The Abyss Ending Explained

The 2023 Swedish film The Abyss tells the fictionalized story of the disastrous earthquakes in Kiruna, Sweden, leading up to the tragic but promising ending for its central characters. The film primarily follows Frigga Vibenius, the head of security at the Kiruna mines, who is divorcing her husband, Tage Vibenius. The Abyss picks up on their son Simon’s birthday, which is accompanied by alarming seismic activity near the mine. Despite Simon being missing, Frigga must head to the mine to determine the potential risk.

Coincidentally, Frigga’s boyfriend in the Netflix movieThe Abyss, Dabir, comes to Kiruna on this same day with plans to propose. However, this is put on hold as it’s realized that Simon has gone missing. Frigga’s daughter Mika sets out to look for Simon, and Frigga and Tage, as well as other mine employees, head underground to investigate. While there, Frigga realizes that a chasm has opened up under Kiruna, and any subsequent earthquakes would cause the entire town to collapse into a massive sinkhole. Before they can evacuate, the family must find Simon, leading to Tage’s heroic sacrifice.

Does Dabir Stay With Frigga After The Abyss’ Ending?

It’s Implied Dabir And Frigga Don’t Part Ways

Dabir had no idea that he was entering a doomed city when he came to Kiruna. He had intended to propose to Frigga, but Simon’s disappearance and the ever-worsening seismic activity put these plans on hold. Additionally, Dabir learned from Tage that Frigga had yet to sign her divorce papers despite having had them in her possession for months. This leads the man to question whether he should propose or accept the job at the Kiruna Fire Department. Additionally, Frigga’s husband made it clear that he believed Dabir was disrupting their lives — but Tage’s death changed everything.

Tage’s last words before sacrificing his life to save his family before the ending of The Abyss were directed at Dabir, begging him to take care of his children in his absence. This was the clearest blessing the man could have received to marry Frigga. However, the end of The Abyss sees Dabir looking thoughtfully at his engagement ring before looking at Frigga in the distance.

Their eyes meet, and Frigga smiles, which is where the 2023 action movie ends. Though it’s never definitively stated, this subtle look between the two characters indicates that they stayed together in New Kiruna after the events of The Abyss 2023, just as Tage wished in his final moments.

Tage’s Sacrifice In The Abyss Explained

Tage Knew His Family Needed Dabir

Tage made Dabir and Frigga’s promising future possible by sacrificing his life to save his family at the end of The Abyss. Though he had despised Dabir for most of The Abyss, the pair worked together when Frigga, Mika, and Simon were trapped in a sinkhole within the high school. To escape, the trio jumps onto a vending machine hanging by its electrical cable into the hole, allowing Debir to lower robes down to pull Mika, Simon, and a seriously injured Frigga up one by one.

However, before each can get to safety, the vending machine cable begins to break. To give Dabir enough time to save each member of his family, Tage rushes over and grabs hold of the severed cable and the wall, holding the vending machine up just long enough for everyone to escape the sinkhole. However, the charge of the broken cable sends a devastating electrical current through Tage.

After collapsing to the ground, the dying man begs Dabir to take care of his family before his heart stops. In the final scene of The Abyss, we see Tage’s body being removed from the high school as Dabir looks down on the engagement ring he planned to give to Frigga.

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What Happened To Frigga’s Son Simon In The Abyss?

Simon Was Alive But Trapped

Throughout most of The Abyss, Frigga and Tage are desperate to discover what happened to their son Simon, who disappeared before the pair found the massive chasm beneath Kiruna. The first scene of the 2023 movie saw the fatal fall of a teenage boy into one of the first sinkholes near the Kiruma mine’s rift zone, and the audience is initially led to believe that this is Simon. This seems to be supported by the reveal that the teen’s friend had taken Mika’s vehicle to a rift-zone party.

However, when Mika and Dabir investigate the rift zone, they discover that the phone within the chasm doesn’t belong to Simon, inspiring some hope that the boy could still be alive. Further red herrings hint at Simon’s fate — Frigga sees a boy who looks like Simon hit by a car, while Aila’s grandmother tells the worried parents that their son left town. It wasn’t until the family went to the hospital that they learned from a teenage girl that Simon and his friends had gone to an abandoned high school to play Call of Duty.

Frigga, Tage, Mika, and Dabir immediately left for the school, where they found the corpses of several teenagers before finally finding Simon, who was alive but trapped in a sinkhole. Frigga and Mika wound up entering the hole to retrieve him, but when a broken rebar impaled Frigga’s leg, getting out again became nearly impossible. This is where Tage’s heroic movie death took place in The Abyss, so his family could survive.

Every Death In The Abyss Explained

The Swedish Netflix Movie Has A High Body Count

Along with Tage, there were several significant deaths by the time that The Abyss 2023 ending arrived. The first happened in the very first scene when a partying teenager got too close to the ever-expanding rift zone and was swallowed by the Earth. It’s at first implied that this boy is Simon, but since this wasn’t true, we never discover his true identity. The subsequent death was Frigga’s coworker and friend Erika, who accompanied her and Tage into the abandoned part of the Kiruna mine to investigate the quakes. Sadly, she was killed when a narrow shaft caved in.

Once Frigga realized that the town of Kiruna was doomed to collapse into the Earth at any moment, she rushed back to tell everyone to evacuate. Unfortunately, people didn’t move fast enough, and dozens of citizens fell into the various sinkholes that began appearing all over town. Among these deaths was Mika’s girlfriend, Aila, who saved a baby in a stroller but couldn’t escape the hole herself. The final notable deaths of The Abyss came at the high school, where Frigga and her family found an injured girl named Tina. Though they tried to save her, the girl ultimately succumbed to her wound.

Why The City of Kiruna, Sweden, Collapsed

The 2023 Disaster Movie Is Based On A Real Town

In the 2023 movie The Abyss, it is mentioned early on that the entire town of Kiruna was being moved to a new location because years of mining had resulted in hallow cavities throughout the region. The continued mining increased the number of earthquakes, further exacerbating the problem. In one of the closed-down portions of the mine, Frigga found a massive cavity that ran directly beneath the town and realized that they didn’t have as long to move Kiruna as they had initially believed — everyone needed to get out immediately.

The 2023 disaster movie certainly dramatized the situation, but The Abyss is based on the real town of Kiruna, Sweden, which is in the process of moving, building by building and home by home, to a new area thanks to the sinking ground (via Euro News). This became necessary after an earthquake measuring 4.9 on the Richter scale hit the Kiruna mines in 2020. Thankfully, there were no reported casualties from this disaster, unlike the catastrophic events leading to the ending of The Abyss.

The Real Meaning Of The Abyss 2023 Ending

The Disaster Movie Has Several Layers Of Thematic Depth

The ending of 2023’s The Abyss was dramatic, but it also has a greater thematic depth and significance than first appears. There are, of course, clear character-specific elements behind the final moments of The Abyss. Tage’s sacrifice symbolizes letting go after a complex breakup or separation if it means knowing one’s family is safer or better-off for it (as Tage realized Frigga and Simon would be with Dabir, as Dabir represented a stable future that Tage couldn’t provide).

In relation to this, the fact that it’s implied Dabir is going to propose to Frigga, and Frigga’s injuries were linked to Tage’s death, also has some thematic significance to The Abyss 2023 ending. A second marriage is always built on the pain and heartache that comes with the ending of one or both partner’s first. Frigga’s injury represents this pain, and the death of Tage is a (somewhat heavy-handed) metaphor for the loss of the person she was in love with when their marriage started.

However, since The Abyss is based on a true story, the events of the 2023 movie also have a wider significance and depth to them when it comes to the community of Kiruna itself. The real town is, of course, moving due to similar, if less dramatic, versions of events. However, the impact this has had on the local community has likely been catastrophic, as moving an entire town is a long and difficult process. The ending of 2023’s The Abyss and everything that comes before capture the emotional impact of the slow-moving real life disaster by portraying the physical collapse in a much more violent and direct way.