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!
The debut film from writer-director Rose Glass, Saint Maud is a chilling and boldly original vision of faith, madness, and salvation in a fallen world. Maud, a newly devout hospice nurse, becomes obsessed with saving her dying patient’s soul — but sinister forces, and her own sinful past, threaten to put an end to her holy calling.
SPOILERS AHEAD
Saint Maud Plot Summary
A nurse named Katie fails to save the life of a patient in her care, despite her attempting CPR.
Time passes and Katie, now referring to herself as Maud, is working as a private palliative care nurse in an un-named English seaside town and has become a devout Roman Catholic. She is assigned to care for Amanda, a dancer, and choreographer from the U.S. who is terminally ill with stage four lymphoma and confined to a wheelchair. Amanda is embittered by her fate and confesses to Maud that she fears the oblivion of death. Maud comes to believe that God has tasked her with saving the atheist Amanda’s soul. Maud reveals to Amanda that she sometimes feels God’s presence tangibly and appears to be overcome with ecstasy as they pray together, something that Amanda pretends to experience as well.
Maud becomes suspicious of Amanda’s companion Carol, who visits the house regularly and whom Amanda pays for sex. While in town one evening, a former work colleague called Joy recognizes Maud/Katie and gives her phone number in case she needs company. Maud later takes Carol aside and implores her to stop visiting as she believes Amanda’s soul is in jeopardy. Carol feigns agreement but later comes to Amanda’s birthday party, which is attended by her bohemian friends. In front of Maud, Amanda informs the party-goers that Maud tried to drive Carol away and mocks the young nurse for trying to save her soul. Maud strikes Amanda and is subsequently dismissed from her job as a carer.
Believing that God has rejected her, Maud visits a pub to find companionship but is rejected by most of the people she meets. She goes home with a man and during sex suffers flashbacks of the death of her patient and her futile attempts at CPR, which causes her to stop. The man proceeds to rape her and then taunts her by revealing he remembers her once hooking up with a friend of his during her hedonistic past.
While out walking, she encounters Amanda’s new nurse and interrogates her for information before storming off when she realizes that her replacement enjoys a good relationship with Amanda. In her decrepit apartment, Maud begs for a sign from God who appears to converse with her and tells her to be ready for an act that will demonstrate her faith. Joy then visits and apologizes for reacting badly to an earlier phone call from Maud/Katie. During her visit, Maud interprets a rolling cloud formation as a sign from God and blesses Joy, who leaves for work.
That night, Maud, dressed in a shawl and bearing rosary beads, waits outside Amanda’s house and enters after the care nurse leaves. She finds Amanda in bed, severely weak. Amanda asks forgiveness for mocking her faith and Maud joyously reminds her of the time they experienced God’s presence. Amanda reveals that she feigned the experience and states that God isn’t real. Maud recoils in horror as a demonic Amanda hurls her across the room and mocks her for needing to prove her faith. In a frenzy, Maud stabs Amanda to death.
The Ending
In the morning she is briefly seen with luminous angel wings. She wanders onto a beach and douses herself with Acetone before horrified onlookers. She utters her last words — “Glory be to God” — as she self-immolates. In her last moments, she imagines the onlookers kneeling in reverence as the fire consumes her.
Source: Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 3.0).