To verify Alice’s claim, the facility invited Dr. del Olmo to the asylum. He was present when Ignacio disclosed that Luis was not murdered by Alice. According to Ignacio’s version, the death of Luis was an accident, and Alice agreed with his statement. The police were left out of the case to not hamper the asylum’s reputation. Alice noticed Dr. del Olmo, but she failed to recognize him. When she was told that the man standing in front of her was the person, she claimed to be her client, she looked at him in disbelief. She exclaimed that the person who introduced himself as Dr. del Olmo was not the man present in the room. But Monserrat and Arellano reassured her that the man was Dr. del Olmo. Alice was visibly confused and shaken; she could sense that the story she had built was falling apart, and the people who had trusted her now stared at her with doubt. During her rigorous treatment, she wondered what the truth really was, and she subconsciously realized that the truth could be whatever she wanted it to be. Therefore, she started from the beginning again. She reanalyzed the entire story and tried to find where she had gone wrong. She realized that the man who claimed to be Dr. del Olmo was someone her husband had appointed to trick her. It was Heliodoro who got her involved in the investigation so that she would willingly enter the asylum only to be trapped there for life. She now knew the truth and again convinced Monserrat and Arellano of her innocence. She believed that Dr. Donadio, Heliodoro, and even Dr. Alvar were involved in proving her mentally unstable. She requested that Monserrat and Arellano track her bank account; if her money was missing, it would indicate that she was telling the truth. But the bank refused to disclose any details since they had no reason not to believe that she was mentally unstable. To clear his doubt, Arellano went to Alice’s house and found out that her husband had left. Meanwhile, Monserrat found out that Heliodoro had made a large donation to the asylum, further raising suspicion. Monserrat and Arellano had enough proof to believe Alice; they were convinced that she had been tricked and admitted to the hospital.
In the meantime, Alice spoke to all the members of the asylum and asked them for their support to help her escape from the facility. She asked Ignacio to hand him his lighter, and she created a fire that led to extreme chaos. This gave her the perfect opportunity to leave. Just as she was about to leave, she learned that Romulus had been killed. She decided to investigate the case, and to do so, she dealt with the coroner and entered the facility by impersonating her. She studied Romulus’s body and concluded that it was crushed by a large object, resulting in a sunken chest and several broken bones. She deduced that it was the “elephant man” who had murdered Romulus. The man had always had a liking for Romulus’s sister, but he could not get close to her, and his love remained unrequited. The only person he could call his best friend, Luis, was taken away from him. She added that it was Romulus who had murdered Luis that day in the forest to protect her. Therefore, he had enough reasons to hate Romulus, and he took advantage of the chaos to end his life. His hands consisted of the glass injuries that Alice had predicted, and he was arrested for the crime. The police were impressed by Alice’s intelligence. She introduced herself as a private investigator who was held against her will in the asylum. Even though Dr. Alvar tried to say otherwise, the police had reasons to doubt him. They said that they checked her account after Arellano visited the bank and asked them to look into it. They found out that her husband had cleared all her bank accounts, and he could only do so because she was proven to be incapacitated. The police took her case, and the faculty at the asylum wrote a letter to the city council asking for the removal of Dr. Alvar for being the corrupt director of the institute.
We later learn that Romulus was not murdered that night; it was Remus who was killed by the “elephant man.” Romulus had gone to save his sister during the fire outbreak, and the “elephant man” mistook Remus for Romulus and killed him. Alice knew the truth; she stated that as their mother figure, she could distinguish between Romulus from Remus. Perhaps Romulus wanted Remus to live, and the fact that people believed he was alive helped him cope with the tragedy. Alice promised to visit him after her release. She was presented before the medical board to discuss her case. Monserrat mentioned that they were still in search of her fugitive husband; all they knew was that he had sailed somewhere in South Asia. Alice added that the fact that Dr. Donadio was in Zurich at the same time was no coincidence. They both planned to prove her insanity. Dr. Alvar was not convinced yet; he believed that all Alice could prove was that her husband had taken the money from her account, but they did not have any proof to indicate that he came up with the sinister plan to admit her to the asylum. But Dr. Alvar decided to withdraw from voting and instead asked the rest of the faculty to make the decision. In case they voted her sane, he wanted them to replace his expulsion letter with his resignation letter. The board voted in favor of Alice and declared her sane. Before leaving the institute, Dr. Alvar stated that he had a conversation with Dr. Donadio. The man had gone on a vacation with his wife after attending the congress in Zurich. While they thought he had fled, in reality, he never received any of their correspondence. Dr. Alvar had asked Dr. Donadio to come and clarify the matter with the board. As it turned out, Dr. Donadio was the man Alice had imagined to be, Dr. del Olma. He entered and asked Alice what trouble she had gotten herself into while she looked at him with fear and disbelief.
“God’s Crooked Lines” leaves it up to the audience to draw a conclusion. Considering the number of times Alice changes her narrative, it is difficult to trust her by the end of the film. Also, when the story she had formulated fell short after the visit of Dr. del Olma, she made herself believe that the truth was whatever she wanted it to be, further indicating that she had a distorted idea about reality. When she realized that Dr. del Olma was not the man she knew, she assumed that her husband had hired someone to pretend to be Dr. del Olma. Whereas in reality, the man she imagined to be Dr. del Olma was Dr. Donadio. Even though she must have met Dr. Donadio since he was their family doctor, she conveniently distorted the truth. If we consider this the truth, we can conclude that Alice had poisoned her husband after realizing he was not in love with her and all he wanted was her fortune. He consulted Dr. Donadio and had her admitted to the hospital, after which he took all the money from her account and left the country. Of course, her husband was untrustworthy and did not shy away from taking advantage of her mental instability.
If we decide to trust Alice, chances are that she will claim that the man who introduced himself as Dr. Donadio was lying. Though it seems improbable that he would lie about his identity. What is not impossible is that Dr. Donadio was paid heavily by Heliodoro, and his report on poisoning was false. They might have even taken advantage of her mental condition to prove her guilty. He did it to earn money from the case, even if that meant hospitalizing someone against her will. It could have been a grand scheme but going by Alice’s expression at the end of “God’s Crooked Lines,” it seems that she was struggling to comprehend the truth. While she initially looked at him with confusion, her expression changed after a few seconds, indicating that her mind was busy planning to explain her version of the truth. “God’s crooked lines” toys with the audience’s mind till the very end, and the inconclusive ending further adds to the mystery.
