I was anticipating this reveal to happen at the end, but I was left with the film not going this way at all by the end. And yet, it seems very deliberate that you were supposed to feel Sam was hallucinating the clones, but I never saw this mentioned anywhere online either.

The film goes to great lengths to depict Sam’s detoriating mental health through out, and also shows him remaining on the Moon way longer than he was supposed to be. Sam 2 does not even acknowledge how bloody and injured Sam 1 is, until really late, as though Sam 2 is just Sam 1’s imagination.

Everything seems to have two interpretations too, like the rescue team coming to cover everything up OR the more sane explanation being that they were just coming to bring an insane Sam back to Earth because he is too far gone to do so on his own. Gerty talking to the bosses on a live feed while communications were not working could be the company lying to Sam OR it could be Sam imagining that happening when he was unconscious in the rover, as that scene happens before ‘Sam 2 brings him back’ (aka he hallucinates and comes back on his own).

There is even what seems to be foreshadowing, or clues if you will. Sam 1 and Sam 2 fight in one of the scenes. Sam 1 is thrown out of the room by Sam 2. He comes back to the room very bloody and Sam 2 is shocked and says “I didn’t even touch you!”. I interpreted this as Sam ‘fighting’ on his own and injuring himself. The line by Sam 2 could be Sam’s subconscious mind realising the truth for a second. In another scene, Sam 1 tries to figure out the password to his logs, and Gerty helps him. Later on, Sam 2 asks Gerty why it helped him with the password, as though Sam 1 and 2 are the same person. Sam 2 also always wears sunglasses and hides his eyes a lot, which can be interpreted as Sam dissociating Sam 2 from himself.

To me, the storytelling seems very deliberately reminiscent of The Machinist or Fight Club. Sam 1 looks like a depressed, Trevor from The Machinist, and Sam 2 looks like a paranoid caricature of Taxi Driver’s Travis Bickle with his temper, sunglasses and leather jacket, as though he is an imagination of Sam 1. Like in The Machinist, where Trevor hallucinates and talks to a healthy version of himself but does not recognise him, I thought Sam 2 was how Sam was, when he was healthy and sane. But Sam 2 is now just the real Sam’s hallucinations.

I was sure this was the ending, and was confused that the film did not acknowledge this. Is this just me? What do you think?