WARNING! This article contains SPOILERS for Inside (2023)!Vasilis Katsoupis' psychological thriller Inside sees Willem Dafoe’s character Nemo desperately try to escape an art collector’s apartment, in which he’s trapped for a distressing length of time. Willem Dafoe stars in Inside as a thief on a mission to steal valuable pieces from an art collector’s penthouse apartment, only for the plan to go awry and leave him locked inside. Each of Nemo’s escape attempts fails, leaving him stuck inside with little water and food, no working plumbing, no method of communication, and a heating and cooling system that toggles between sweltering heat and frigid air.
As the days go by, Nemo finds himself descending further into delirium, making the wait for escape just as excruciating for audiences as the art thief. However, the exact amount of time that passes while Willem Dafoe’s Inside character is trapped is left somewhat ambiguous, as the film shows days turning into nights and vice versa, but there’s no calendar or reference point. Time flows together for audiences just as it does for Nemo, but Inside does include a few external clues to hint at how long the art thief was truly trapped inside the apartment.
Inside Suggests Nemo Was Trapped For Several Months
Nemo was inside the apartment for several weeks, though certain details suggest the art thief was trapped for at least a few months. For instance, Nemo sees fireworks after several weeks, which is later followed by snow falling atop the decomposed body of a pigeon he once spoke to. It’s unclear if the fireworks are from Fourth of July or New Year’s Eve celebrations, but the latter seems more likely. Either way, Inside indicates the character of horror actor Willem Dafoe was stuck for several months as the seasons changed, with there also being enough time for a bird’s body to fully decompose outside.
One of the more disturbing indications of the passage of time in Inside was the amount of feces in the oversized bathtub. Given the small amount of food Dafoe had consumed over this time, Inside’s unpleasant depiction of the bathroom further suggests that Nemo was trapped in the New York City highrise apartment for at least a few months. It also would have taken considerably long for Nemo to chip through the materials around the skylight, build the scaffold, and sketch his art on the walls, so he was likely stuck for more than three months.
Did Nemo Really Escape In Inside's Ending?
Inside’s ending reveals that Nemo was finally able to leave the apartment, but whether he made it home alive is ambiguous. The final scene of the theatrically-released March 2023 movie sees the skylight drop to the ground, with Nemo seemingly having climbed through to the roof of the building. However, it’s unclear how Nemo would have been able to actually get down from the highrise at that time. Nemo would have needed to stay atop the building for some time in order to flag down a helicopter to rescue him, so the hope is that Willem Dafoe’s character still survived once he got outside.
Inside also implies that if Nemo did successfully escape and survive his time in the apartment, he wouldn’t be heading back to a normal life. Rather, Dafoe’s character in 2023's Inside movie would likely end up being arrested for breaking and entering, attempted theft, and destruction of property. Nemo may have escaped the apartment, but Inside’s ending isn’t necessarily a happy conclusion to the art thief’s story.