Footfairy, an Indian Psychological Thriller released in 2020 and has recently been released online on the streaming giant Netflix. The film tells a story about a serial killer with a foot fetish who is specifically targeting girls that are wearing open footwear and travel at night on Mumbai’s Local Trains.
He plans the murders by following the girl first and then learns their route and then attacks. He does not do any kind of sexual abuse but just after asphyxiating them, saws off the feet of his victims and places the body inside a red suitcase for the police to find.
The Film stars Gulshan Devaiah (Known for Hunterrr, Shaitan & Mard Ko Dard Nahi Hota), Sagarika Ghatke (Known for Chak De India) & Kunal Roy Kapoor (Known for Delhi Belly) in which Gulshan is the lead CBI investigator who is trying to solve this case of Footfairy.
The Ending
The ending of the movie is quite open, it’s open to interpretation that keeps you guessing because if you analyze all of the characters one by one, you will realize there’s a hole in your theory and then you start once again. At some point, you start to think maybe there are two serial killers here and that would make a lot of sense but throughout the film, it wasn’t teased that there might be two footfaries.
Drilling down into the specifics, if you really think about it. The film is titled Footfairy but it is not some mystery drama that keeps you guessing with small clues hidden inside so you find out yourself. It feels like a story about how a CBI Officer, who was lauded for his previous investigation starts to lose his patience and goes berserk for a suspect that he thinks is the real foot fairy. Why you ask?? Just because his guts say so.
The CBI officer played by Gulshan has this gut feeling that he feels is always right and he is hell-bent on proving that Joshua played by Kunal Roy Kapoor is THE FOOTFAIRY. Now, in the end, when Gulshan goes fully berserk at Joshua after his neighbor, a college-going girl becomes Footfairy’s next victim, he finds out from the DNA Result that the hunch he felt about the victim’s nails marks and the scratches on Joshua were related, ended up wrong. He is sued for defamation and then he has to resign from his job.
All of the theories you can think of, there’s this big hole in them and you keep guessing. Even the end of the movie, in which there’s a girl in maybe Russia who becomes footfairy’s next victim. We get to know that Rishabh, the person part of the Footfairy’s investigation team is in Russia for a special assignment.
He seems like a strong contender but we saw in the film at one point that they were hiding and doing a stakeout when Footfairy comes back to his previous victim’s grave and runs away after he finds out that Police are there. So, Rishabh can’t be the Footfairy here as well.
As I said earlier, the film is more about how a police officer loses control over himself and lets a case take him over. It is not about the serial killer in general. The film is also an ode to a South Korean Crime Thriller Film called “Memories Of Murder (2003)” when you look at the ending of Footfairy.
In the end, Gulshan goes back to the original murder site and finds a little boy. He’s informed that someone else other than him was there before him and looked exactly where he is looking now and when asked why he replies that he had placed a red suitcase years ago so he came back to check on it. It falls back to the psychopathic nature of serial killers that it gives them a high to revisit their murder sites and Footfairy was there.
Gulshan’s character looks at the train tracks and thinks to himself that he has lost him once again and the Footfairy is in the mix of normal people and he will never be able to catch him.
This Ending is exactly similar to the ending of “Memories Of Murder” but I won’t say this is a remake of that South Korean film. There is definitely inspiration but it’s an ode because we see that movie playing on TV in a scene at the start of the movie when Gulshan’s character is watching it.
The film is definitely worth watching but it is not for those who look for closure in their mystery movies.