A mysterious boy starts drawing dark images, only to have them come true in real life. When a therapist discovers his power, she realizes his imagination could destroy everything, or save it.

‘SPOILER ALERT’

A doctor named McVittie goes to the roof of a mental hospital and stares at the sky while asking if someone can control what he’ll do next. Suddenly, he pours some gas on his body and mentions that the person probably didn’t expect that. As he then lights a match, he asks if the person wants to see him burn. Almost immediately, McVittie decides against burning himself, but he tells the person to get out of his head. As he accidentally drops the match on his feet, his body goes up in flames, and he cries for help.

A while later, a doctor named Marianne moves to Scotland and takes on a new job as a therapist at a mental health clinic. As Marianne gets to her new workplace, one of her fellow doctors, Maureen, welcomes her to the clinic and shows her to her office, which still has McVittie’s name on the door. Maureen says she’ll get someone to change that, and Marianne then goes inside to check out the office.

As she looks around, Maureen seems quite interested in knowing why Marianne left New York to come to a place like Scotland. She also asks if Marianne’s vacant position is still available in New York so she can apply there. Marianne finds this surprising, but she says that the role has already been filled.

Maureen then asks why Marianne moved to Scotland, and she says it’s because she likes the rain. Following this, Maureen leaves the office so that Marianne can prepare to meet her first patient, whose name is Corinna. Shortly after, Corinna arrives, and as Marianne reads her file, she learns that the little girl fears physical contact.

As Corinna stares at the wall, Marianne asks if they can try something different from what McVittie used to do. She asks if they can talk about anything other than Corinna’s mom, but Corinna just gestures to her to keep quiet. Corinna doesn’t say anything until the session ends, and Marianne then meets a woman named Tina, who has brought her foster son, Manny, to the clinic.

During their session, Manny starts drawing on a sheet of paper, but Marianne keeps trying to get him to talk to her. She also mentions that she’s different from McVittie, and that she’ll let him decide what they should do. Manny pauses as he hears this, but he eventually continues his drawing.

Marianne then moves closer to him and sees that he’s drawing a pig that seems lonely. Marianne asks if he’s the lonely pig, but he doesn’t respond. She then tells him that talking can actually make him feel less lonely, but Manny still remains silent. She eventually says it’s fine if he wants to be lonely, but that he can talk about why he doesn’t want to have friends. Manny then says that no one wants to be his friend because they don’t like what he says.

Marianne asks why, and Manny says it’s because of what he can do. Marianne asks what he can do, and he says he can make things happen. As Marianne tells him to give her an example, he looks at her and says that he made her happen. Marianne looks shocked to hear this, and she just moves away from him. Later that night, Marianne goes to a bar to spend some time.

She then sees a man named Kieran and seems attracted to him. As she stares at him, he eventually notices and starts talking to the lady sitting beside him named Margie. After a while, Kieran leaves his seat to talk to someone, and Margie walks up to Marianne.

Interestingly, it turns out that Margie also works at the clinic, and she even saw Marianne earlier that day. She then tells Marianne that she’s heading home because Kieran is off to his book club. As Marianne asks about the book club, Margie hands her a flyer. Marianne then asks if they’re a couple, but Margie says they aren’t. Shortly after, Marianne leaves the bar and sees an accident involving two cars on the road.

As she gets out of her car, she looks nervous and suddenly starts shaking. Someone else eventually shows up at the scene, but before he gets close to one of the cars, it blows up. The next day at work, Marianne tries to get Corinna to talk again, but she doesn’t say anything.

After a while, she checks the table and sees some of Manny’s drawings, including one showing an accident involving two cars, with the word shake also written on the paper. She looks shocked by this, and when Manny shows up for his session, she asks him about the drawing. Manny says it’s an accident, and Marianne asks if he saw it on the news.

Manny says he didn’t, and that he made it happen. Marianne doesn’t understand this, and Manny says she must be pretty scared already. He adds that if it wasn’t for him, she wouldn’t be at the clinic.

As Marianne still looks confused, Manny tells her that there’s a gun in her drawer. Marianne doesn’t get this, but Manny says it’s only there if she looks inside the drawer. Marianne then asks why there’s a gun there, but Manny just ignores her and continues his drawing.

Shortly after, Marianne attends a meeting with her boss, Dr Mandelbaum, and her other colleagues. During the meeting, Marianne complains about Corinna’s case, and Maureen mentions that when Corinna used to talk, she expressed anxiety about her mother. Mandelbaum also mentions that Corinna’s fantasies evolve around her anxiety that her mom would eat her.

As they move on to Manny’s case, Marianne says she would like to get hold of his file from his former residence in Manchester. She says she currently has nothing to work with, but that she believes his world view is like a defense system for him. Maureen asks if he talks to her, and Marianne says he does.

Maureen then mentions that Marianne is the only person Manny talks to because he doesn’t even talk to his foster mom. After this, Marianne asks if she can get McVittie’s old notes from the last two months because she can’t find them. Mandelbaum and Maureen turn to each other strangely, but the clinic’s director eventually mentions that he’ll look into that for her.

The next day, Marianne gets bored at home and eventually falls asleep after having a drink. Just then, she remembers a time she went on a trip to a smokehouse with her late husband, Josh. As they arrive at a crossroads and contemplate which path to take, Josh flips a coin to decide.

Suddenly, Marianne wakes up from her sleep, and after a while, she heads to Kieran’s book club. As the other members are talking about something from a book they just read, Marianne keeps staring at Kieran and can’t seem to take her eyes off him. Almost immediately, she gets asked a question by one of the members of the book club, and even though she looks distracted, she gives a good and funny answer, which makes everyone laugh.

Shortly after, the book club meeting ends, and as Marianne leaves, she meets Kieran outside. He then mentions that they actually live in the same neighborhood. Marianne is surprised by this, but she asks if she can give him a lift.

Kieran accepts her offer, and on the way, he talks more about himself and mentions that he has a bookstore. After a while, Marianne gets to Kieran’s house, and he invites her inside, but she doesn’t really know what to say. Kieran then says it’s fine, and as he leaves the car, Marianne cries because it’s clear that she hasn’t forgotten what happened to her late husband.

Just then, she remembers when her car stopped in the middle of nowhere after she and Josh went down the path they picked. The next day at work, Marianne goes through Manny’s file and sees that he was once diagnosed with PTSD. She also sees one of McVittie’s notes in which he wrote that whatever Manny draws is real.

This leaves Marianne confused, but she suddenly gets curious and decides to open the drawer. Surprisingly, there happens to be a gun there, and Marianne looks shocked. She then goes to meet Margie to ask if anyone entered her office while she wasn’t there. Margie says that no one did that, but Marianne still asks if Manny entered the office before his last session. Margie says she would’ve noticed, but Marianne still seems confused.

As she’s about to talk about the gun, Margie hurriedly leaves work because she has somewhere else to be. Suddenly, the phone in Marianne’s office starts ringing, and as she answers it, she hears a voice telling her to kill someone before he kills her. Marianne looks shocked and asks who is speaking, but the call ends abruptly.

Marianne doesn’t know what to think, and as she gets home, she looks at Manny’s drawings again and wonders if he put the gun in her drawer. Almost immediately, she hears her neighbor talking loudly through the vent. Marianne finds this weird and looks into the vent, but nothing appears to be visible inside.

The next day, Marianne attends Kieran’s book club again and appears to have gotten closer to him. After the meeting, he drives her to a dock where he shows her his brother’s sailing boat. Marianne looks amazed by this, and Kieran convinces her to join him to take the boat out to the sea for a while. Later that day, Kieran sees Marianne’s wedding ring and asks about it. She then narrates how a good samaritan helped her and Josh after their car broke down in the middle of the woods.

Unfortunately, the driver got distracted while pressing his phone, and they got involved in an accident that led to Josh’s death. Marianne then admits that she actually came to Scotland to start a new life. She, however, mentions that things haven’t been easy for her because she keeps thinking about Josh’s death and if it could’ve been prevented.

Kieran feels sorry for her, but he tells her not to think about it anymore because that’s where all the trouble begins. The next day, Marianne spends more time with Kieran, and they eventually start dating. The following day, when Marianne gets to work, Margie tells her that she couldn’t get any information on Manny from Manchester Social Services.

She adds that she didn’t find enough information about who his parents were and how they died. Marianne finds this strange, but she tells Margie to help her check it one more time. Much later, during a staff meeting, Marianne talks about the mysterious call she received the other day and asks if she should be worried. Mandelbaum tells her to ignore such calls, and that if it happens again, she should direct the person to him. Margie then gives Marianne a concerned look, and she realizes that Mandelbaum is hiding something.

After the meeting, Marianne goes to his office to ask about the call. Mandelbaum then mentions that the caller was likely McVittie. He says that McVittie had some problems that got him institutionalized a while ago. Marianne says she has heard about it before, but that she still needs his notes. Mandelbaum doesn’t think it’s wise to read them because McVittie wrote most of it under the influence of paranoia.

He also mentions that it’s best to make a fresh start with Manny. After Marianne returns to her office, Margie sends her an email containing the latest things she could find on Manny. As Marianne then reads it, she realizes that Manny’s father died in a traffic accident while his mother killed herself.

Marianne continues thinking about his case, and she also looks at his drawings again. She then sees one showing a dead person on the floor, with the words second death written on the paper. Interestingly, she also sees another one that appears to be a description of how Marianne hears her neighbor’s voice through the vent.

The next day, Manny shows up for his therapy session. As he starts drawing again, Marianne asks why his drawings are always about accidents and disasters. Manny doesn’t respond to her, and Marianne asks what interests him about disasters and what he thinks about when he draws them. Manny suddenly asks if Marianne was scared by the gun in her drawer, but she says that she didn’t see anything there. Manny looks shocked by this, and as he also seems pissed, he draws an image of someone drowning and writes Kieran’s name under it.

Marianne looks shocked by this, and as Manny leaves with Tina, she stares at them through the window and wonders how he knew Kieran. Just then, Maureen sees her staring at Manny and mentions that McVittie was obsessed with him. She adds that the obsession eventually turned into something else because the case made him spend a lot of time in the library. As Marianne looks confused, Maureen says it was quite weird because McVittie was a good person. She says it’s also strange that after he met Manny, he got institutionalized and even burned himself on the roof of the mental hospital.

Marianne is shocked by this, and she heads to the library to take a look at McVittie’s record to find out which books he read. It then turns out that the books were mainly about death, evil consequences, and the possibility of having two realities. She also finds out that in one of McVittie’s notes, he wrote down that Manny’s real name, Emmanuel, means God is with us.

Later that day, Marianne parks just around Manny’s school and watches as Tina picks him up. On their way home, Marianne follows them and finds out where they live. Shortly after, she knocks on the door, and Tina looks surprised to see her.

As she’s allowed to come in, Marianne sees Manny drawing in the dining room. She then asks Tina how he is at home, and his foster mom says that he still hasn’t said a word to her. As Marianne stares at Manny, she asks Tina if there’s a chance he could’ve gotten hold of a gun.

Tina looks surprised by this, but Marianne mentions that a gun was found in the consultation room, and she’s only wondering if Manny put it there. Tina still doesn’t know what to say, but Marianne mentions that it was probably not him. She also tells Tina not to tell Manny about what she just asked.

Suddenly, Tina’s daughter starts throwing a few things down the stairs, and Tina heads up to meet her. Marianne then walks to the dining room, but Manny quickly covers his drawing. Marianne asks what he’s drawing, and he says it’s the future. He then says he knows that she found the gun already, and Marianne looks scared. She asks if he put it there to frighten her, but he says that it was only there because she found it.

Marianne doesn’t get this, but Manny says she made it real by opening the drawer. Marianne seems terrified of him, but she still asks how he kept the gun there. She also asks how he knew the man he drew earlier and why he said that Kieran would drown. Manny just stays silent, and Marianne gets pissed and threatens to take away his drawings if he doesn’t talk. As she angrily bangs the table, he runs to the corner of the room and seems terrified.

Marianne then checks the drawing and sees one showing a pig pointing a gun at himself. Marianne looks shocked by this, and as Tina wonders what’s going on, she just leaves the house. She then goes to the dock to look for Kieran. Unfortunately, he’s nowhere to be found, and his phone also keeps going straight to voicemail. Marianne gets frustrated and heads home, and as her neighbor starts disturbing her again, she plays loud music in her room as payback.

Her neighbor seems pissed and shouts at her to reduce the volume, but Marianne refuses to do this. After a while, she closes her eyes and thinks about how Josh actually suggested going to the smokehouse just to make her happy. She then remembers everything that happened again, but this time, she sees Manny standing by the road just before the crash.

She immediately wakes up and wonders if he was really there. Suddenly, she sees a news report on the TV about an intense flood that has killed over 2500 people. Marianne is shocked by this, and as she checks some of Manny’s drawings, she finds one depicting the floods.

This makes her scared, and she leaves the house to continue her search for Kieran. Unfortunately, she still doesn’t see him at the dock, so she goes to the venue of Kieran’s book club meeting to ask Margie if she has seen him. Margie says she hasn’t, but that someone named Markus might know where he is.

Marianne then decides to wait for the meeting to end so she can talk to Markus. Interestingly, one of the book club members starts talking about how God works in mysterious ways, and how people have to follow his laws even though he might sometimes test their faith. Marianne finds this funny and interrupts the session by saying that she didn’t know adults still believed in things like that.

One of the members insists that God is the creator of all things, but Marianne says it feels more like she’s a marionette in a sadist fantasy. The man says that humans aren’t marionettes because God gave them free will, but Marianne asks how that is possible if everyone’s future has already been written. The man says that everyone writes their stories, but Marianne believes this will make them gods.

She also seems quite pissed and mentions that she can’t write her husband back to life. None of the book club members say anything regarding this, and Marianne heads out angrily. She then goes to Kieran’s house to check if he’s at home. As she keeps banging on his door and that of his neighbor, a cop eventually shows up to send her away. The next day, Marianne sneaks into Mandelbaum’s office to look for McVittie’s number and the key to the cellar archives.

Unfortunately, Mandelbaum catches her there, but she says that she was only looking for a phone number. He then mentions that Tina already called him about what Marianne did at her house. Since she also appears to be drunk, Mandelbaum suggests that she take a short break.

Following this, Marianne leaves and heads to the mental hospital where McVittie is staying. As she gets there, McVittie says he knew she would come. He adds that he’s sure she already knows that Manny controls everything, even inside the mental hospital. Marianne believes there has to be an explanation for it, and she asks if McVittie remembers the first thing Manny drew. McVittie doesn’t seem interested in this, and she tells him to kill Manny before he kills her.

He adds that if she can’t do that, then she has to kill herself. As Marianne asks him again about Manny’s first drawing, he suddenly stands up and leaves the room. Marianne then checks his table and sees that he has been reading a book titled Second Death.

As she remembers Manny’s drawing with the same title, she quickly runs out of the room to find him. Unfortunately, McVittie has already jumped off the roof to kill himself, and Marianne is unable to stop him. Marianne looks devastated by this, and she calls Kieran again while leaving the mental hospital.

His phone still goes to voicemail, and Marianne goes to drop a note by his boat so he can call her when he’s around. Before she leaves, she remembers Manny’s drawing about Kieran drowning, so she decides to release his boat into the sea, with the hope that it will prevent him from going out to sail when he returns. She then sneaks into her workplace and goes to the basement to find McVittie’s old notes.

After a while, she finds them and sees some of Manny’s old drawings, including one showing that someone will catch her trying to steal the documents from the basement. Suddenly, someone enters the basement, and she quickly hides. After the person leaves, she runs outside, but a security guard starts chasing her.

Luckily, she eventually loses him and runs to her car. As she then looks at Manny’s drawings, she starts wondering if he controls the world or foresees the future and just draws about it. Marianne refuses to believe this, and she tells herself that she’ll start doing things to prove that no one is controlling her.

Suddenly, she sees a drawing showing that Kieran was actually sleeping inside the boat. She quickly drives to the shore and sees some cops bringing out Kieran’s dead body from the water. She looks shocked by this, and as she remembers seeing a drawing showing that she’ll get arrested, she quickly leaves the scene.

While she’s in the car, she hears Manny’s voice calling himself God while saying he’ll destroy everything in the world. Marianne then goes to Tina’s house and forcefully drags him into her car. As she drives away, she asks why he chose to make her responsible for killing Kieran.

She also asks how far back he has been controlling her, and if he was the one who killed Josh. Manny asks if she now believes that he controls everything, but Marianne says she just wants her life back. Suddenly, some cops start chasing her, and Marianne drives to an abandoned building and takes Manny inside.

She then asks what his plans are for her and why he’s punishing her. Manny says he didn’t control what’s currently happening, and that she’s the one who made it happen by finding the gun and looking for his drawings. He adds that she’s also the one who brought him to the abandoned building and made the cops chase her.

Marianne then threatens to kill him if he doesn’t change things back to how they were for her. Manny says that everything will cease to exist if she kills him, but Marianne doesn’t think he’s telling the truth. As Manny starts counting down for her to shoot him, Marianne suddenly pulls the trigger and kills him.

Surprisingly, nothing changes for her, and as Marianne wonders if she did the right thing, she kills herself. Almost immediately, Marianne gets taken back in time to relive the crash that killed her husband, but this time, Josh survives with no major injuries. Marianne is happy about this, and after spending some time in the hospital, she gets discharged.

She also resumes work and receives a warm welcome from her colleagues. Days later, Marianne feels much better and tells Josh that she’s ready to have children with him. Josh looks surprised because it’s something they’ve always disagreed on, but Marianne confirms that she’s sure that she now wants kids.

Much later, while they’re playing scrabble, Marianne forms a word that triggers her to remember Corinna and Manny. Josh asks if she’s okay, and she says she is. Later that night, she suddenly wakes up and says she has a strange feeling that she has been to Scotland before. As she talks about Manny, Josh feels sleepy and tells her that they’ll talk about it in the morning. The next day, when Marianne gets to work, she tells one of her colleagues about the vivid dream she had, and how it seemed so realistic.

She talks about how Manny was basically acting like God, and how she had to shoot him to prove that he could die. She also mentions that she remembers many things from her dream, including the phone number of her boyfriend in Scotland. Her colleague asks if she’s fine, but Marianne thinks she’s trying to insinuate that there’s something wrong with her mentally.

After Marianne returns home, Josh sees her working, and she asks if he believes in alternate universes. Josh doesn’t get why she’s asking, but Marianne says there’s a possibility that her life in Scotland is her real life while the one she’s currently living in is just a test created by Manny. Josh tells her to stop thinking about it because she has never been to Scotland, and she agrees to do that.

Later that night, though, Marianne can’t seem to forget about it, and she decides to call Kieran with the number she remembers. Surprisingly, the call goes through, and Kieran picks it up, but he doesn’t seem to know who she is. As Marianne realizes that her theory about alternate universes might be right, she packs her things and leaves the house to head for Scotland.

Josh is shocked by this, but he’s unable to stop her. When Marianne gets to Scotland, she goes to the mental health clinic to ask about Manny, but her old colleagues don’t know her or who she’s talking about. Surprisingly, McVittie also happens to be alive, and Marianne looks confused.

As she’s told to leave the building, Marianne sneaks into the basement and sees a folder on the ground. Before she touches it, she hears Manny calling her clever. He then walks out of a dark room and says that she’s right about the test. He also mentions that she failed it, and that’s why he has decided to give her another chance. He then tells her to open the folder to see what happens next.

Marianne refuses to do this because she doesn’t think it changes anything, but Manny says that the drawings only exist if she looks at them. He then mentions that after she woke Kieran up with her call the previous night, he slipped down the stairs and died. Marianne is shocked by this, and she asks if he really wants her to go home and live in fear.

Manny says she’s the one who wanted her old life back, but Marianne mentions that she wants him to make her unaware that he exists. Suddenly, he disappears, and as she checks the folder, she notices that it contains blank sheets of paper. She eventually sees only one drawing, but as she stares at it, she looks terrified.

Almost immediately, she gets a call from someone who tells her that a freak storm just hit their neighborhood, and that Josh is nowhere to be found. Marianne looks devastated by this, and as she looks at Manny’s drawing, she sees that Josh is dead. She then heads outside and shouts for Manny to leave her alone.

Shortly after, Marianne is admitted to a mental hospital as a patient. Manny suddenly shows up in her room, and as she wonders what he’s doing there, she realizes that he actually needs her. Manny denies this, but Marianne says she just figured out that everything has always been about him.

Interestingly, it turns out that after Manny’s parents died, he felt lonely and blamed God for killing them. He also chose not to speak to anyone again, and to deal with his suffering, he decided to escape into a world where he could be God. It then turns out that Marianne and everyone in her world aren’t real because they’re in Manny’s mind.

As Manny feels sad and lies down on his bed in the real world, Tina comes over to meet him to ask if he’s okay. Manny doesn’t respond, but Tina says that he can always tell her anything he wants. She adds that if he’s ready to talk, he should grab her hand and pinch it.

After she leaves the room, Marianne says she’s the voice in his head, and that she can help him. Manny asks how, and Marianne says she believes in him. She adds that he has to come out of his empty fortress and enter the real world.

Manny seems scared, but Marianne tells him that he doesn’t have to be afraid anymore. She adds that the world is full of light, and that he can just imagine it to be different so that it will be a better place for him. After this, Manny stands up and goes to Tina’s room to pinch her hand. Tina realizes that he’s ready to talk to her, and she hugs him tightly before he says anything.

After losing both parents at a young age, Manny felt depressed and couldn’t imagine living without them. He blamed his creator for his pain and decided to deal with his loss by creating an imaginary world in his head where he could do whatever he wanted. Over time, the voice in his head realized that he needed help, and she encouraged him to focus on the real world and seek help from Tina. In this story, we learn that healing often begins with seeking help and accepting our reality. Grief is never easy, but reaching out for help can make the journey a little more bearable.

Marionette 2020 .