The psychological suspense novel ‘Burn’ by Mike Gan tells the tale of a lonely lady whose life changes after the petrol station she works at is robbed. The movie opens with a straightforward concept, and the burglar would have had an easy time of it. However, the protagonist’s response to the circumstances prompts her to take unwise actions that have an impact on everyone else. Even if everyone wants to leave the scene peacefully and without incident, everything ends up being bloody as a result of a series of unanticipated events. A climax that leaves the audience with more questions than answers is how the director leaves the audience. Here, we analyse the movie’s events and determine what they represent for the characters. Spoilers follow.
Burn (2019) Plot Synopsis
Melinda and Shiela both work the graveyard shift at a petrol station. It’s just another typical night with few and irregular customers. Melinda views each encounter with a client as an opportunity to establish a relationship, potentially romantic. She tries to start a conversation, but gets no response, which makes her feel worse. On the other hand, Shiela draws quite a bit of interest. Melinda has a crush on Officer Liu, a young man out on his first solo night patrol.
Melinda leaves the office to get a smoke break, and Sheila makes fun of her when she learns about it. When she comes back, Billy, the recent customer, is holding Sheila hostage and demanding all of the money they have in the shop. Melinda chooses to aid Billy rather than attempting to stop the robbery from happening at the store. She asks if she can go with him, which surprises him. Things start to spiral out of control when Billy rejects her.
Burn (2019) Ending: Does Billy Die?
In “Burn,” we can tell Billy is up to no good from the moment we first see him. Despite his troubles with his anger, he assumed the robbery would go off without a hitch when he entered the petrol station. The strategy encounters a brief snag. Sheila informs him that the safe contains all of the store’s cash, and that only the owner is authorised to open it. Even if he removes every penny from the till, he will still only have $100. He clearly needs far more than that, as seen by his desperation.
When Melinda says she will take the money out of the safe, Billy is pleasantly delighted. But when she insists on leaving with him, he is dealt another surprise. Despite his confusion at this moment, he grabs the bag of cash and prepares to leave the station because he has a gun. He would have had a good night if he had simply left the room without turning around. He had the option of taking the cash and fleeing or giving it to the biker group he said was chasing him. However, when Sheila chastises him, he loses control of his temper.
Billy thinks he is in charge at the beginning of the robbery. He assumes that Melinda’s offer to assist him is motivated by fear. However, he soon loses all control of the situation and is left at the girl’s mercy who he had been terrorising just moments earlier. Melinda hurls boiling coffee at him, and he shoots Sheila by accident. He ends up being almost sexually assaulted by Melinda and being chained to a chair. Melinda detects his lies when he tries to use flattery to escape the situation.
Billy eventually succeeds in escaping, levelling the playing field by securing Melinda inside the shop. Melinda has no way out after he kills Sheila’s boyfriend, who had been searching for her, and smashes through the door with his automobile. She urges him to simply accept the money and leave, but he makes the incorrect choice once more due to his rage. He’s upset because he was the victim of a violent crime and he wants Melinda to pay for what she did to him. His judgement is impaired by this, and he fails to notice that the entire store is covered with petrol. He pulls the trigger, and the gun’s spark ignites everything.
Billy is severely burned as Melinda exits the store. He has nowhere to go and his whole body is on fire. Billy is helpless to save himself because the entire business is on fire. Billy turns in the opposite direction as Melinda exits the house through the front entrance. He can’t leave the business, even if he makes it to the rear, because he shut the door a short while ago to prevent Melinda from leaving. Billy as a result falls victim to his own trap and perishes.
What Happens to Melinda? Does She Tell the Truth?
Melinda’s encounters with the clients in the opening minutes of the movie reveal that she is a loner. She tries to establish some sort of connection with the clients at the petrol station because she doesn’t have many pals. Sheila, a coworker, is unpleasant and doesn’t seem interested in making friends with her. The only person to show Melinda even a modicum of compassion and decency is Officer Liu. Despite having feelings for him, she is too timid or afraid to act on them.
Melinda and Billy briefly converse when Billy later appears at the business before he announces his intention to loot the bank. Melinda enjoys his conversation with her because he treats her well. The fact that she responds to Billy’s courtesies by giving him the whole contents of the safe demonstrates how desperate she is for affection. Later, when she is holding Billy captive and he expresses his desire to flee with her, she discovers his lies, which just adds to her sadness.
Melinda’s actions may have been irrational, but the truth is all she wants from those who are close to her. When someone is disrespectful to her face, she does not become upset. When people act kind towards her even when they are not, she becomes upset. She doesn’t attack the patrons who don’t pay attention to her or even Sheila, who constantly treats her badly. She only becomes agitated when she perceives a lie.
We can infer from Melinda’s feelings that no one has ever shown her true love, based on extrapolating her feelings into the past. She has become so neurotic as a result of this that she cannot accept care from someone like Officer Liu. It is obvious that Officer Liu genuinely cares about Melinda, despite the fact that he may not have a romantic interest in her. Even after Sheila calls her out for secretly snapping images of him, he treats her nicely and behaves rationally.
Officer Liu eventually returns after the entire store has burned down, and Melinda realises that his worry was genuine. Because it is his profession, he is not just being kind to her because he cares. Does this imply that Melinda will be honest with him? Most likely, yeah. When Billy locked her in the store, she had already decided to do so. Officer Liu should be someone she can trust in given her mental state at the moment and her yearning for the truth. She might come clean about everything if he was honest in return.
When Melinda considered aiding Billy and taking off with him, she never planned for things to take this drastic a turn. Despite her innocence, she was able to react quickly when situations deteriorated. Melinda calmly covers Sheila’s body and cleans the area even though she didn’t intend for anyone to die. She ties Billy up, comes close to raping him, and she even thinks of burying the bodies in a graveyard behind the shop.
When it seems as though she has no control over anything, she decides to set the store on fire and makes arrangements to flee with the proceeds. She was willing to kill Officer Liu as well, despite her feelings for him. Given everything, it is difficult to imagine she would pass up the chance to wash her hands of the situation. All of the evidence against her is lost because the entire store was burned to the ground. She might assign Billy the entire blame. Sheila was slain by his gun. His murder of her boyfriend. He sought to loot the shop.
She might easily convince people that he attempted to kill her and burned down the store. Officer Liu’s genuine concern for her gave Melinda the opportunity to play the victim and earn his affection. There is no assurance that it would result in a love relationship between them. Even said, Melinda would undoubtedly benefit from Officer Liu’s trust in her and his belief that she is not violently inclined if she were to escape the crime unharmed and with no reason to question her innocence. In the end, the director leaves the resolution up to the audience’s interpretation of what they want to happen to Melinda.
