Sophia - imaginary or real?

Hi Wakanasakai,
Its not an oversight, as at no point is the way the film is shot presented as a documentary or that someone other than the characters in the film being present in its filming.
The 'one-take' style that the movie sells itself on (as well in the original 'La Casa Muda' that this is a remake of) is simply a stylistic choice to immerse the viewer in the film and not done to ape any documentary or home video style (these are VERY unlikey to be filmed and presented without any cuts/edits).

Therefore, although you present an interesting point it doesnt hold up as an argument. Personally i think Sophia is imaginary (as, like you said, a coping mechanism) just as she imagined the blood from the walls, the little girl etc... as a result of her traumatic past.

****SPOILER****

Sophia is indeed made up. In her final scene she says "Sara stop hurting yourself". When she cuts Sophia's hand her hand gets the same wound. This however is an issue. If we assume that Sara suffers from Split Personality Disorder (now labeled as Dissociative Identity Disorder) that means she has a core personality that isn't aware of other personalities (i.e. the coping identity ... Sophia). Based on how DID works... Sara would not interact with Sophia.

If you watched this film and genuinely thought it was a 'home video recording' then a) I can see why you are confused and b) maybe stick to cartoons

Sophia was one of Sarah's personalities. Sarah was obviously someone who suffered from Multiple Personality Disorder.... Sophia was a part of Sarah that went dormant for a while but in Sarah coming back to the house, she resurfaced....probably to help her cope.. Sophia told Sarah they played dress-up together all the time when they were little and there were pictures. Most of Sarah's memories or fragments she saw of herself as little, she was in dress-up cloths. She didn't really remember Sophia when Sophia was driving away, on her bike, she just said that, but Sophia's response was telling. Sophia said something to the affect, "How could you forget me?", because.....they were in fact the same person. Sarah was also blacking out and that was why she couldn't remember attacking her father. A common thing to happen with people who suffer from this kind of abuse and mental health issues. I think her going back to the house triggered everything.

Maybe she was real, but not actually there during those events. Sophia could have been a childhood friend of Sara's who either provided a refuge from her abusive home, or maybe she was abused by John as well. Then they lost touch with each other. Sara forgot her because she was subconsciously trying to forget everything about her childhood.

If Sophia wasn't also abused, then Sara never told her about it, because she wouldn't want Sophia to think she was weird or because Sophia might tell another adult and get her and her dad in trouble.

Either way, Sara sees her as an ally during the movie, but she also sees Sophia as a potential threat to her father, who she loves despite the abuse. Sara kind of wavers between the conflicting desires of wanting to protect her father and wanting to hurt him the way he hurt her. Because he's her father, she feels like she must love him and be a loyal daughter, and that he's hurting her because she somehow deserves it. It's an anguishing situation when the people who are supposed to take care of you and protect you are the ones hurting you.

There was zero ambiguity on this. You need to watch the movie again. Sophia is the main character. Same person.

The ending spells out for us very clearly that Sara has delusions that we the viewers have been seeing as real. The toilet on the wall, the little girl in the bathtub, etc -- these were hallucinations that Sara believed to be real, so we the viewers saw them. At the end when we learn that Sara's viewpoint can not be trusted as accurate, we must question what is real and what is not; for example, I'm gonna bet the bleeding wall toilet was not there, because who on earth would install a toilet like that and how could you pee in it without traction boots and who cleans up the blood every day? I presume we all agree that toilet was a hallucination, right? We saw it, of course, but only inside Sara's mind, right?

Likewise, Sara may have imagined the blood in the toilet, the wall behind the toilet, all of it. She could have imagined her entire history of abuse. She could be a delusional orphan with no known parents who imagined every single instance where we saw her father -- whether he was bitching about mold or bleeding on the floor or taking naughty Polaroids of an imaginary ballerina child, all could be just her nutty visions.

Sara may not have a real Uncle Pete, may not have ever even visited a single huge dark house with challenging bathroom fixtures. Every second of the movie could be part of Sara's delusions. Hell, Sara may have even imagined SARA ... or maybe even imagined all of US!

So is Sophia imaginary or real?

Perhaps the answer is a question: Are YOU real? Or are you part of imaginary Sara's imaginary world, which has no apparent relation to any known logic of any real world?

Or perhaps an even better question:

If a team of half-assed lazy storytellers stole 90 minutes of your life by luring you to sit through a movie as stupid as a bagful of wet farts, would you throw away even more good minutes of your life trying to determine which of those bagged farts were real and which were imaginary?

OK, sorry, jk lol ... fact is, I do know the correct answer to your question and hereby lay it on you free of charge:

The entire movie was fictional & every single character in it was 100% imaginary -- which means nobody you saw in the film was real. Not even Sophia.

And there you have it, and now you know. Hope this helps!

peace
--Big Gus

This, and the original movie, were based on actual events from the 1940s. Per the filmmakers' commentary on the DVD, Sophia is a part of Sarah; a coping mechanism, as someone said. When Sarah sees the cut on her own hand, after the "Stop hurting yourself" comment, she realizes this, and Sophia disappears, her job done.