Is The Whisper Man secretly supernatural?! The director explains the girl in the blue sweater

Netflix’s The Whisper Man spends most of its runtime looking like a pretty straightforward crime thriller where there’s a missing child, a serial killer, loads of creepy clues and a whole lot of family drama, so is it a supernatural story as the girl in the blue sweater is revealed

Throughout the film, Jake has been seeing a mysterious girl in a blue sweater. She appears to him as an imaginary friend, but there are enough strange details around her to make you wonder if she’s actually something more.

And right at the end, Tom finds an old photo of his late wife, Rebecca, as a child. She is wearing the same blue sweater Jake has been describing.

So, was Jake actually seeing his mum? The Whisper Man director James Ashcroft has now explained exactly how he sees it.

The girl in the blue sweater is linked to Jake’s mum

After Jake has been rescued, Tom looks through old family photographs and finds a picture of Rebecca when she was younger. She is wearing the same blue sweater as the mysterious girl Jake has been seeing throughout the film.

“That was most important to me that they got it right. Because that’s the heart of the book for me,” Alex North told Tudum.

He also praised the way the film handled the character. He said, “As soon as I started watching it, and you see her in the background in the car and in the first scene, I loved the way they were doing it.”

So the film is definitely telling us that the girl Jake sees is connected to Rebecca. The bigger question is whether she is actually there.

So, is The Whisper Man supernatural?

Speaking to Netflix Tudum, Ashcroft said, “The imaginary friend has to work both as possible psychosis and/or possible supernatural intervention.”

He added, “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.”

While the film keeps things ambiguous, Ashcroft has admitted that he personally sees the ending in a more supernatural way. In an interview with Decider, Ashcroft said he “definitely” views the final revelation as the presence and spirit of Jake’s mother being there throughout the story.

He added, “Jake’s mother has been there the whole time, influencing and guiding events toward this moment of healing, for all of them, not just her son.”

At the same time, Ashcroft was very careful not to make the supernatural explanation too obvious. He said that the filmmakers were constantly thinking about whether the imaginary friend should be seen as “a supernatural, other being” or “a manifestation of psychosis for the young boy”.

“We were really trying to walk that line, the tension of that question, so that it could always be a question for the audience,” he explained.

And that is why the girl is never treated like a normal horror-movie ghost. The film gives you enough to think something supernatural could be happening. But it also gives you a perfectly possible psychological explanation.

Basically, you’re supposed to sit somewhere in the middle and decide what you believe.

The ending is actually about ‘healing’

The Whisper Man is mainly about fathers and sons. Tom and Pete are dealing with years of resentment. And Jake is dealing with losing his mum and being separated from his dad. So bringing Rebecca back into the story at the very end gives the film a different emotional layer.

Ashcroft said that the filmmakers were “very passionate” about the final revelation because “it’s about healing”.

“That’s very heartfelt,” he said. “It’s a male-driven film, the themes being father and son. So we love that this presence of the mother was there so much in the background, in the foreground, moving through the film.”

Netflix’s Tudum also quoted Ashcroft saying the reveal “adds an emotional layer that makes it really resonant” and “unifies the family again” after Pete and Rebecca’s deaths.

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