Missed Connections is a romance film centered around Mae who has a meet-cute with a boy but what starts as harmless becomes an unhealthy obsession. The film is available on Netflix.
Warning: This article contains heavy spoilers
Plot summary:
Mae is shopping at a supermarket when she runs into a boy and is immediately infatuated with him. Due to a mix-up, he ends up paying for one of her items and she rushes out to pay him back but he disappears.
She goes onto an app called “Missed Connections” where people make posts looking for people they have interacted with but didn’t manage to get their names or personal information.
She discusses with her aunt when she sees a post from the same guy looking for “Grocery Girl” and gets excited. She reaches out to him and finds out that his name is Norman before setting up a time and place for a date.
However, when she arrives there he tells her that he was looking for someone else that he had a connection with. To avoid making her feel bad he agrees to have a meal with her and she tells him all about her t-shirt printing business.
She shows him her website which isn’t doing too well and he offers help since he is a web designer. They got back to her house which is a complete mess and begin working. Mae constantly sees her ex-boyfriend Mark as a manifestation of her consciousness.
She lives by herself and keeps a lot of stuff because of the memories attached to them but Norman is a very particular person who likes a neat and tidy space. They continue spending time with each other as Mae slowly falls in love with Norman and believes he feels the same way.
When he does finish the website, she asks him where they go from there so he tells her that the person he was looking for on Missed Connections reached out to him but he hopes that they can still remain friends.
She accepts but is very hurt by this development. Her website is on the rise ever since the redesign and she sends Norman an update to thank him. He calls her to check in and then mentions that he’s going to meet the real “grocery girl” at that moment.
Mae goes out to the bar that he mentions and sees Norman with a very pretty girl who introduces herself as Julia. A quick social media stalking session lets Mae know that Julia owns a salon and is an influencer too.
Mark tells her that Julia is so much better and Norman is better off with her but Mae doesn’t agree. She goes to Julia’s salon for a haircut and while she’s in the chair, they talk about what’s happening in each other’s lives.
Mae tells her that she’s fallen for a boy who is with someone else and Julia says she should fight for him, not aware that she’s talking about Norman.
Norman invites Mae to hang out with him and his friends and insists on them being friends even though Mae is still convinced that she can sway him. He wanted to set her up with his friend Jeric and invites her to an event at Julia’s salon that weekend.
When Mae attends the party, Julia realizes that she was talking about Norman and the two ladies have a frosty exchange. Julia mentions that she had a rough past but Norman isn’t bothered about that and Mae is curious about this past.
She gets drunk and goes back home to dig into Julia’s history. She finds older articles mentioning a cheating scandal and videos of her with several other guys partying and drinking so she makes a page with all the pictures on social media.
The next morning Mae is awoken by Mark who congratulates her for taking down Julia. Her laptop is flooded with notifications as people online drag Julia for her behavior without proper context.
Julia puts up a video explaining that it was simply a friend’s birthday party before wiping all of her social media presence. Mae meets Norman at a bar where he is completely drunk after breaking up with Julia and helps him get back home.
He says that he needs a new plus one for his younger sister’s rehearsal dinner so Mae agrees to be there for him.
Missed Connections (2023) ending explained in detail:
What happens at the rehearsal dinner?
Mae is busy picking out her outfit for dinner as Mark reminds her how she got into this predicament through evil means. When she arrives, Noman’s mother and sister assume she is his girlfriend but he reiterates that she’s just a friend.
She later asks him if they can be more than friends but before he can say anything, Julia walks in. She sees Mae there and storms out but Norman goes out after her.
She tells Norman that Mae is the reason they broke up and scolds Mae too. Mae pretends to be innocent until she can’t hold it in anymore and reveals that she was the one who posted the images because Norman belongs with her and not Julia.
Julia leaves with Norman pleading for her to stay. He then tells Mae to delete the page and never talk to her again.
What does Mae learn?
Mae goes back home and deletes the page before sending Norman one final apology. Mark constantly told her that even in their relationship she never really gave him the love that he needed.
He asks her why she still sees him and feels all the pain and guilt of how their relationship ended even if it has been a long time since it happened. She doesn’t want to listen but he explains the truth to her.
He says that she holds on to all the things in her past because she wants them to still be with her in her life rather than try and move on and explore the world and everything that is good in it.
She gets fed up with his taunting and begins cleaning up her house to get rid of every sign of him and declutter the place. She visits her aunt and apologizes for something rude that she said earlier and her aunt tells her that she can still be single and happy at the same time.
What happens in Mae’s future?
Mae moves on with her life with her business really starting to boom and she has multiple employees to help. She sees a social media post that Norman shares where he and Julia are back together.
She is happy for them and then unfollows Norman as a sign of her progression. One day while she’s at the supermarket, she runs into Mark.
They share a few words with each other and then he apologizes for cheating on her as they part ways as mature adults. She later bumps into another cute guy and thinks about making a post on Missed Connections but then deletes the app instead.
She’s finally accepting the fact that she doesn’t need to be with someone to enjoy things in life.
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