MovieChat Forums > The Ones Below (2016) Discussion > Avoid certain foods (maybe spoiler)

Avoid certain foods (maybe spoiler)

posted 9 years ago by stemal-1
6 replies | jump to latest

When Kate and Justin take the baby to the hospital, she is told that she can continue breastfeeding only if she cuts out certain foods the baby is allergic to. Kate asks what foods, looks are exchanged between doctor and husband, but we don't hear the doctor's reply.

This looked a plot strand being set up that the director may have decided not to follow up on, in which case the doctor's answer didn't matter.

But there was a bit of emphasis on lemons (the lemonade, the water jug in the restaurant), and I'd love to know if there was initially intended to be significance to the food angle that would cast suspicion on 'the ones below' that was abandoned.

[–] 9 years ago

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[–] 9 years ago

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[–] urbgirl 9 years ago

Lemons are perfectly fine to consume when breastfeeding. I suspect the couple were putting something else in the water and lemonade and the lemons were included to mask the taste of what they were putting in it.

They were obviously putting something in it to upset the baby's tummy or something not tasty so that the baby would always be fussy and hungry and only drink the neighbor's untainted breastmilk. Also it deprives the mom of sleep decently and making it more plausible that mom went crazy in the end.

[–] stemal-1 9 years ago

That makes so much sense. Thanks. I'm afraid I'm one of those annoying people that need things spelt out sometimes.

[–] Prelude (1443) 6 years ago

It becomes clear at the end of the film that the couple below had been poisoning the milk and making the woman above sick, thus her breast milk was also making the child ill, although that's kind of a stupid move if they want to steal a healthy baby.

Anything about mentioning lemons was just a red herring (something thrown in to steer both the characters and the audience in the wrong direction in a thriller).

[–] whatwazdat (431) 3 years ago

You're not supposed to breast feed baby that's not yours. I don't think they were poisoning the baby. They just got it to reject its mother's milk. The doctor of course don't know this, and naturally talk about foods.