“In Between” Portrays The Immortality of True Love

Death is cruel but also a brutal reality of the mortal world. Just a mere five letter word, d-e-a-t-h possesses enough power to deprive us of all of life’s happiness by snatching our near and dear ones away from us. It becomes hard for us to reconcile with such irreparable losses and refill the void created inside our tattered hearts by the absence of our loved ones. We know we have to move on, but we often get stuck in old memories replaying them in our minds. Memories that give us the momentary illusion that we are reunited with our lost loved ones and that we are once again, happy.

Although it rips us apart to spend each day without them, we still hope that someday, in a parallel universe, we might get a chance to meet our departed loved ones again and bid them a final goodbye. This hope keeps many of those grieving alone in the real world going.

Grieving A Lost Love

 “In Between” is a film expounding on the phases of grieving that Tessa, a bereaved lover undergoes after she loses her boyfriend Skylar in an accident. The film also depicts the transition of a soul from the mortal world to the afterlife and what happens to the soul when they get stuck “in-between” these two worlds. These souls are in limbo trying to reach out to their loved ones in the real world to wish them one last goodbye before they transition to the ‘Great Beyond’ for good.

Sometimes A Summer Love Lasts Forever  

For Tessa, who was a passionate photographer and the victim of a broken childhood, meeting Skylar was like coming home. During their brief summer romance, he began to make her believe in happy endings. He wanted to see the world through her eyes and the lens of her camera and gradually became the muse of her photographs. I could empathise with Tessa’s agony and her one last wish to meet him. After all, deep down we all still want to meet the people we lost if we ever got an opportunity.

Doris, a patient whom Tessa met in the hospital introduced her to the theories of the soul’s continued existence in the afterlife, further fuelling Tessa’s desire for a reunion with Skylar.

Initially, Tessa didn’t want to believe Doris but soon began getting some unusual signs that made her feel Skylar’s presence and that perhaps he was trying to reach out to her from the beyond.

Tessa reconnects with Doris who advises her to seek him where they had their strongest moments of love. This culminates in Tessa’s unwavering quest to meet Skylar.

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True Love Never Dies, Not Even In The Afterlife

The concept of  ‘the afterlife’ is vague to us yet many believe a soul never dies but transmigrates. The “In Between” depicts the frantic efforts of an ailed lover who transcends all the boundaries of the mortal world to reunite with her beloved.

We don’t know if the concepts of a ‘window of waiting time’ or the ‘in between’ in which a soul needs to have a last and final contact with his loved ones are real concepts. But through Tessa and Skylar’s love story we can conclude that true love never dies and continues even in the afterlife.

Tessa always wanted to capture the unseen through her photographs. And with help of her best friend Shannon (who helped her buy special photography equipment), she hoped to capture the image of Skylar in the hopes of reuniting with him. And reunite with him she does.

Tessa and Skylar fulfil all the dreams they weaved together within the stipulated time they had with them in a parallel universe. After a brief and lovely time together, Tessa is left with the excruciating choice of going back to the real world without Skylar or living a life with him.

 SPOILERS AHEAD:

Tessa ultimately decides to choose life in the real world and says goodbye to Skylar who tells her to give their love story a happy ending after she returns.

I was left in tears after witnessing this heart-wrenchingly beautiful scene that depicts that love doesn’t always mean holding on, sometimes it’s all about letting go of the people you love because they deserve to be happy in their lives. This doesn’t necessarily signify forgetting them, rather it shows choosing to live with memories of them for the rest of your life. And also making peace with the fact that both of you can never be together in this life.

The “In Between” redefines the concept of ghosts, spirits and the other world for the audience. It enlightens us to the idea that ghosts don’t roam outside but live inside us all. They are our haunting memories, fears, our anxieties that must be vanquished. The only way to eradicate them is by facing them just like Tessa did after reuniting with the ghost of Skylar who empowers her to find the courage to face her inner doubts and demons and finally come into her own and showcase her talent to the whole world.

Whether these series of incidents where she reunites with Skylar have any basis in reality or are just a fragment of Tessa’s lucid imagination, we will never know. But all these incidents restore our faith in the power and ethereality of love. The kind of love that can make the impossible possible, a love that never leaves our side, that stays by us and within us forever.

The In Between is now available on Netflix, India.

Image Credits: A still from the Film 

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