What The Whisper Man’s final photo really means and the book change that makes it creepier

*Warning: Spoilers ahead for The Whisper Man*

Just when it seems The Whisper Man has wrapped up all of its mysteries, the Netflix movie delivers one final twist in the form of a photo. 

The new film directed by James Ashcroft is based on Alex North’s 2019 novel of the same name, and centres on the recently widowed author Tom Kennedy (Adam Scott) and his young son Jake (Acston Luca Porto). 

When they move to the town of Garretton following the death of Tom’s wife Rebecca, Jake goes missing and Tom is drawn into the investigation of the disappearance of another young boy alongside his estranged father and ex detective, Peter Willis (Robert De Niro).

The case bears an eerie resemblance to a string of child murders committed years earlier by serial killer Frank Carter (Michael Keaton), aka the Whisper Man. 

Throughout the film, Jake is seen talking to a mysterious girl in a blue sweater who nobody else can see. Tom initially believes she’s an imaginary friend his son has created as a result of his trauma, but things grow increasingly strange when she appears to know things Jake couldn’t have. 

It’s only in the final moments of the film that a photograph seemingly reveals who the girl has been all along: the child version of Rebecca. 

The girl in the blue sweater is Rebecca, but is she a ghost?

At the end of The Whisper Man, after Jake has been rescued and is outside playing with real children, Tom continues looking through his son’s “packet of special things” – keepsakes from Rebecca. 

He finds an old photograph of his late wife as a child, and instantly recognises her as the mysterious girl in the blue sweater Jake has been talking to throughout the movie.

So yes, the photo confirms that Jake’s supposed imaginary friend has been his mum all along. What it doesn’t explain is how on earth Jake has been seeing her, or whether we’re actually supposed to believe Rebecca has been watching over her son from beyond the grave.

That ambiguity was intentional, according to Ashcroft, who lifted the reveal straight from North’s book. “The imaginary friend has to work both as possible psychosis and/or possible supernatural intervention,” the director told Netflix’s Tudum. 

“I believe that it can be held both psychologically and supernaturally. And you can choose whether you think one way or the other or both.”

Ashcroft added, “It’s an extra twist, but it adds an emotional layer that makes it really resonant. It unifies the family again, despite having [De Niro’s] character pass at the end and the mother character being deceased beforehand.”

Interestingly, the reveal isn’t something Netflix invented for the film. It comes directly from North’s novel – but there’s one pretty significant difference in how it plays out.

The book actually gives us another clue that Rebecca could be a ghost

The biggest difference in the book is that Tom discovers the truth about the girl much earlier, while Jake is still missing.

After finally looking inside Jake’s packet, he finds a number of keepsakes belonging to Rebecca that explain some of his son’s behaviour, including the Whisper Man rhyme Jake mysteriously knew. 

He also discovers old photographs that reveal Rebecca attended the same school as Jake and had once visited the house they now live in. Most importantly, Tom finds the pic of Rebecca as a child and realises she looks exactly like the girl Jake has been talking to.

Initially, that gives the book a pretty logical explanation for what has been happening. Jake filled his packet with some of his mum’s old letters, photographs and possessions after her death, so he could have simply based his imaginary friend on these things. 

But the ending of the book throws that explanation into question. Once everything is over, the killer is caught, and Pete has died, Tom hears Jake talking to someone in his bedroom. 

When Tom asks him who he was speaking with, Jake replies, “Your daddy read that book to you when you were young.” 

The text then reads, “For a moment, I said nothing. I just stared down at Jake, lying there with his back to me. The silence was ringing now. The room suddenly felt colder than it had before, and a shiver ran through me. 

“Yes, I thought. He probably did. It hadn’t been a question, though, and there was no way Jake could have known. I didn’t even remember it happening myself. But of course, I’d told Jake the book was a childhood favourite of mine, so I supposed it was a natural assumption for him to make. It didn’t necessarily mean anything.”

It’s never confirmed that Jake was actually talking to Pete’s ghost, but the implication is certainly there. And if Jake really can communicate with his dead grandfather, it makes it much easier to believe the mysterious girl really was Rebecca watching over him too.

Netflix doesn’t include this moment, instead saving the Rebecca reveal until the end. And I’d argue that makes it even creepier to deliver this rugpull in the final moment – or heartwarming, depending on which way you look at it. 

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Featured image credit: Netflix