Did Max Deserve to Die in The Devil’s Mouth?
If you haven’t watched the movie yet, stay anyway. You love reading Milk Mondays, I love having you here, and we can both politely pretend there are absolutely no spoilers swimming below.
Lana Condor and Gavin Casalegno in the same beach movie should have been a very safe little treat for anyone who still has Lara Jean and Jeremiah living in their head. Instead, Gavin’s Greg becomes shark food, while Lana’s Max spends most of the movie making choices that had me wanting to personally confiscate the cave map from her.
The shark causes the actual bloodshed in The Devil’s Mouth, but Max and Sara’s friendship is what makes the ending interesting. Remove the cave, the flooding and the extremely committed bull shark, and their problem is painfully familiar: Max has become the friend who makes every decision, while Sara has become the friend who agrees because disagreeing feels harder.
You know those friendships where one person books the table, chooses the holiday, speaks to the waiter and somehow also decides where both of you should live after graduation? Max is that friend. At first, it can look helpful. She is confident, organised and always ready with a plan. Slowly, you realise nobody is actually being asked, especially Sara.
Every old friendship creates roles. Max is the brave one who takes charge. Sara is the cautious one who needs reassurance. Those roles probably helped them once, but Sara has outgrown hers and Max has not noticed.
Sara also has a real reason for staying loyal. Max supported her after her father died, so their friendship is carrying years of love and gratitude. Sara behaves as though saying no to Max now would somehow erase everything Max did for her then. It would not, of course, but loyalty can feel strangely close to debt when someone helped you through the worst part of your life.
The boat incident shows this before anyone reaches the cave. Sara goes swimming, the group leaves without noticing and she is badly stung by jellyfish. When they return, Max feels guilty, but she cannot simply sit with the fact that she hurt her friend. She becomes defensive, Sara comforts her, and somehow the person covered in jellyfish stings is also managing everyone else’s emotions. Gorgeous holiday. No notes.
The next day, Max secretly pays Wat, their cave guide, to watch Sara more closely. She is trying to care for her, which is why their friendship is more complicated than “Max is awful.” The problem is that she never asks Sara whether she wants help. Max decides what Sara needs, arranges it privately and then feels hurt when Sara does not appreciate it.
Overprotection can exist alongside genuine closeness, which is exactly why it can be hard to recognise. A controlling friend does not always look controlling. Sometimes she looks like the person who makes life easier for you, until you realise she is also speaking for you, choosing for you and treating your independence like a personal rejection.
Then comes the red path.
Wat explains that the green route is safer. The red route is longer and more dangerous, especially after the recent flooding. Sara wants green, but Max hears “dangerous and not recommended” as a personal invitation and talks everyone into choosing red.
Max does not create the storm or place the shark inside the cave. Wat still agrees to guide them, and the rest of the group chooses to follow. Blaming every death entirely on Max would be too easy. What she does control is how many warnings she ignores after that first decision.
Dead sea animals begin appearing inside the freshwater cave. Adrienne injures her leg. Wat wants to turn back, but Max insists on continuing because she does not want the experience to be wasted. Even after they discover that a bull shark is hunting inside the caves, Max keeps treating every disagreement like a vote she needs to win.
That is the most frustrating thing about her. Max does not listen to find out whether Sara might be right. She listens for a pause where she can take charge again.
Wat, Greg and Adrienne are killed. The group is shrinking, their options are disappearing and Sara is still the person carrying the useful supplies, reading the map and noticing what everyone else misses. Yet Max continues treating her like the nervous friend who needs to be managed.
After the deaths, Sara studies Wat’s map and suggests using the tide to reach an opening connected to the ocean. Max rejects the plan and chooses a route through narrow underwater tunnels instead. Sara and James disagree, but Max starts leaving without them, knowing they will follow because separating feels even more dangerous.
James becomes trapped between the rocks and eventually drowns after telling Sara and Max to leave him behind. When the women finally reach another air pocket, they discover that Max has led them in a complete circle. They are back near the place where Greg and Adrienne died.
And honestly, that circle explains Max better than another dramatic speech ever could. She has spent the entire friendship believing that moving confidently means moving in the right direction. Sara has spent it believing that following Max is safer than trusting herself. Now they are both standing in the same place, except almost everyone they love is dead.
Sara finally tells Max that her choices helped get them there. For once, Max has no plan, no clever reply and nobody left to convince.
My read is that Max’s confidence was never as secure as it looked. Control is simply how she handles fear. If she can organise everything, she never has to admit that she feels helpless. If Sara needs her, she never has to wonder whether Sara might choose a different life without her.
That is why Sara becoming capable feels threatening to Max, even though Max loves her. Sara is supposed to be the cautious sidekick. If Sara can read the map, create the escape plan and survive without being rescued, Max has to accept that their old friendship no longer works.
Lana Condor explained that Max sees Sara as someone she will always have in her “back pocket,” rather than fully recognising her as a separate person. It is a harsh description, but it fits. Max includes Sara in every plan while rarely allowing Sara to shape one.
Near the end, Max finally admits that she was wrong. She recognises Sara’s strength and agrees to follow her plan. The exchange was added shortly before filming because Max needed to truly see Sara before her death. Without it, the shark attack would feel like a punishment written for the irritating character. With it, Max dies just after becoming self aware enough to understand what she ruined.
The movie then makes their friendship very literal. Sara ties herself to Max with a rope so she can help her injured friend climb toward an exit. When the shark grabs Max, Sara is dragged into the water too.
The film is not exactly being subtle here, but it works. Sara has been pulled along by Max’s choices for the entire movie. Now she is physically attached to the consequences of one more decision.
Sara still tries to save her. She cuts the rope only when holding on will kill them both. That is important because she is not abandoning Max out of anger. She is finally accepting that loving someone cannot require her to disappear with them.
Once Sara is alone, she remembers what Wat said about the cave’s unstable rocks. She lures the shark into striking them until the structure collapses and kills it. The knowledge needed to survive was available earlier. Sara simply trusted Max’s judgment more than her own.
So, did Max deserve to die? No. She deserved consequences, a very serious apology and a friendship where Sara was no longer expected to obey her. Being controlling and selfish does not make death a fair punishment.
Still, I understand why her ending feels like karma. Max ignores Sara when the danger is small, ignores her when the danger becomes obvious and keeps ignoring her after people begin dying. By the time she finally listens, there is no safe path left for either of them.
That is also what makes the ending sad. Max was not pretending to love Sara. She simply never learned how to love her without managing her.
Max finally sees that Sara never needed another leader. She needed her best friend.