Andrew's phone

Andrew's phone is first revealed as an instrument of surveillance: its screen shows that Andrew Winchester has been watching Millie Calloway suffer in the attic. When Millie turns the phone against him, it becomes more than a captured device. She uses it to keep sight of Andrew, prevent him from calling for help, and impersonate him in a message to his mother. The same screen that exposes Andrew's control helps Millie maintain her own precarious control of the house.

Surveillance and the Image of the Attic

Andrew produces the phone after Millie asks how he could know exactly how long she had been doing something. An app displays a crisp, high-resolution color image of the attic room, with Andrew and Millie sitting together on the bed. On the screen, Millie appears pale and hunched, her hair stringy. Andrew presents the image admiringly, as though the room's close surveillance were a technical achievement. Millie instead recognizes what the image means: he has watched her endure the day and intends to repeat the punishment for longer.

The phone makes Andrew's observation concrete. His knowledge of Millie's confinement is not limited to what he sees when he enters the room; the image indicates that he can watch from elsewhere. The contrast between the phone's crisp picture and Millie's exhausted appearance also turns her suffering into something Andrew can inspect and display. For Millie, seeing that image changes the stakes. She understands that escape cannot wait for the next punishment, and reaches into her jeans pocket to act.

Millie Takes the Phone

Millie has pepper spray ready. She sprays Andrew in the eyes twice, then, while he claws at his reddened face, retrieves the phone he has dropped. She is careful not to touch anything else. The precision matters: she has spent more than six hours planning while three books rested on her abdomen, and she believes the next twenty seconds must go exactly right.

Before Andrew can recover his sight, Millie leaves the attic room and locks the door with the key Nina Winchester gave her. She takes Andrew's phone with her. From the other side, she can hear him calling her name, but the locked door and the phone divide their former positions: Andrew is trapped inside, while Millie is out of reach. His first protest is that it is his house and that he can call the police. Millie answers the practical obstacle: she has his phone. The device is now both something he needs and the means by which she can deny him immediate access to help.

A Screen Between Captor and Captive

The phone continues to show Andrew in the attic room. Its screen lets Millie see him standing there in vivid color, his face reddened by the pepper spray and tears on his cheeks. Andrew checks his pockets and scans the floor with swollen eyes for the missing device. The exchange reverses the earlier image: he had used a screen to observe Millie's confinement; now Millie watches him confined and keeps the phone beyond his reach.

Millie does not treat possession as sufficient. She opens the phone's settings and switches off the Lock Screen setting before the device locks automatically, so it will not require a password. This small, hurried adjustment gives her continued access to the phone after taking it from Andrew. Its usefulness depends not only on what it can show, but also on whether she can keep using it without being shut out.

Messages and Concealment

After going downstairs, Millie drinks two large glasses of water and makes a bologna sandwich with mayonnaise on white bread. Once she feels able to think clearly, she checks the phone again. Andrew is still pacing in the attic room, visible on its screen like a caged animal. Millie fears what he might do if released, so watching him helps her judge the danger while she considers what to do next.

A text arrives from Andrew's mother asking whether he is going to serve Nina with divorce papers. Millie reads earlier messages and learns that Andrew has told his mother about his falling-out with Nina. She recognizes that silence could bring his mother to the house and expose that something has happened to him. Using Andrew's phone, Millie replies as though she were Andrew, saying he is speaking with his lawyer. The message gives her a way to manage the impression of events outside the locked room, even as Andrew remains physically contained within it.

Significance

The phone's role changes with the balance of power. In Andrew's hands, its image makes Millie's punishment observable and confirms how thoroughly he has monitored her. In Millie's hands, its camera view becomes a means of keeping track of him, its settings become a problem she must solve quickly, and its messages become a tool for delaying suspicion. It does not free her from danger or settle what she should do next; it gives her information and a narrow means of controlling what others believe while she remains in the house with Andrew locked away.