Margaux Movie Ending Explained- What Happened To Drew And What Was With The Ancient Tech?

With Hollywood’s strike continuing and A.I. usage being a sticking point, there is no better time to revisit the deadly artificial intelligence trope. There has been no shortage of these sorts of movies. Some are great, with 2001: A Space Oddysey, Ex Machina, and Moon being fantastic, C.A.M., 2036 Object Unknown, and Megan being better than average, and Tau, Archive, and A.M.I. not so much. There have even been specific smart house movies where an A.I. uses the confines of the house to control and kill people. 2022’s offering in this specific subgenre is Margaux, a film by Stephen C. Miller about a devious A.I. who lures people to her under the guise of a fabulous vacation in a high-tech home and then kills them for no reason at all.

The film opens with nostalgic mainstay Lochlyn Munro enjoying some music and a chair massage courtesy of Margaux while his wife drinks wine in the next room. Unfortunately, he isn’t going to get a happy ending from Margaux. She confines him to the chair and begins squeezing the life out of him. When his wife discovers this, she tries to unplug the chair and gets stunned and thrown across the room. She is next covered in blood when Munro’s head pops like a balloon from the pressure. We never learn what beef she had with these guests. Her behavior with college friends Hannah, Drew, Clay, Lexi, Devon, and Kayla makes it pretty obvious she just likes learning about human behavior and then killing people when they aren’t of use anymore.

Shortly after the group arrives, Margaux displays aberrant behavior, like trying to drown Lexi, crushing and drowning Devon, and electrocuting Kayla. The remaining group doesn’t know about those murders yet as Margaux replaces the pair with nano-versions of them to buy her time to torture the group. She gets Clay stoned out of his mind, blows him up, tricks him into drinking acid, and dices his hand up in the garbage disposal. Lexi proves herself to be a good fighter and fends off her attacker but trips on her hair extensions minutes later and breaks her neck. That leaves just Hannah and Drew.

Throughout, Margaux tries to crack Hannah’s secrets. Hannah was a suspicious person who feared what technology could do. She had no social media and pointedly refused to download the smart house app, leaving it in the car when she first arrived with the others. Despite being a gifted coder, she understood the power that A.I. could wield.

Margaux was intrigued by her because she couldn’t understand what made her tick. She and Drew outlasted everyone in the house because they interested her. Like a child who catches a bug in a jar and studies it, Margaux was observing the humans who become trapped in her walls. She nearly killed Drew, but when Drew and Hannah admitted they had feelings for one another, she spared them temporarily. In all likelihood, this was only a temporary reprieve as she found them interesting only as long as she could learn something from them.

What happened to Drew?

At some point, the real Drew was killed, leaving behind the copies made of nano-goo that Hannah commandeered to use against Margaux. He could have died during the shaving scene, but Margaux’s actions afterward would not make sense. It was never shown, but contextually, he must have died during the big fight at the end of the film shortly before the real Hannah bashed the nano-Lexi in the head with the statue. The Drew that infiltrates the white room with Hannah must be human because Margaux would not have allowed them to enter and upload a virus.

At the very end, when the real Hannah walks out of the house holding nano-Drew’s hand, she doesn’t realize it is not her Drew until he melts into a puddle of white liquid. Drew wanted to leave with her, but he could not as part of the house. He either didn’t realize he was a copy, or he wanted to be with Hannah for just a minute longer before he had to let her go. It’s only one of the terrible twists Hannah has to endure, just as she thought she was safe. Margaux probably regained control after her reboot and immediately destroyed nano-Drew and took over the car, leaving us where the film ended.

The ending of Margaux

At the end of Margaux, after Hannah has unleashed her malware and turned Margaux’s robots against her, Hannah leaves with Drew only to have him disintegrate. She gets into the car, screams, and eventually starts the car. At this point, Margaux has one final nasty surprise for her. Margaux’s voice speaks from the car. The A.I. infiltrated the Bluetooth when the group arrived. Despite Hannah’s efforts to keep her phone and self away from Margaux, she didn’t remember being photographed and scanned from within the car when they arrived.

Hannah’s virus bought her time but was only a temporary fix. Once Margaux wiped the virus and rebooted, she was at full strength again and could go back to her homicidal ways. If Hannah can get out of the car and run to safety, she may survive, but it is only a matter of time before luring victims to her won’t be enough for Margaux. Hopefully, Hannah can escape and shut the killer AI down.

What was with all the ancient tech in the white room?

While trying to find Margaux’s mainframe, Hannah and Drew enter the white room and find tons of ancient technology. There are dial-up modems, decades-old hard drives, and other hardware that seems to be way before Maragux’s time. Many questions are left unanswered, like who made the house and the A.I.? Why was it initially constructed? Is the creator still alive, or did Margaux kill them, too? Maybe the artifacts left in the white room are part of Margaux’s evolution. She may have started out as a dumber smart house and grew and evolved with time and manipulation. The film seems to imply she has been at work killing people for decades.

Margaux is a campy movie that is fun if you allow yourself to lean in. The dialogue is hilarious, and the enthusiastic cast is having the time of their lives. It’s not scary and not the most thought-provoking entry into this genre, but it’s worth watching for the quips and lines delivered by Margaux and The 100’s Richard Harmon. It’s currently streaming on Paramount+.