories and now someone wants them back. Alice does not tell Finch about the red-haired man, but asks him to tell her about the story of Alice Three-Times. They go to a diner and he begins the story.
Once upon a time, a daughter with black eyes was born to a King and Queen. The Queen despised her and refused to name the child. Two years past and she did not grow. However, one day a nurse found that the child was now the size of a seven-year-old. The Queen called her Alice and the latter began tormenting her brothers and sisters. Weeks later, Alice grew to the size of a 12-year-old, then eventually 17. The queen decided it was time for her to marry, as she was beautiful despite technically being only a few years old. Alice told her suitors that they needed to bring ice from another kingdom or die. Eventually, a pair of brothers succeeded and said they would make her a slave instead of a wife. Alice ate a piece of the ice and froze. The brothers took her anyway. At night, the youngest brother had a nightmare, only to wake up and realize his brother was frozen to death. The younger brother ties the frozen Alice’s wrists and ran away. Despite riding for hours, he woke up to find his horse frozen as well. He continued on, but eventually passed out in exhaustion. Alice then appears and kills him before heading back to her palace.
Finch stops the story as he thinks he saw something. He tells Alice the story ends with bloody revenge against the family. Alice wonders if her mother named her after that story and why. The two share stories about their mothers. However, Alice sees the boy from the cab earlier. She tells Finch they need to leave. Outside, Finch stops and pulls her into hiding. He tells Alice he sees Twice-Killed Katherine from the Hinterlands (Anya Taylor-Joy). The girl he sees opens a birdcage and a demonic bird attacks a man. The girl instantly gets younger and leaves. Finch says that Katherine only kills men to keep herself young and avenge her murder. He tells Alice they need to find a place to stay.
Finch takes Alice to the house of a friend. Alice tells him about the man who abducted her as a child, and Finch says the man must have been Hinterland. He tells Alice he used to like traditional fairy tales because they are formulaic. However, after his mother’s suicide, he wanted fairy tales with messed up endings. Althea’s book is just harsh realities with magic. Alice says she agonized over how to meet Althea, but never did. Finch wonders if people from the Hinterlands want Alice and not Ella. Alice says they should have just kidnapped her, but Finch says that they might not have been able to. Eventually, the two fall asleep.
Alice dreams about her mother and their constant moves. One night, when she was ten, she had woken up with her hair coiled into braids. Ella had immediately begun packing and the two left that same night. She then wakes up and cleans up the best she can. Finch declares that he has found the Tales from the Hinterlands. He called every rare book dealer and found a man who had it. Suddenly, a bird with paper in its’ beak crashes into the window multiple times before it kills itself, leaving behind a page that says Alice’s name and the title of three of Althea’s stories. The two head to the bookstore. Insider the book they find a polaroid inside of Alice and Finch from the night before. Outside, Alice wonders why they would take the picture and not kidnap her. However, she is overwhelmed by the feeling of the Hinterland and she passes out.
Alice wakes up. Finch says he did not see any of the people and helps her up. Alice tries calling Ella to learn that the number is disconnected. Instead, Alice calls Audrey. Audrey explains that she left school at lunch and found her apartment filled with the same stench Alice found. Audrey heard Ella pleading with someone and Harold was staring blankly ahead. Audrey says the people looked like monsters and told Harold something that made him hate Ella. Ella told Audrey to tell Alice to stay away from the Hazel Wood. Audrey is forced to hang up as Harold catches her on the phone.
Alice tells Finch they have to go to the Hazel Wood. They get a rental car and buy snacks for the trip after finding a blog that details where the Hazel Wood may be. That night, they leave and Finch teaches Alice how to play a game called memory palace. However, they argue when Alice is unable to share any important memories aside from the books that she read. Finch briefly tells her the fairy tale about Jenny and the night women where Jenny- a selfish daughter who was angry at her parents- let the night women into her home, and who then killed them both.
Suddenly Alice turns them into the forest, before yanking them back on the road when she realizes what she has done. She tells Finch to take the wheel as she does not know why she did that. He does not and they find a motel. Alice realizes she has become attached to Finch because she desperately needs Ella. In their room, Alice apologizes but he tells her not to say it. He then confirms that the accident the cop claimed seemed more mystical. Alice teases him for his innocence, but Finch tells her he is capable of being mean before the two fall asleep.
Alice tries to comfort Finch who is having a nightmare. He snaps awake and tells Alice they should go back to good fairy tales. He dreamed that everything in the Hinterlands is real and asks Alice if she is willing to go beyond the end of the earth to find her mother. Alice realizes she should not take him all the way with her because she cares too much.
Hours later, Alice wakes up again and is upset when Finch tells her she talked in her sleep, but he will not tell her what she said. Outside, they find their car filled with water, and Finch tells Alice that they cannot go back. As they wait for a bus, they wonder what they will find in the Hazel Wood.
When they leave, the driver warns them to not go in the woods after dark. When the bus leaves, Finch suddenly tells Alice he has made a mistake and they need to leave. He says he made a promise to someone and they told him not to tell Alice. They see the cab from New York with Twice-Killed Katherine as the passenger. Finch explains he promised to take Alice to the Hazel Wood after she passed out at the bookstore. He tells Katherine and another Hinterland boy that he no longer wants the reward: entrance to the Hinterlands. Alice tells them she wants to see her mother, but Katherine insults her instead. Alice slaps Katherine, and her hand burns in pain. Katherine gives Alice a knife and tells her to kill herself. Finch tells Alice they cannot touch her, and Katherine kicks him. She says Alice is going to kill herself and make a door. Katherine grabs Finch and slits his throat, takes his body and disappears into the forest.
Katherine then wakes Alice up and tells her they are at the Halfway Wood. She tells Alice Finch would be alive if Alice had just killed herself. She then tells Alice she will wander until she kills herself, and throws Alice into the wood before driving away.
Alice runs onto the ice, but her leg falls through as she is about to reach the other side. The creature throws her to safety and Alice climbs the hill. In the distance, she sees a roof. Alice continues toward the Hazel Wood to find trees made of silver, gold, and copper. Alice remembers a rhyme about the leaves turning red and begins to run. She reaches a ravine and pulls out her feather. It turns into a pair of rings and she flies to the Hazel Wood.
Alice lands and a thick fog forms behind her. A gust of wind blows her wings away and Alice enters the Hazel Wood for the first time. She calls the mansion perfect. She stops at the door, concerned as to what is inside. Finally, she enters into a foyer with a massive staircase and statues of stone. Inside one of the rooms, she sees something she does not believe: Althea alive.
Althea looks just as Alice imagined. She talks about a Queen who built a bridge to bring herself home, but made a terrible mistake. She took the stories back with her and opened a portal between worlds. The Queen noticed dark things happening, including the death of the King. The Queen herself was a door between worlds, and her princess grew up with her. Althea gets older and looks directly at Alice as Ella disappears. She says that the demons from the Hinterland could not hurt Ella until the latter stole a princess from her fairy tale: Alice Three-Times. Alice says she does not remember living in the Hinterlands, but Althea questions if her memories are true. Alice demands to know where Ella is, but Althea says that Ella is not in the Hinterlands. The letter of Althea’s death was meant to bring Alice back because Alice herself is a bridge between worlds. The other characters would suffer if they hurt Alice, but if she killed herself she would open a permanent door. In the real world, Alice’s eyes changed from black to brown but she never lost what connected her to the Hinterlands. All of their bad luck was Alice’s fault. Althea then reveals she cannot die as long as Alice is outside the Hinterlands. She yells to an known person that she is giving Alice back. Heat consumes Alice and she falls into the Hinterlands.
The new forest is very different from the Halfway Wood. Alice begins walking and realizes that Finch is somewhere in the Hinterlands. She wonders if he is actually dead. As she walks, the flowers give off a variety of scents and Alice comments that the world was too different. She knows she is alone. Alice believes she is, in fact, a story from the HInterlands. She finds a path where she is stopped by a red-haired man (Domhnall Gleeson). He says he is from Earth and is surprised she just arrived. She does not tell him who she really is. He explains there are a lot of refugees from Earth and other places. He tells her to stay away from stories and that he is dating an ex-story. He tells Alice to go find an old woman who will grant a wish in exchange for a chore and Alice needs to ask to be taken to Janet (Helen Mirren). When he shakes his hand, Alice’s hands turn an icy white-blue. He panics, gives her gloves and runs. She follows the man’s directions until she runs into a story where the main character smells just like Harold’s apartment had. She confronts him, but he claims he does not remember what happened to Ella. She grabs him with her icy fingers and he says he recalls the sound of both Ella and her father’s blood. Alice tells him she will kill him if he hurt Ella, but he says she would be happy if he had killed her real mother. The man leaves and Alice runs until she finds an old woman who asks her to retrieve an apple. Alice does so and the grandmother turns into a bored fairy before granting Alice’s wish to be taken to Janet. Alice lands in front of a cottage. She is questioned about the Hinterlands tattoo, and Alice says she did not know where it had come from. Janet asks if Alice is truly a new arrival. Alice says yes and Janet pours her a drink. Alice is surprised that the flavor changes so many times as she drinks it. Janet then reveals they both drank truth serum. Alice tells Janet she has no intention to hurt anyone, did arrive in the Hinterlands today, and does not remember being there before. Janet says she made it her mission to protect refugees and ex-stories. Alice asks how one becomes an ex-story. Janet explains that the Hinterlands is full of many kingdoms, and thus, many fairy tales. One becomes an ex-story when their fairy tale is over, but many go mad. Alice then tells Janet everything about herself, praying that she does not tell her that she is a story. Janet says she came to the Hinterlands with Althea, and is shocked that 50 years have gone by.
Janet reveals she and Althea were together, but Althea had not offered to take Janet back with her. It was Janet who found the Hinterlands door and told Althea about it. Althea was too eager to leave, and got bored of her new life very quickly. She began to seek out stories, talking to minor characters and even communing with the dead. When Althea wrote Tales from the Hinterlands, she opened holes between the worlds. Many people who loved her stories accidentally wandered in, only to find that the Hinterlands were a terrible place to live. The ruler of the world known as the Story Spinner (Michelle Yeoh), is attempting to clean up the mess Althea made. Alice accidentally reveals who she is and says her mother took her to Earth. Janet asks if the leaps in her age that happened in her story happened on Earth. Alice says no and Janet asks to hold Alice’s hands which she dips in water. Janet then asks if Alice could have saved Finch. Alice gets angry and the water freezes. The ice on her skin shifts up to her shoulders. Janet tells Alice to seek out the Spinner. Alice apologizes for bringing her issues to their home, and Janet’s lover Ingrid tells her that regret is good, for it proves Alice’s mind is still her own.
That night, Alice dreams of Finch. She wakes up to see that the ice had crawled further towards her chest. She is able to hide it under her clothes. Janet tells Alice if she lets the world know she is there, the Spinner will find her. When Alice goes outside, she trusts her intuition and follows a path. She finds a refugee bar where most people ignore her. The bartender asks her about information from Earth as a second bartender gives her a free tea. Alice tells them about famous books, songs, and music. She is sad she is not the same as them, and knows she cannot stay. The people began to leave and the last bartender reveals herself as the Spinner. She explains that she starts the stories and lets them unfold, allowing her to somewhat control the populace. The Spinner wants Alice to finish her story and explains that stories loop until she stops telling them because they keep the Hinterlands alive. The Spinner says she will not let Alice go easily, but if Alice is able to create a new ending for her story, she can escape. However, Alice does not know her real ending and the Spinner says that might help her create a new one. The Spinner tells Alice that the Earth she knows will be different because time passes differently between worlds. Determined, Alice follows the Spinner out of the bar.
They walk through empty cobblestone streets and the Spinner keeps Alice from exploring the town. The Spinner takes Alice to a castle which she recognizes as her real home. When they stop, Alice finds a playing card in the spokes of the Spinner’s bike and sees Katherine on it. The Spinner calls it a bad joke and tells Alice she needs to go into her story without baggage from Earth. Alice realizes the Spinner brought her back with no intention of letting her leave. However, she has no choice but to enter.
Inside, Alice hears music looping the same few seconds. She realizes as she enters the hall that everyone inside the castle is stuck in time. Since Alice left, everyone involved in her story was returned to the beginning, stuck until she returned. They reach a courtyard at the center of the castle. Alice realizes she is being pushed to something, both by the Spinner and the scene. They climb the stairs into a room with a woman caught in labor. The Spinner tells Alice she will return her to the beginning of her story and live out a perfect life in a never-ending loop. Alice tells the Spinner that that is not living, but the Spinner says Alice has died before. She touches Alice’s cheek and ice consumes the latter. The Spinner whispers the first line of Alice’s story and Alice begins to implode. She sees the sociopathic gaze of the Spinner as she dies.
A boy grabs Alice and she realizes that he has been following her all throughout the Hinterlands. He calls her name and she realizes he is Finch. The woman with him is Janet. Janet explains that every ex-story broke out of their fairy tale because of the Spinner, or because a refugee wandered in at the right time. Alice tells the reader that Finch looks much older as he tells her to get on Janet’s bike. The story's fabric moves with them, looping them back to where the story should continue. Alice decides to get off the bike and approach the thread on her own. She begins to tell a new story about a girl who got away. The more she says, the more the story’s fabric breaks. She concludes the story by saying she will live happily in another world with Ella and no ice on her skin. A hole appears. She, Janet, Finch, and the red haired man escape to a refugee camp. Finch and Janet decided to save Alice together. The red haired man realizes he no longer has to die in Alice’s story. He explains that Ella was going to steal him before she stole Alice. He brought Alice back to finally break the story and permanently free herself. He says he cannot return to Ella because he has lived too many lives. Alice wants to return, even if time has passed beyond Ella’s death. Finch tells her he is staying in the Hinterlands because it is what he always wanted. He tells her to find the Spinner and Janet gives Alice her bike. After Janet declines to come with Alice, the latter leaves.
Alice finds the Spinner on the edge of a desert. The Spinner says Alice’s story is not worth telling anymore. Alice says it was never her story, but the Spinner’s. The Spinner reminds Alice that time is different between worlds, but Alice steps over the border and returns to Earth anyway. She arrives in the Hazel Wood to find Althea’s estate in shambles. She assumes Althea is actually dead and leaves without going inside. The woman calls paramedics and informs Alice that two years have passed since he disappeared. She passes out on the way to the hospital, and wakes up to see Ella waiting for her.
Alice calls Ella "mom" and the two embrace. Ella asks if Alice knows what she did, and Alice says Ella is still her mother. After sending doctors and police away, Ella explains that she was kidnapped and locked in an apartment for three days. A few weeks later, Ella finally found the real Hazel Wood with a recently dead Althea inside. She spent two years working odd jobs, hoping that Alice would return. After being released from the hospital, the two move to Brooklyn, and Ella sells the Hazel Wood estate to a woman who turns it into a writer’s retreat. Alice rereads books to remind herself of her childhood on earth.
A year later, Alice sees Janet at a coffee shop. Janet shows Alice a passport with Hinterlands written on it. Janet says that other doomed princesses had begun to break out of their stories, causing the Hinterlands to collapse. She says Finch is traveling to different worlds, and Alice says she does not know what she will do without her ice. Janet gives Alice an address for a psychic. Later that week, Alice sits in a room with others from the HInterlands. The group meets every week to talk about their experiences. Any violent characters who could not change are either missing or dead. Back at home, Alice resolves to cherish her memories. She meets another former princess who calls herself Sophia Snow, and the two decide to go to school together.
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