Genre: Thriller/Mystery
Director: Debra Granik
Writer: Rene Menzie
Based on the novel by Riley Sager
Cast: Dakota Johnson, San Heughan, Jessica Brown Findlay, Paul Walter Hauser, Rosamund Pike, Topher Grace, Molly Parker, Cherie Corinne Rice, Mary Steenburgen, Sanaa Lathan, Jeff Ward, Bex Taylor-Klaus
Plot: After being hit by a car, Jules Larsen (Dakota Johnson) awakens on a gurney in the hospital. In a panic, she begs them not to send her back to the Bartholomew.
Six Days Earlier
Interviewing for a job in a relatively upscale building named The Bartholomew as an apartment sitter, Jules is with Leslie (Cherie Corinne Rice), the interviewer, who explains that the previous resident passed away. The family determines what to do with the unit. There's a rule that no place can sit unoccupied for more than a month (to prevent break-ins). Jules recently lost her job during a wrong string of luck and then caught her now-ex-boyfriend cheating on her. Jules also notes she's allergic to bee stings. Without warning, Leslie proposes to her the job.
Chloe (Jessica Brown Findlay), Jules's friend, thinks the situation seems suspicious on the phone, but Jules signed a "letter of agreement" instead of a lease since they're paying her in cash. Despite Chloe's concern, Jules sees the job as a lifeline, determined to take it.
Five Days Earlier
The next day at the Bartholomew, Jules with Chloe moves into 12A. Leslie tells her more rules: no visitors, friends, nor family, no posting about the Bartholomew on any platform, no bothering other residents, no smoking, and no drugs. Jules meets Dylan (Paul Walter Hauser), another apartment sitter. Chloe proceeds to be weirded out by the circumstance. She tells Jules the building has an odd level of secrecy and the strange occurrences said to have happened there, like witches, accidents, etc. All fake news to Leslie and anyone who it concerns. The previous resident seems to be someone named Marjorie Milton. There's a copy of a book called Heart of a Dreamer in an apartment. Jules remembers the book from when she was younger.
Jules gets a letter sent up via the dumbwaiter from someone named Ingrid (Molly Parker) welcoming her. Later, she meets Marianne Duncan (Sanaa Lathan), a well-known actress and resident, plus Rufus, her dog. She meets Greta Manville (Rosamund Pike), author of Heart of a Dreamer, only Greta's cold and rude.
While bringing groceries, Ingrid runs into Jules, who gets injured. The doorman of the building, Charlie (Topher Grace), generously buys her new groceries and tells her to see Dr. Nick (Sam Heughan), another tenant. Dr. Nick helps to stitch her up. Ingrid then asks to meet up at Central Park.
There, Ingrid apologies for the run-in. Ingrid is similar to her and is also apartment-sitting. She tells Jules about Erica Mitchell, a previous apartment sitter for 12A who left two months early. Ingrid wants to be friends and have lunch every day. She seems needy, but Jules agrees.
In a flashback, Jules thinks about her sister Jane's disappearance. Jane's boss saw her get into a car with a man he didn't recognize. They never saw her again. The police think she ran away, though her parents believed that she was abducted or murdered.
That night, Jules hears a scream she thinks came from Ingrid's place. She goes to check it out. Ingrid looks frazzled but denies it's her.
Present
Bernard (Mary Steenburgen) goes to check on her. Seeing how panicked Jules is, she asks to know what she's running from, which Jules's terrified to say.
Four Days Earlier
Jules's cheating ex, Andrew, texts her, ignoring her. Charlie isn't there due to a family emergency. Ingrid no-shows at Central Park for follow-up.
Jules runs into Leslie, who says Ingrid left suddenly moving out. As a result of Ingrid's sudden departure, Jules remembers when she found out her sister was missing and the cops closed her case, much to her family’s dismay.
After trying to call Ingrid, Jules searches for her online. She's able to find Ingrid Gallagher with messages from someone that Ingrid knows, Zeke (Jeff Ward). Then, she sees Ingrid previously posted a photo with Greta Manville. Jules goes to see Greta, who didn't know anything and didn't hear anything last night.
She sees Dylan, who didn't know Ingrid and didn't hear any noises either. Jules runs into Nick, and so she can ask him about the Bartholomew but goes to his apartment instead. Nick reveals his and Greta's grandparents were friends, and they're both "legacy" tenants.
Jules does some investigation on Bartholomew and finds out her room has initially been the servant's quarters. The building initially had poor oxygenating. As a result, many servants died there throughout a flu outbreak. The building's designer was a doctor who killed himself in guilt by jumping off the roof. There are also more stories of murder, haunted sections, etc. There's a gruesome murder of a servant, Ruby Smith, and her employer Cornelia Swanson. Jules finally thinks to check the dumbwaiter. She finds a key to a storage unit and a note telling her to "be careful." Zeke calls her back just as she gets to the storage unit. He tells her the last time he saw Ingrid, she wanted to buy a gun, which she finds in the unit. Jules wakes up to Nick's pounding on the door, and there's smoke everywhere. After breaking the door down, he drags her out and goes back to check for others. Jules goes to Greta's apartment to help her down.
Nick explains to Jules that the fire originated from 7C. Another resident, Mr. Leonard, suffered a heart attack while cooking.
Later, Jules calls Chloe about Ingrid. Chloe believes her search has more to do with unconcluded feelings about Jess's exit. Chloe heads to Vermont for the weekend and repeats her offer to lend her cash so Jules doesn't have to remain at the Bartholomew, but Jules declines.
Greta invites her to lunch as a thank you. Jules tells Greta about losing her parents in a fire. She doesn't mention that she knows it's on purpose. They're unable to deal with mounting medical bills from her mother's cancer. Greta's sympathetic and suggests looking for Ingrid in a homeless shelter.
Jules goes to a homeless shelter. She shows Ingrid's picture around and gives her number to a woman named Bobbie (Bex Taylor-Klaus) if she sees anyone who looks like that.
Out of nowhere, Andrew walks up to talk to Jules. Jules sees Nick, who poses as her boyfriend. Nick plays along willingly.
Jules asks Charlie about security cam footage of Ingrid leaving, but Charlie says the camera malfunctioned around then.
Next, Jules visits Marianne Duncan. Marianne claims to know nothing about Ingrid but advises Jules to stop questioning the tenets.
Later, Leslie sees her and gives her a firm warning about bothering the residents. Next time, she's going to be fired. Jules asks Nick to use the dumbwaiter to support her down to Ingrid's old apartment. In the apartment, she finds an inscribed example of Heart of a Dreamer. Back in Nick's apartment, Jules and Nick get caught up in the moment and sleep together.
Jules wakes up at Nick's place and heads to her apartment. She drops her keys in the grate next to the door. Jules unscrews the grate to get her keys and sees some other fallen items, including a cell phone.
Inside her apartment, she charges the phone, finding a picture of a woman on the same screen, which she's seen before. Outside, there's a "missing" flyer with the same woman's face. The name on the poster is "Erica Mitchell," the previous sitter for 12A.
She calls the number on the sign, and Dylan picks up. When she identifies herself, he hangs up and texts her to meet him at the Natural History Museum.
At the museum, Dylan says Erica left, similar to Ingrid. He also found a ring belonging to another resident who's been missing for a year. They realize a common trait among all of the sitters is that they all have no family. The night Ingrid went missing, she's supposed to meet Dylan to tell him about Erica's learning.
After paying Zeke's friend to unlock Erica's phone, Jules & Dylan find a video Erica took of clearly being scared of something. She's interrupted by Greta, who's inscribed a text for her. After checking, Jules is weirded out when she sees that Erica and Ingrid's copies of the book all have identical writing but different names. She's more weirded out that Greta lies, saying she's never signed a copy for anyone else in the building.
Two Days Earlier
She finally gets a text from Ingrid, but it doesn't sound like her. Jules realizes it's probably not Ingrid but someone pretending to be her. She tests the person by asking what her name is, but the person responds that "Jules" is her real name. The only person she's told is Nick.
As she realizes this, he knocks on her door, but she doesn't let him in and locks it instead. She texts Chloe to say she assumes she's in danger. Jules spent all her money on paying to get the phone unlocked. She needs to wait two days, get paid, and then she'll have money to leave.
Now
The nurse returns with Jules's only thing on her as she flees; a family picture. The other thing she's taking was her phone, but the nurse says they didn't see it. Jules realizes with dread that it means Nick has her phone. She told Chloe about all of it via text, so potentially, Chloe could be in danger. She tries to warn Chloe, but Bernard says she's in no position to move then injects her with a sedative. Jules tries to shake them off but suddenly falls into a deep sleep.
One Day Earlier
Jules keeps going through Erica's phone and sees Marjorie Milton. She googles to find out Marjorie is alive, contrary to what Leslie's told her. Jules tracks her down, but Marjorie doesn't want to talk. Jules sees that she's wearing a pin in an ouroboros shape. The same figure is in a painting that Nick has in his apartment.
Jules goes to the library to learn that the ouroboros is a symbol often used in alchemy. It's about life rising from death also that it's connected to Satanism. She remembers that the woman who killed the servant from the Bartholomew, Cornelia Swanson, had consorted with a satanist, Maria Damyanov. They'd been involved in the group called the Golden Chalice, named after a Satanic ritual component. Jules looks up Cornelia Swanson and realizes she recognizes the photo. She'd seen it in Nick's photo album. Cornelia is the grandmother of Greta Manville. Jules now understands that the Bartholomew people are essentially the Golden Chalice reborn. They are looking for young people to use as sacrifices. Jules gets a call from Bobbie, who says Ingrid has shown up. Jules rushes there and finds Ingrid looking haggard with a cheap dye job.
Ingrid tells Jules about surviving and how to discover what was going on in the Bartholomew. She said when she injured Jules, it wasn't an accident. Leslie paid her to do it. That night she heard a scream; it was Ingrid. Nick had come for Ingrid that night. Jules had interrupted it, which gave Ingrid a chance to pepper spray him after Jules left and ran away. Jules realizes there’s a full moon tonight and tells Ingrid to stay put with Bobbie. She needs to warn Dylan, but when Jules gets to the Bartholomew, he isn't there.
When Leslie appears, she runs up to 12A to get her stuff and leave, but Nick appears. He's holding a stun gun. Jules dives into the dumbwaiter and lets it fall. Then she runs out to the elevator. Nick's there, but Jules catches his arm in the grate. She goes down the elevator. In the lobby, Charlie tries to stop her, but Jules stuns him with the stun gun. She runs outside and gets hit by the car.
Now
When Jules awakens again, Leslie is there, along with Dr. Nick. She screams before getting knocked out. Jules has a nightmare where her whole family stabs her to death by hooded figures dressed as the Golden Chalice members.
Two Days Later
Jules wakes again, and Nick's there. Calmly, he tells her the surgery was a success since they only needed one kidney. Seeing the stitches, Jules screams in horror. She passes out again due to fatigue.
Jules wakes, and Greta Manville is there. She tells her she's sorry but that the kidney has saved her life. Nick shows up and fills in the details. He admits his great-grandfather was Thomas Bartholomew. The Bartholomew was initially built to be a haven for the rich, to protect them against the diseases outside. Now, Nick continues the work differently. They tell rich people they can stay there and hopefully find organ donors (the apartment sitters). He tells her that Cornelia Swanson and the dead servant was the first transplant attempt that went badly. It's nothing to do with Satanism. He also tells her about her other organs that they'll be harvesting, her heart, and the liver.
Four Days Later
Jules waits in the room. She realizes this place has a limited amount of space. She hears that Mr. Leonard is here because he's gotten a new heart, which presumably came from Dylan. Greta tells Jules that Greta's being moved back to the Bartholomew tomorrow, which means there will be a room for someone else. Jules realizes this means they'll kill her for the rest of her organs tomorrow. Bernard comes to check on her. Bernard admits she's working here to get an organ for her father. Jules warns Bernard that they might be lying to her or might take her organs instead, but Bernard doesn’t care, thinking Jules lies to protect herself.
After Bernard leaves, Jules spits out her pills they've been giving her, which she’s secretly not been taking, and she swipes a lighter from the nurse. After wiggling out of her restraints, Jules uses the lighter to set off the fire alarm.
When they come to check it out, she exits and locks them in. Trying to find a way out, she sees a room with Ingrid & Bobbie already dead, which mortifies her. Suddenly, Bernard tackles her trying to inject a sedative. Jules donkey kicks her in the face and ends up injecting herself in the eye. She leaves the hospital area to find herself in Nick's apartment. She gathers files on his desk. Suddenly at gunpoint, he stops her. Nick tries to explain the importance of what he's doing, saving the lives of those who best serve their community. Jules accuses him of being insane, but he thinks it's all a matter of opinion. Jules fights him off, stabbing him in the shoulder with a letter opener.
Before she leaves, she grabs books from the study and sets them on fire, causing a massive blaze. She wants to burn the place down. As the fire burns, the residents start to evacuate. Jules holds on to the photo of her family. Startled by the whole situation, she looks up to see Nick on the roof. They share a stare off till Nick closes his eyes and falls off the roof. He crashes into a car, which makes everyone panic. Unphased, Jules stares unapologetic at him and the fiery apartment.
Six Months Later
Jules is staying at Chloe's place, as Chloe has moved in with her boyfriend. She has written a book based on her experience at the Bartholomew, a New York Times bestseller.
Soon after, the police stormed in and started investigating Leslie's office records show that over 40 years, over 200 guests received organs from 126 unwilling donors. Many were runaways or homeless. Jules gave the police a lot of information, leading to the arrest and conviction of many of the people involved, including a lot of former presidents and famous people. Charlie joined along but only to save his own skin. The Bartholomew gets court-ordered to be torn down. Jules notes that the only person she met there who didn't kill themselves or end up in prison was Greta Manville, who's last seen leaving the country. Jules has been on television talking about the horrible events and has ended each with a plea asking for information on Jane, her sister, though no new information has come up. Outside the soon-to-be deconstruction of the Batholomew, Jules stares at her old family picture but then looks up to make sure the apartment is completely gone.
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