Warning! Spoilers for Run below.
Diane (Sarah Paulson) is revealed to be Run's villain in the movie's twist ending. Paulson recently revealed Diane's backstory, shedding a little light onto her character's motives. But why wasn't that context included in the film?
Run follows doting mother Diane as she takes care of her severely ill and disabled daughter Chloe (Kiera Allen). After she becomes suspicious of a new pill she's given, Chloe begins to become wary of her mother's motives. Run's ending reveals that not only did Diane steal Chloe as a newborn from the hospital, but she had been pumping her daughter full of drugs her entire life, making her sick enough that she'll always rely on Diane's care.
Although it's never specifically mentioned in the Hulu horror movie, Diane's desire to poison Chloe with various drugs is clearly caused by Munchausen by proxy. It's what Paulson revealed in Diane's backstory that is likely what propelled her to steal Chloe as a baby. While including the backstory would have given more context to audiences, leaving it out ultimately served the movie.
As Paulson told Collider, Diane was a victim of abuse and neglect at the hands of her mother as a child. While her motivation was twisted, Diane made Chloe sick so she could give her daughter what she never received from her own mother — love, support, and care. Paulson believes Diane's chosen life of isolation is due to the fact that she was hiding the dark secret of Chloe's identity, but is convinced she would have done the same if the baby was biologically hers.
Run does an adequate job of deploying "show, not tell" when it comes to Diane's likely undiagnosed Munchausen by proxy. While that diseased prompts the affected to abuse those in their care, it can't be blamed for Diane's decision to steal Chloe as a baby. Implying Diane suffered from Munchausen's was necessary to provide some kind of closure for the plot, but the best movie villains are those whose motives are unclear. Leaving out Diane's backstory allowed her to be an unpredictable and therefore incredibly frightening villain.
Paulson has proven herself time and time again to be a thorough actress who does her homework with roles that skew toward villainy in 2020's Netflix series Ratched and occasionally throughout her longtime status as a cast member on Ryan Murphy's horror anthology series, American Horror Story. Working with that backstory likely helped to inform her performance, but withholding that information from the audience is what ultimately helped keep them on the edge of their seats during the entirety of Run. With too much explanation as to the 'why' behind Diane's actions, her role as a villain wouldn't have been as effective, and might have even stolen some much-earned sympathy for Kiera Allen's Chloe, who was indisputably a victim of Diane's long-term abuse.
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