Ethan Campbell is a reserved, middle-aged private tutor who is well-liked among affluent families
for his exceptional teaching skills, and ability to connect with teenagers.
Most of his time is spent tutoring preppy students at their luxurious mansions and apartments.
As he eagerly anticipates the arrival of
his baby boy with his beloved girlfriend, Annie, Ethan's life is brimming with joy and fulfillment.
One day, Ethan gets a call from the firm's manager, Chris, who has exciting news for him;
a wealthy client is willing to pay him a whopping $2500 a day to tutor his son, Jackson.
Moreover, they will pay him under the table, but Ethan must stay on the premise for a week on a trial basis.
Seeing it as a golden opportunity to earn extra money for his impending role as a
father, Ethan happily agrees to the contract.
The following day, the driver for the wealthy family takes Ethan to the mansion.
Inside the mansion, he meets Jackson, and starts the session with him by giving him 25 minutes
to complete the test.
While waiting for Jackson to finish it, Ethan couldn't hide his curiosity
after arriving at their magnificent mansion, so he goes all around the house. He then meets Jackson’s
cousins, Gavin, and his girlfriend Jenny.
And then, when he returns to Jackson,
he is impressed by Jackson's impressive knowledge and lightning-fast problem-solving skills.
He even asks if he has seen the test before.
While exploring the Bungalow, he stumbles upon
the odd couple again, and Ethan notices that Jenny can't stop looking at him.
The next day, things start to get peculiar when Jackson is asked about his father's profession. Rather than
answering directly, he hesitates and mentions that he's not allowed to disclose that information.
And when asked about his mother, Jackson reveals that she was sent away and never returned.
He suddenly inquires about the child Ethan and his girlfriend are expecting, despite the fact
that Ethan has never told him about it, which raises suspicion. Although there is something
about the boy that bothered him, Ethan brushes it off and focuses solely on teaching him.
Later on in the evening, when Ethan goes outside to smoke, he notices that Jackson
is creepily staring at him from inside the house.
The following day, Jackson even begs him to take
his picture with Ethan's camera, even though Ethan thinks it's gay.
Later that night, after having a phone call with his girlfriend, Ethan is suddenly approached
by Jackson in his room. Here Jackson owns up to his lie about his mother,
where he reveals that she didn't actually get sent away but rather left willingly.
And to Ethan’s shock, Jackson rests his head on his lap to open up about his traumatic past.
Ethan listens with empathy as Jackson shares how his father never approved of him,
and how the hatred has only grown over time. Ethan then relates deeply to Jackson's story, as
he remembers his own childhood trauma of growing up with a racist, angry, and alcoholic father.
Ethan's mother eventually departed, leaving him alone to deal with a strained and unresolved
relationship with his father.
After sharing his grieves with Ethan, Jackson gets off the sofa and,
with a smile on his face, remarks that Ethan is a good listener and a special person.
Things get awkward for Ethan when Jackson approaches him again the next day, and invites him to a special dinner to
mark the end of their sessions. Jackson says that Ethan is so cool that he wants to get to know him,
but Ethan declines to join the dinner and confronts Jackson about his odd behavior.
Later that night, Ethan regrets hurting Jackson’s feelings; after all, he was getting paid more than
his usual charge. He goes upstairs to apologize and walks into Jackson’s room to find him, only to
accidentally stumble upon Jackson's open laptop. To his shock, he discovers photos of himself and
his girlfriend, clearly showing somebody has been stalking him.
Without uttering a word, he leaves the room, and questions Jackson about it the next day.
Instead of clarifying the situation, Jackson breaks down into tears, and starts beating himself maniacally.
Ethan follows Jackson as he storms out of the room, only to come face to face with Jackson's
father, and one of Gavin's friends, Teddi. Despite Ethan's concerns, the man reassures
him about Jackson's mental health, instructing him to handle Jackson the hard way. In order to
put an end to all this madness, Ethan says goodbye to Jackson's father and apologizes
for missing tonight's dinner.
On his way home, he learns from Chris that Jackson's
father has offered to triple his day rate for the summer, if he continues tutoring Jackson.
With a baby on the way, Ethan reluctantly agrees to take the job, seeing the $8,000
paycheck as a means to provide for his family.
To celebrate the good news, Ethan and Annie
host a fancy dinner with their friends.
Everything is going great until Ethan,
under the influence of alcohol, makes inappropriate comments about Jackson being
a psycho and having some sort of bipolar episode, leaving Annie and their guests uncomfortable.
Out of nowhere, Jackson appears, and introduces himself to Annie, he is obviously frustrated by
Ethan's remarks. After saying that his family owns this building, he immediately departs
from the restaurant, which makes Ethan feel bad. Annie is fed up with Ethan's strange conduct and
constant mean comments about a seemingly innocent teenager. She believes he embarrasses himself
and her in front of their friends, and it is not the first time he has done so while intoxicated.
Ethan apologizes, finally realizing that Jackson is just a spoiled kid and nothing else.
The next day, Jackson invites Ethan to his townhouse instead of their regular class in the Bungalow.
However, when Ethan arrives, Jackson is nowhere to be found, and he's left waiting for hours.
Feeling embarrassed about his previous behavior, Ethan decides to wait and apologize.
Since Jackson is stuck in traffic and won't come for another hour,
he instructs Ethan to make himself comfortable and enjoy some fruit if he’s hungry.
After eating some of the strawberries, he pulls out his camera and takes pictures around the house.
However, things take an unexpected turn when Ethan starts to feel uneasy,
and goes unconscious.
The next thing he knows, he wakes up in the lake, struggling to stay afloat.
Luckily, he manages
to survive, but when he returns home, nobody believes that he is drugged and thrown into the
lake by Jackson. Even his wife Annie thinks he is lying since Ethan has cheated on her in the past.
The icing on the cake is that some woman called in his absence, and now Annie thinks Ethan is having
an affair. Here Ethan finally reaches his breaking point and lashes out at Annie for her mistrust.
The next day, he discovers the name of the drug Jackson may have given him,
providing a possible explanation for what happened. Annie pretends to believe in him
since she can't bring herself to believe that a teenager drugged and drowned him.
As Ethan sifts through Jackson's photographs, searching for answers,
he discovers something shocking beyond his expectations. He stumbles upon pictures of
himself lying unconscious on a bed, while Teddi is seen trying to seduce him, creating the false
impression that he was involved in an affair. Whatever Jackson is planning, it has gone too far.
Despite Jackson's increasingly dangerous and harmful actions, Ethan still hesitates to report
him to the cops, possibly because of Jackson's wealth and connections to high authorities.
His suspicions are further heightened by the fact that Jackson has been unresponsive for days, and
when he goes to check, he discovers that Jackson doesn't even attend the school he claimed to.
To make matters worse, Chris calls Ethan and informs him that his session has been canceled,
due to Jackson's accusations of torture, and that they found a bruise on Jackson’s leg.
Despite his attempts to explain the truth, Chris believes Jackson's false allegations, and fires Ethan not
only for misconduct with his student, but also for having an affair with Teddi. Even stranger,
Jackson’s father claims that he never met Ethan. The situation has gone from bad to worse for
Ethan, leaving him unemployed, distressed, and in self-doubt.
On his job hunt the following day,
Ethan stumbles upon Jackson, and a tense exchange erupts, with Jackson reminding Ethan of his
hateful remarks about him from their night at the restaurant. Ethan threatens to ruin him if
he dares to come near his family, but Jackson keeps blaming Ethan for what he’s done to him.
Later on, Ethan's situation spirals out of control, as Jackson brings him to the police
station, accusing him of an assault with video evidence from CCTV. The image of the man is not
too clear, and Ethan adds that Jackson did it on purpose. Meanwhile, Jackson turns to Annie for
sympathy, portraying Ethan as a dangerous person. Sadly, it appears that Annie has been convinced
by Jackson's side of the story, and Ethan doesn't know why Jackson is trying to ruin his life.
Annie thinks about this entire situation, and finally inquires Ethan about a woman named Rachel Platt.
As it turns out, Rachel Platt was Jackson's mother, who tragically drowned in the lake ten years ago.
Ethan reveals that he had dated Rachel in the past when her marriage was not working out,
but their relationship had ended before her death, which he believed was a suicide.
He also mentions that Rachel had struggled with mental health issues, and now he suspects that
Jackson may have inherited them as well. Jackson apparently believes that her mother was murdered,
and blames Ethan for it. Because of her pregnancy, Annie can't handle
the distressing news, and thus asks Ethan to leave and give her some space for a few days.
Over the next few days, Ethan searches tirelessly for Jackson, while spending nights in his car, but
the boy seems to have vanished without a trace. He even attempts to visit Jackson's Bungalow, but is
met with confusion as the place belongs to Teddi's family, who claim that they don't know Jackson.
In frustration, Ethan lashes out at Teddi, and is subsequently thrown out of the Bungalow.
Determined to find evidence against Jackson, he breaks into his townhouse, and just as he
came across his half-eaten strawberry, security caught him in the act.
At the police station,
Ethan continues to plead for his innocence, and asks them to question Jackson’s father about
Jackson’s behavioral problem if required. But his claim about contacting Jackson's father is proven
false, as it turns out that Jackson’s father died three years ago due to cancer. Therefore,
the cops order him not to leave the city for a few weeks until the case is solved.
As Ethan exits the police station, he receives a phone call from Jackson, who insists on a
meeting to settle things once and for all. If Ethan wants to avoid this continuous charade,
he has to meet Jackson at the location where Rachel died. In an effort to clear up the
misunderstanding, Ethan reluctantly heads to Rachel's Bungalow, where he used to meet her.
Upon arriving, he sees Jackson, who begins to recount the events leading up to his mother's death.
Her body had been found two miles downstream with no water in her lungs,
indicating that she had been killed before being pushed into the water.
Jackson points out other pieces of evidence, such as her stuck heel on the deck,
and the fact that her head was slammed against the deck with such force that it cracked the wood.
Plus, the police had determined that this was the exact spot where Rachel had died,
and this information was marked as confidential in their report, known only to Jackson,
his father, and of course, the killer. The point is that Jackson never tells Ethan where
they should meet, and it's quite strange that Ethan knows exactly where Rachel died.
But Ethan says that anyone can figure out the place of her death, considering the fact that the water current
runs straight to where her body was found.
As the sun set on the horizon, Annie's anxiety grew with each passing minute.
She keeps staring at a tracker app on her phone, hoping that Ethan is alright.
Meanwhile, Ethan has regained consciousness, and the moment he wakes up, he continues to
refute Jackson’s claim and tries to calmly make him understand how it was all a big mistake.
As Jackson threatens to kill him, Ethan finally reveals that he was there with her the night she
died, but he left before she committed suicide. Since her husband gave her the ultimatum that she
couldn't leave her family, Ethan begged to her to spend one more night with him at the dock. But in the
end, Rachel didn't want Ethan to leave because she was madly in love with him. Rachel got hysterical,
but Ethan didn't know she would kill herself, and he regrets leaving her alone that day.
At this point, we think that Jackson will agree with the story. However, he had read his mother’s
diary, which clearly states how Ethan was in love with her, whereas she considered their
relationship a weekend affair. She says that Ethan was a hopeless interloper, and that he was
obsessed with her, while she had lost interest in him. It was clear that Rachel was scared of him,
and believed he was mentally unstable. She also noticed how desperate Ethan was to
belong to a world he was not born into. Finally, the words from Rachael’s diary trigger Ethan,
and he attacks Gavin.
After choking Gavin to death, he follows Jackson, who is running and hiding inside the house.
It is at this point that Ethan shows his true colors, and threatens to kill
Jackson. Jackson manages to run away, and hide under the indoor dock with his pistol.
Maniac Ethan finds him, and he finally admits
to murdering Jackson’s mother; he says he'll kill Jackson the same way he killed Rachel.
His confession is overheard by Annie, who has arrived at the mansion to look for him. Despite his
attempts to convince her that he has nothing to do with Rachel's death, Annie can no longer believe him.
With no option left, he decides to silence her since she is now a witness to his confession.
But before he can do anything, Jackson emerges from under the dock and shoots Ethan with a pistol
he grabbed earlier. Because of the bullet wounds, Ethan falls into the lake and gets drowned.
The next morning, police searched for his body, but his body is never found. Annie then tells
Jackson how a person can spend their entire life with someone, and never know who they really are.
As the film comes to a close, it is revealed that Ethan is still alive;
he gives an interview for another tutoring job, might have moved to a new posh neighborhood,
and still poses a danger to both Annie and Jackson's safety.