He didn't let her die. He tried to convince Davian that he gave him the real thing. He didn't let her die. You should see the movie again and you'll see what I am saying.
shareBy any chance, have you seen the movie again? :) Ethan clearly pleads, screams, and begs for Julia’s life. In other words, he didn’t let her die.
After retrieving what he was sent to get, and unwittingly drugging himself, Ethan instead woke up to find himself strapped to a chair. As he sat there utterly helpless, Davian kept demanding Ethan to tell him the whereabouts of the RF’s (when as far as Ethan knew, he brought exactly what he was sent to get) while in return Davian also had “Julia” sitting across from Ethan and threatening her life by holding a gun to her and shooting her in the leg as a warning.
Since Ethan was in no position to fight back, all he could do was go through virtually every single human emotion attempting to get Davian to spare his wife. What else could have Ethan possibly done? He was defenseless, in a state of confusion, and literally nothing he said could convince the sadistic Davian about the object he supposedly either failed to get or refuse to hand over. (It was all a pretense after all.)
Ethan did everything he could humanly possible do to help save his wife - or so the person he believed to be his wife