SPOILER ALERT: the following article contains massive spoilers, including the ending. If you have not yet seen the movie, proceed at your own risk, or better, come back to this article later!
Oxygen is a French survival thriller directed by Alexandre Aja. The film tells the story of a young woman (Mélanie Laurent, 6 Underground, Inglourious Basterds), who wakes up in a cryogenic pod. She doesn’t remember who she is or how she ended up there. As she’s running out of oxygen, she must rebuild her memory to find a way out of her nightmare.
SPOILERS AHEAD
Oxygen Plot Summary and Synopsis
A woman awakens in an airtight medical cryogenic unit, and discovers that she is trapped and that the unit’s oxygen levels are falling rapidly. Suffering from memory loss, she does not remember who she is or how she got there.
She is assisted by an advanced A.I. named M.I.L.O. (Medical Interface Liaison Officer), but it refuses to open the cryo unit without an administrator code. Using MILO, she is able to transmit outside the pod and contact emergency services. She provides them with the cryo unit’s model and serial number, which are printed on the interior. Upon contacting the manufacturer they are told the unit was destroyed three years prior.
Unable to recall her memories, she looks for clues about her past by searching for pictures and articles through the AI computer and finds her name, Elizabeth Hansen. She realizes she is a cryogenic doctor. She finds her husband, Léo Ferguson, and his contact number by accessing her social media, but when she calls his number a woman answers. She tells the woman that she is Léo’s wife and demands to speak to him. The woman seems confused and hangs up.
As the oxygen level continues to fall, she begins hallucinating and tries to open the pod, only to be electrocuted. She then receives a call back from the police but suspects they are hiding something from her, and disconnects. The unknown woman she called earlier rings and tells her that her husband is dead. She also gives her the administrator code to open the pod, but tells her she cannot open the pod or she will die. Elizabeth uses the code, and begins floating without gravity.
After a brief explanation, it is revealed that she has been placed into hyper-sleep for a 14 light-year journey to another planet. Her secret mission is to travel to a new planet, as mankind will be extinct in the near future due to a deadly virus. The virus also killed her husband, Léo.
Heartbroken by the truth, she deduces the awakening was due to a processor overheating and realizes she must divert the functions of the processor to another processor assigned to non-essential functions, but initially fails since the data exceeds capacity. As time passes by and with oxygen levels fading, she prepares for suicide by attempting to open the pod.
Shortly after, she discovers Léo is also in hypersleep in the damaged spaceship together with nearly 10,000 others, but she notices he lacks a scar on his forehead that he had before. Upon further investigation, through a video presented by an elderly version of her, it is revealed that she is a genetic clone with the original Elizabeth Hansen’s personality and memories implanted, including memories of Léo. The woman she has been speaking to on earth is the original, and now elderly, Elizabeth Hansen.
MILO activates a euthanasia protocol due to a non-existent chance of survival, however Elizabeth’s clone manages to deactivate it and successfully diverts the functions of the processor and is put back in hypersleep.
Oxygen Ending
The final scene shows the clones of Léo and Elizabeth on the new planet smiling, embracing each other.
Source: Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 3.0).