New Netflix thriller The Perfection is a bold movie. Just when you think it's gone as far as it possibly can go, it says "Hold my beer," and proceeds to hack off a few more limbs. The ending of The Perfection is as wild as the rest of the film, so if you're too scared of Allison Williams after Get Out to stream it — or just want a refresher on all the madness — read up.
Warning: Major spoilers for The Perfection follow.
The Perfection is about a cello prodigy named Charlotte (Williams) who gave up her dreams of becoming a world-renowned musician when she left her illustrious music academy. In present day, Charlotte meets Lizzie (Logan Browning), who, unlike Charlotte, finished out her studies at the academy and became an elite musician. Lizzie and Charlotte meet officially for the first time when Lizzie visits her former music teachers Anton (Steven Weber) and Paloma (Alaina Huffman) in China. That night, after playing cello together, Lizzie and Charlotte go dancing, hook up, and decide to head off on a bus adventure through Asia together.
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That's where things get...weird. Lizzie gets violently ill on the bus, forcing the women to trek through China's hillside as Lizzie gets more and more freaked out by whatever is going on inside her body. Eventually, it's revealed that Charlotte has drugged Lizzie, causing her to hallucinate the bugs crawling under her skin. Charlotte tells Lizzie the only way to get rid of the bugs is to chop off her hand, which Lizzie does, thanks to the very convenient hatchet Charlotte has in her backpack.
At this point in the movie, one assumes that Charlotte is jealous of Lizzie, due to her success as a musician. That would be a creepy enough story on its own, but things get even more batshit when it's revealed that Charlotte was actually trying to "save" Lizzie from Anton.
By having Lizzie cut off her hand, Lizzie would not be subjected to strive for "the perfection" — aka perfectly, flaw-free cello performance in a special room for elite students. Via flashbacks, it's revealed that Charlotte, Lizzie, and seemingly other elite students were raped by Anton and other teachers when they failed to perform perfectly. Cutting off Lizzie's hand made it so that Anton would kick Lizzie — who was brainwashed by Anton into believing the perfection was a noble task — out of the school.
At the end of the film, Lizzie "kidnaps" Charlotte and brings her to Anton, who forces Charlotte to perform the perfection. When she fails, Anton and his minions make moves to assault Charlotte — as does Lizzie. However, moments before anything can happen, Anton's minions fall to the ground. Lizzie poisoned their drinks to save Charlotte, and the women kiss — revealing that this was part of the plan all along.
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Despite being initially angry at Charlotte for orchestrating the plan to have Lizzie cut off her own hand, Lizzie realized it was all for the greater good. Now, like Charlotte, Lizzie wants to punish the people who assaulted her for years under the guise of "art."
Lizzie and Charlotte kill Anton's wife Paloma, then attack Anton. However, Anton gets the upper hand at one point, and violently slashes into Charlotte, nearly cutting her arm off. Lizzie saves Charlotte and hacks at Anton aggressively.
We don't see what Lizzie really did to Anton until the end of the film. In the final moments of the movie, Lizzie and Charlotte play the cello together — on the very same instrument. Charlotte, now missing an arm, plays the bow, while Lizzie works the strings. Watching the performance (well, sort of) is Anton. His limbs have been removed, as have his eyes.
All Anton can do now is listen to the sweet music Charlotte and Lizzie make — punishment for lack of perfection no longer on the table.