Irresistible 2006

Sophie Hartley is a happily married book illustrator with two young daughters, Ruby and Elly. One afternoon, while rushing home from school after remembering she left the iron on, she discovers the iron is still hot but switched off. Later, a sense that someone is in the house unsettles her, though she shrugs it off. The family life seems peaceful at first, but a quiet unease threads through Sophie’s days as she tries to balance work, motherhood, and the fragility of trust.

At a party with her husband, Craig, she meets his new co-worker, Mara. They share a walk along the beach where Mara offers Sophie comfort about her own mother’s recent death—Kate, who had worked as an aid worker in Kosovo and died while trying to protect orphans after a Molotov attack on the orphanage window. Mara’s tale plants a seed of doubt in Sophie’s mind about what really happened, and the conversations darken the atmosphere as Mara’s empathy slips into something more intrusive. The mood shifts as pieces of Sophie’s life start vanishing—one of her dresses, Elly’s favorite toy—and a painting is damaged, which Sophie initially writes off to a careless accident. A wasp swarm bursts from an ornament in her studio, intensifying her sense that something is off.

Sophie becomes increasingly convinced that Mara is involved in the strange occurrences. She catalogs her suspicions by covertly following Mara to gather evidence, but she is caught and receives a restraining order, with Craig not backing her up in court. The tension deepens as Sophie suspects an affair between Mara and Craig, though he denies it. To clear her head, Sophie retreats to a friend’s cabin, where a candid conversation with her father reveals a painful secret: Sophie had become pregnant at eighteen and gave the baby up to an orphanage against her wishes. This revelation reframes Sophie’s fear as she begins to see how the past could be reaching back to complicate the present.

Upon returning home, Sophie discovers her cat is missing and suspects Mara again. In Mara’s house, she finds Elly’s toy and family photos with their faces cut out, along with a birth certificate and an adoption agency letter addressed to Mara. The documents imply Mara may be the baby Sophie gave up years ago, a revelation that unsettles both women and reframes Mara’s behavior as something more than simple obsession. At the office, Mara attempts to lure Craig again, but a call from the school interrupts them, pulling Mara away from her moment. Mara offers to fetch the children and brings them to her house, where Sophie is trying to escape through the air ducts. The hunt culminates with a confrontation in the basement: Sophie confronts Mara, apologizes for giving her up, and the two women collide in a desperate struggle. After Mara strikes Sophie and smashes a bottle of spirits, a lit match drops and a fire erupts in the basement. Mara catches fire, but Sophie helps her escape the flames.

In the hospital, the tension eases as Craig receives the contents of Sophie’s pockets—among them, the birth certificate and the adoption agency letter. When Sophie awakes, Craig confesses that he knows about Mara, and they resolve to make their relationship work. Sophie then visits Mara in her hospital room, acknowledging Mara’s bravery in seeking a connection and asking for forgiveness. The two women finally embrace as Mara weeps, suggesting a dawning, complicated mother–daughter bond. When a nurse tries to escort Sophie away, she quietly insists, > I’m her mother.

As Mara recovers at home, she pores over old news clippings and photos of Kate. A photo pairing Mara and Kate as children in the orphanage hints at a haunting parallel to Sophie’s own life. In Kosovo, a later photo shows Kate resembling Sophie, implying that Kate grew up to be Sophie’s daughter—revealing a profound, if painful, bloodline connection. Mara, angered and unsettled, cuts Ruby’s face out of a family photo and replaces it with her own, leaving a caption that reads “Mother and Me” as a chilling reminder of the longing and price of a second chance at family.