The Tearsmith tells the story of Nica and Rigel, two orphans who fall in love after getting adopted by a couple. The film is now streaming on Netflix.
Warning: This article contains heavy spoilers
Plot summary
A young girl named Nica is brought to the Sunny Creek Orphanage, nicknamed the Grave by the children who live there, after losing her parents in a car accident.
The most popular story among the children is that of the Tearsmith, who lived in a world where people could not cry or feel emotions.
The Tearsmith, a lonely being, had the ability to cry crystal tears. People sought him out to experience emotions by receiving his tears.
The Tearsmith put his tears into people’s eyes, enabling them to experience various emotions, which ultimately disillusioned them.
The Grave was not very different from this fictional place. The orphanage’s caretaker, Margaret, did not let the children feel emotions.
She physically and mentally abused the children, especially Nica. The only child she never harmed was Rigel, whom she considered her own son.
Nica kept hoping that she would get adopted one day, and that day finally comes in her late teens when Anna and Norman adopt her.
At the last minute, the couple also decides to adopt Rigel after hearing him play the piano. Rigel is considered perfect, and many people have wanted to adopt him.
Despite refusing previous adoption offers, Rigel agrees when asked by Anna and Norman. The couple takes Nica and Rigel home for a trial period, after which they can officially adopt them.
Nica does not get along with Rigel, but she is happy to finally have a family. At her new school, she befriends two girls named Billie and Miki.
Nica and Rigel are attracted to each other, but Rigel keeps giving Nica mixed signals, making it difficult for her to understand him.
Nica also grows close to a student named Lionel, which bothers Rigel. What Nica does not know is that Rigel has loved her since the day he met her.
He was the one who always held Nica’s hand when Margaret locked her in the cellars to punish her, but Nica thought it was her best friend, Adeline.
Rigel still has Nica’s mother’s necklace, which Margaret forced Nica to give up. In fact, Rigel only agreed to let Anna and Norman adopt him because he did not want to be away from Nica.
However, Rigel keeps pushing Nica away because Margaret has made him believe that he is a monster. Nica starts to think of him as the Tearsmith, who makes her cry.
Over time, Nica sees beyond the façade of anger and harshness that Rigel maintains to keep her at a distance. She even takes care of him when he falls sick in Anna and Norman’s absence.
On Rigel’s birthday, Anna invites Adeline, who asks Nica to testify against Margaret in court. The children of the orphanage are planning to press charges against her.
However, Nica believes she is too broken to face Margaret again. Adeline also asks Rigel to confess his feelings to Nica, but he continues to believe that he is the villain in Nica’s fairytale.
Despite this, Nica comes to believe that the two of them can heal together. Later that night, they share a kiss, but Rigel, fearing he will only end up hurting Nica, once again pushes her away.
Ending explained:
Heroes and villains
Nica goes to the school dance, whereas Rigel, who has not been talking to her, initially decides not to attend but later changes his mind and goes anyway.
Lionel, whom Nica keeps rejecting, apologizes to Nica for a previous argument about her relationship with Rigel and asks her to dance, to which she agrees.
When Nica starts feeling sick, Lionel takes her to an empty classroom. Lionel kisses Nica and forces himself on her when she rejects him again.
Rigel comes to Nica’s rescue and fights Lionel. After the fight, Nica tells Rigel that villains are only labeled as such because someone deems them so, and they are not always bad.
Even if Rigel is a villain, she cannot imagine a fairytale without him. Nica also tells him that she is not afraid of getting hurt.
This prompts Rigel to finally give in to his feelings for her. The two of them then end up sleeping together.
Standing up to Margaret
Lionel, annoyed after being rejected, decides to get revenge on Nica and Rigel. He tries to run them over with his car, resulting in Nica and Rigel jumping off a tall bridge.
Later, Nica wakes up in the hospital. While she was unconscious, she recalls that it was Rigel who held her hand whenever Margaret punished her.
Nica asks about Rigel and finds out that Rigel’s body broke her fall and now he is in a coma. It turns out that Rigel has neuromas in his brain, which have been making him sick all this while.
Margaret did not get him treated for it, and now the tumor is complicating his current condition. Nica also finds out that Margaret is not allowing anyone to see Rigel.
She is still Rigel’s legal guardian, as Rigel had refused to be adopted by Anna and Norman. Rigel had planned to leave, so he had left Nica’s mother’s necklace for her.
Margaret, blaming Nica for Rigel’s condition, rejects her pleas to see him. This leads Nica to realize that Margaret hurt Rigel as well by forcing him to watch his friends get abused.
This realization prompts her to agree to testify against Margaret, hoping to free herself and Rigel from Margaret’s control.
Nica’s fairytale ending
In court, a boy who had lived in the orphanage gets scared of Margaret and ends up changing his testimony.
When it is Nica’s turn to talk about how Margaret abused the children, Margaret’s lawyer intimidates her, and Nica rushes out in a panic. However, Anna is there to comfort her.
Anna brings Nica back, and this time, Nica bravely narrates her experience at the orphanage, which earns her a round of applause from the people in the courtroom.
Nica takes out the bandages she started wearing at the orphanage and rushes out once again, but this time to meet Rigel.
She sits by Rigel’s side and tells him that he is her Tearsmith because he can evoke both tears and happiness just by looking at her. She confesses her love for him, and Rigel wakes up.
The two of them eventually have a daughter together. Nica, who has now found a family, friends, and love, realizes that the greatest fairytales can be found in one’s heart.