Stolen sees a young girl named Elsa fighting to protect the reindeer that are important to her community. The film is now streaming on Netflix.
Warning: This article contains heavy spoilers
Plot summary
Elsa comes from Sweden’s indigenous Sámi community. The community practices reindeer herding, which is now threatened by climate change.
The laws aimed at protecting the reindeer from disturbance do not sit well with the other locals, as these laws prohibit certain activities.
Some of them kill reindeer illegally and film themselves, but the police never take any action to catch them, no matter how much the Sámi rail.
During this challenging time, a young Elsa earmarks her own calf and names it Nástegállu. Elsa adores her calf and spoils it every chance she gets.
Soon after, when Elsa is alone with the calf, she sees a man kill it. The man threatens Elsa, which frightens her and prevents her from telling anyone about the incident.
Elsa’s father takes her to the police station to file a complaint. Elsa sees the murderer there and gets terrified. She then claims that she did not witness the slaughter.
Ten years later, Elsa is seen working as a teacher. The slaughter of the reindeer and discrimination against the Sámi have continued, with no arrests made.
The survival of the community is under threat due to changing weather and deforestation, causing youngsters to seek work elsewhere.
A close friend of Elsa’s family, Lasse, is one of the people who gets a job at a mine, which turns the community against him because the mines create ecological problems.
One day, Elsa hears gunshots and takes her older brother, Mattias, to investigate. They find a reindeer carcass and decide to follow the snowmobile tracks in the snow.
The tracks lead them to the house of Robert, the man whom Elsa had seen killing Nástegállu. There is blood at the entrance of his barn.
The siblings call the police, but they are of no help, as usual, since they do not have a warrant to search Robert’s barn.
Elsa then tells Mattias that she had indeed witnessed Robert killing Nástegállu, but she was too scared to say anything back then. She blames herself for the continued animal cruelty.
Reindeer carcasses keep turning up, but every time the Sámi complain to the police, the police insist that the reindeer are being stolen and not killed.
Frustrated with the police’s inaction, Elsa takes the reindeer carcass to the police station to spur them into action.
As Elsa is a woman, the community’s elders disapprove of her bold actions; they do not want to turn the police and everyone else against them.
However, at important meetings, Elsa continues speaking up against the injustice that her community is subjected to, even if it means angering her father.
Lasse urges Elsa to leave for a while, and the next day, his body is found. Unable to deal with the current circumstances, Lasse took his own life.
When an upset Elsa runs into Robert, she warns him to stop killing their reindeer. Then, a month later, reindeer skulls are found beside the road.
Elsa talks to the journalist on site and tells her that it is a hate crime against her community and that the police do nothing to stop it.
As a result of Elsa’s interview, hate crimes against the Sámi increase overnight, leading to the elders banning her from attending meetings.
Saddened by how her community has been punishing her for standing up and speaking out, Elsa thinks about leaving and going to a university.
Ending explained:
The feeling of helplessness
Unlike Elsa’s father, Mattias supports her. He defends her actions, as he too is frustrated by the community’s passive stance.
He gets into a fight with Robert when he sees him violating the law against using snowmobiles that disturb reindeer.
Robert injures Mattias, but he chooses not to tell his parents about the incident. The future looks bleak for him, and he grows depressed, feeling helpless as he witnesses ongoing animal cruelty.
Soon after, Elsa sees Robert and his partner loading their truck with a reindeer carcass and tries to take a picture but fails to get a clear angle.
However, Robert notices her standing there with her phone and comes to her house with his gun at night to threaten her.
Terrified, Elsa calls the police, which causes Robert to leave. The police go to Robert’s house to question him, but as they find no evidence there, they do not charge him.
Robert’s death
Elsa and Mattias can no longer rely on the police to bring an end to the killings. They both decide to take action in their own way.
While Elsa breaks into Robert’s barn to gather evidence, Mattias decides to end his life. Elsa calls her brother multiple times, but he does not answer.
Left with no other choice, she enters the barn alone and finds reindeer carcasses inside, of which she takes pictures.
Before she can go to the police, Robert returns, as the CCTV cameras have caught her entering the barn. He then chases Elsa with the intent to kill her.
Mattias, who had been preparing to end his life, sees his sister running from Robert and follows them.
Elsa leads Robert to a frozen river, where Robert’s snowmobile crashes. Robert finds himself trapped under the snowmobile, unable to get out.
To give him a taste of his own medicine, Elsa fires a shot near him for killing all those reindeer and threatening her.
This causes the ice to break. Elsa attempts to save Robert, but she cannot do much, resulting in Robert’s drowning and subsequent death.
The slaughter ends
Mattias witnesses the accident and urges Elsa to call the police, even though she is skeptical, as she fears they might accuse her of killing Robert.
She also questions Mattias about not answering her calls and realizes that Mattias was going to take his own life. Mattias apologizes to her, and the siblings go to the police.
Elsa tells the police everything from the beginning, and as they find evidence against Robert, they believe her.
Robert’s partner is arrested, and the police take credit for putting an end to unlawful reindeer slaughter.
However, seeing reindeer in pain still hurts Mattias, even when there are no humans involved, so his mother takes him to get psychological help.
While he is gone, Elsa and her father take care of the herd. Elsa believes that Nástegállu gave her the strength to keep fighting.
The film ends with Elsa teaching a young boy everything she was taught by Lasse and her family when she was young.