WILL, a new Belgian film on Netflix might just break records in the days to come. I am sure you have already watched it.
In this blog, I will explain the ending of the movie. Specifically, the last half an hour.
The point of the beginning is after the antics of Wil at the party, where he gets drunk and beats a colleague.
He also leaves Yvette alone at the party.
Please keep in mind that spoilers are an integral part of this particular blog.
Moreover, my ending explainers comprise detailed descriptions of the events in the movie. So, please read with patience.
WILL Movie Detailed Ending Explained
The young cop, Will, is taken to Gregor Schnabel, the chief of the Nazi army in Antwerp.
He reveals that they have found the dead body of the Feldgendarm while also showing him something they found in the jacket of the policeman.
It is a note, which contains his orders. According to them, he was on his way to arrest work refusers. Protocol-wise, he was supposed to first request a police escort.
Since Wil’s police station was the nearest, it was improbable he would go anywhere else.
Therefore, having given him the background, the chief asks him if he knows anything about the same.
All this while, Wil is visibly worried. Gregor holds him and takes him to see the body of the policeman who had died.
Due to the stinking smell, both of them cover their noses. The visual of a dead and rotten Feldgendarm shakes Wil from within.
Gregor says it was disappointing for him to find the body because the case was closed and he had some sort of retribution after killing the communists (earlier in the film).
Now, he will have to restart the investigation. He then takes Wil to an isolated room, where a soldier is sitting over a trunk.
Gregor orders Wil to sit and says that his colleague (inside the trunk) is still denying that the Feldgendarm was at their station on the fateful night, referring to the trunk.
He asks Wil if he believes him.
By now, it is clear that someone is inside the trunk with holes on top of it.
When Wil says he believes his colleague, Gregor’s subordinate pours boiling water into the trunk through the holes, followed by agonizing screams from the policeman inside it.
Wil says he didn’t see the Feldgendarm come by the station.
Gregor suggests something to the soldier who then pours ice-cold water into the crate, filling the room with tormenting howls.
The subordinate then comes around to join Gregor. He asks Wil if no one at his station saw the Feldgendarm and then how he knew his body was in the Willem Dock.
While heavily drunk, Wil had unknowingly shared this information with Gregor the other night.
Will replies saying he was drunk, which led to the blabbering. However, Gregor asks how could his information be precise despite that?
The subordinate goes and again pours water into the trunk.
Unable to endure the guilt of putting a fellow policeman through so much pain, Wil finally says that he heard it from someone.
This is the moment when the identity of the man inside the trunk is revealed. He is none other than Jean.
Honestly, while watching the movie, I thought he must be Lode.
Coming back to the narrative, Gregor asks if Wil has heard of the information from Jean. The subordinate drags a mutilated Jean to the floor.
Gregor again questions Wil whether he has anything to say. He makes him stand up while the subordinate pushes him to the floor.
Now, both Wil and Jean are lying on the ground, parallel to each other, with their backs facing the roof.
Then the subordinate soldier puts a gun to Wil’s head while asking him in a loud voice who saw the Feldgendarm, he or Jean? Or the both of them?
In the tense situation, Jean starts mumbling the poem we heard him sing at the beginning of the film.
The only line he can clearly utter, due to the pain, is “I stood by and watched it all.”
By doing so, Jean suggests Wil stay quiet and not tell Gregor anything even if they keep torturing him, which the subordinate continues to do when he stops singing.
Wil understands his hints and stays shut.
The scene cuts to the visual of Yvette, for almost no reason before switching back to Wil and Gregor walking into an alley.
The latter tells the youngster that there is nothing wrong with protecting fellow policemen. Wil says he isn’t protecting Jean, but his colleague is actually innocent.
However, to Gregor, it doesn’t matter whether Jean had a role in the Feldgendarm’s death or not; the Nazis anyway wanted to get rid of him.
Gregor says they are aware of many cops having joined the resistance.
Keeping this as the backdrop, he asks if Wil has come in contact with the people at the White Brigade.
When the young cop denies any involvement, Gregor doesn’t seem convinced.
However, he keeps his calm and carefully mentions the people in Wil’s life, from Yvette to Lode, and his family.
He warns him that if he wants to have a future with his girlfriend, it is time he took sides, either joining the resistance or being a part of the Nazis.
At the Police Station, Lode lands in the middle of the chatter surrounding Jean’s arrest.
Wil stands on the other side as a senior officer in the center announces to the others if they have information that can either exonerate or convict Jean, this is the right time to speak up.
Wil goes to his temporary place of residence and finds Verschaffel sitting on the chair with a gun in his hands.
It is apparent that something is wrong. Wil’s heart skips a beat when he sees Lyzke sitting in front of Verschaffel, along with Myriam and her daughter.
He scolds him for betraying his trust even when he treated Wil like his son and helped him in need but couldn’t get the same affection in return.
Verschaffel gives him one last chance for repentance and offers him the gun to shoot down the Jewish family.
Calling them rats, he asserts ownership of the three people and orders Wil to finish their lives.
Myriam notices Wil’s hand moving towards the gun and she assumes he’s about to follow Verschaffel’s command.
In an unprecedented move, Mariyam jumps onto the old man’s chair and fiercely stabs him with a knife, leaving him all but dead.
Lizke points the gun at Wil in an attempt to protect his family.
However, eventually, he surrenders the weapon as he is well aware of Wil’s kind-hearted soul.
Both of them drag Verschaffel’s body and hide it in the cellar.
The next day, Wil creates fake identities for the family and, together with Lode, puts them on a train so they can leave for a safer place.
Yvette, Wil, and Lode drink together and celebrate, having freed the family.
However, their happiness is short-lived. Gregor summons Wil and tells him about a man who was pulled out from the train to Brussels.
He was a Jew, traveling on a Belgian passport. Even a good forgery of documents couldn’t save him.
Though Wil gets his point, Gregor still confirms the name of the guy was Lizke.
He tells him that they got hold of the forger, who, in turn, gave away the name of his employer, who is none other than The Professor, leader of the White Brigade.
Gregor asks the young officer if he knows people named Valentino (Lode), Bianca (Yvette), or Angelo (Wil).
He can sense Gregor now knows everything about them.
The senior officer holds Wil by his neck and shoves him into The Professor’s face, whose hands are tied to chains.
Understandably, he has been beaten mercilessly beforehand. He mumbles referring to Wil as Angelo and requests him to save him.
Wil tries to discredit his claims but instead, he ends up agitating Gregor, who angrily stops him from questioning his intelligence.
He spells out the three aliases and their corresponding real identities. Worried, Wil asks for a middle path.
Hence, Gregor tells him nothing would happen to him, his family, and his girlfriend. In return, he asks for his help but a straight-faced Wil doesn’t respond.
Angry again, Gregor punches him in the face. He says he was well aware of him hiding the Jews in the cellar.
Even his affair with his aunt was a ploy to uncover the truth behind the Feldgendarm’s death.
However, in my opinion, his bigger goal was to somehow get Wil by his side and stop the resistance he was part of.
Coming back to the narrative, Wil goes to meet Yvette and Lode. They share a team hug with the other two expressing surprise at him being alive.
Wil tells them that Lizke and his family are dead and the cops have The Professor in their custody.
After getting beaten up, the old man gave them all their secrets and now, the Germans know everything.
When Yvette says it’s all over, Wil replies saying they can survive this.
He tells them Gregor wants him to give Yvette and the whole of the resistance false information about a raid on Saturday.
They can live if Wil gives them the name of the wrong hood to the Jews.
Yvette isn’t happy and asks for the right address where the raid will actually happen.
Wil already knows it but if he tells her, the three of them will die, including their families.
The woman again requests for the address and says she cannot have blood on her hands. It would be impossible for her to forgive herself.
She is prepared to die if it means saving fellow human beings.
Wil eventually gives her the address but doesn’t tell her it is the wrong one. When she leaves and Lode goes behind her, Wil stops him.
If they are to win the battle of survival, he must let her go alone.
At the secret gathering, Yvette passes the name of the place to the White Brigade, calling it an input from Gregor himself.
On the day of the raid, the two men, dressed in their uniforms, join the policemen. Neither of them wants this, but not doing it would attract the death penalty.
The commanding officer tells the cavalry that the Germans won’t join them on the operation and that the place of the raid has changed as well.
Expectedly, he shares the name of a different hood from what Wil told Yvette.
Moreover, the chief wants the policemen to do whatever it takes to pull out all the Jews and throw them into the truck.
Lode says to Wil that if they do it today, they’ll have to keep doing it forever.
But the latter still sticks to the argument that if they don’t pursue the raid, they will die and certainly it is not the right option to choose.
Upon reaching the hood, the policemen mercilessly take out all the Jews from their homes and put them inside the truck.
Amid the clamor, the two men somehow manage to be part of the force without doing anything coercive.
However, the chief sees them standing cluelessly and forces them to do the job.
Some local men grab the duo due to their uniform and try to fight, in an act of resistance.
But they are soon taken away by other cops and beaten badly.
The chief sternly tells them if they don’t do their part, he will throw them under the truck.
Wil finally pushes aside his conscience and does what is asked of him. He starts beating the Jews and throws them inside the vehicle.
But Lode, on the other hand, is still to give in. Wil takes him upstairs and they barge inside one of the houses.
What awaits them is a man who slits his throat upon their vision. For him, it is better to die by suicide than to be killed by the Nazis.
We are shown his family members lying inside the house, all dead.
They come back to the ground and find one of the elder cops crying with kids in his arms. He says he cannot do it to the children.
Though Wil takes the youngest from him and gives him to Lode, he puts the other two inside the truck.
This reflects the conundrum going on inside his head.
When he turns back, Wil sees Yvette, standing outside the hood’s sealed boundary.
As soon as their eyes meet, the woman runs away, realizing the kind of monsters his brother and lover have turned into.
Wil follows her instinctively with officers behind calling him a traitor.
He chases Yvette right to the railway tracks where she finally makes a stop, standing on the other side, with a running train separating them.
After some sporadic moments of staring at each other, Yvette deliberately comes in front of another running train on the adjacent track.
It leaves Wil stunned. The screen turns black and Wil’s voice narrates that the next day nobody said anything and yesterday became history.
They said moving on is the best way forward, which is what he did. The movie ends here.
Now, some questions…
How did Gregor find the body of the Feldgendarm?
The night when he forced Wil into overdrinking, the young policeman, heavily intoxicated, told him the place where the body was i.e., the Willem Dock.
Lode had given him the location in an earlier scene.
Did Yvette die in the end in WILL?
From the looks of it, she indeed died after getting rammed over by a train. Still, in hindsight, there can be two possibilities:
i) She is really dead or
ii) It could be figurative. For example, Wil may have imagined her death since she would never come back to him after what he did.
How did Gregor Doubt Wil?
This is an important question in the scheme of things. Why exactly did Gregor doubt Wil in the first place?
Again, the reasons are multiple.
i) On the next day of the Feldgendarm’s death, he had noticed Wil at the station. His mien was worried and anxious. This may have given way to doubts.
ii) Possibly, Jean told Gregor about him seeing the Feldgendarm with Wil on the night of his disappearance. He may have expected something in return.
iii) Wil’s aunt had told Gregor about his first day at the force, which was also the day when the Feldgendarm died. She told him his clothes were drenched in mud when he came back home late at night.
Did Wil and Lode Die in the End?
No, none of them died because Wil had made an arrangement with Gregor by giving false information to Yvette.
If you have any more questions, feel free to ask in the comments section. Or if I have got something wrong, please correct me.
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