The Nobody Family
Nemo Nobody
Nemo Nobody
Portrayed By: Jared Leto (adult and old man), Toby Regbo (teenager) and Thomas Byrne (child)
In General
Born on February 9th, 1975 to a happy couple, Nemo is unique because prior to his birth the Angels of Oblivion forgot to erase his knowledge of all possible futures, meaning he is able to experience multiple futures and timelines all at once. Nemo’s potential futures can be divided into three categories, depending on which girl he ends up falling in love and marrying, with other timelines being included. One of these timelines leads him to become the last mortal in a future where humanity has prevented aging, and at 118 years old is now facing his last days when a reporter asks him for his life story.- Alliterative Name: His name is Nemo Nobody.
- Ambiguous Situation: His exact understanding of his ability to perceive alternate timelines seems to vary between each life and how old he is. The Mind Screw nature of the film and Gainax Ending leave it unclear whether he's a child imagining the future, a confused old man having a Dying Dream or whether his ability to experience multiple timelines are causing him to witness strange and unexplainable events.
- Childhood Friend Romance: Subverted as he was never close friends with them, but he knew Anna, Elise and Jean by name when they were children and they are the three women he ends up marrying in different timelines.
- Cursed with Awesome: The Angels of Oblivion forgot to erase his memories of the future, meaning that Nemo is able to see all his potential futures. This leaves him troubled, as he constantly shifts between one life to another and he becomes depressed over how miserable his life turns out. After seeing how all his lives play out however, this ability allows him to Take a Third Option which hopefully leads to a better life.
- Forgot About His Powers: He doesn't always seem to know, or be aware, of his ability to see the future and alternate timelines.
- Forgotten First Meeting: Whenever Nemo runs into Anna in timelines where they were never a couple, neither of them recall having known each other as children. This makes sense since they wouldn't have seen each other for decades.
- Friendless Background: Nemo isn't shown to have friends as a child or as a teenager, while the version who lived with his father was apparently considered weird by all his classmates.
- Meaningful Name: His last name is Nobody, and as far as anyone can tell he's the Un-person with there being no evidence of his existence.
- Omniscient Hero: Nemo remembers all the possible futures, though it's played with since he doesn't always seem to know everything.
- Point of Divergence: The first choice he makes which creates all the other possible futures is whether he should stay with his father or leave with his mother after their divorce.
- Take a Third Option: The ending has the child Nemo doing this, choosing to run from both his mother and father instead of choosing one of them.
- Touched by Vorlons: Inverted, him not being touched by the Angels of Oblivion is why he is able to remember all the possible futures.
- Troubled Teen: In all the timelines, he becomes troubled due to his ability to perceive multiple futures and timelines.
- Un-person: There no evidence of Nemo Nobody existing by 2092, which is why his therapist and the journalist are trying to bring back his memories. It might be because he was never born in that timeline.
Anna’s Nemo
- Disappeared Dad: He never mentions his dad in this timeline.
- Earn Your Happy Ending: It took almost twenty years for him to be reunited with Anna, but due to the rain he loses her number. This leaves him nothing to do but wait for her at a specific location, until finally she visits and they happily resume their relationship.
- Flirty Stepsiblings: Him and Anna being stepsiblings doesn’t stop them from falling in love.
- Future Loser: In the main timeline he ends up a pool cleaner, having used most of his motivation waiting to see Anna again. However in the timeline where he marries Anna, he ends up narrating educational videos.
- In Spite of a Nail: In the timeline where he marries Anna, he eventually starts wearing glasses like Elise’s Nemo and has the same job as the version who experienced Elise’s death.
- One True Love: Deconstructed, he never got over Anna and he ended up wasting his adult life waiting to see her again. This is seemingly why he ended up as a pool cleaner, while his other selves ended up with jobs that paid better.
- Point of Divergence:
- There are two potential timelines where he either insulted Anna, leading them to never get together and meet as adults where she’s got kids of her own, or he ends up marrying her and having kids, before drowning in an accident where his car falls into a lake.
- He's a pool cleaner which is a job none of his other selves have.
Elise’s Nemo
- Awful Wedded Life: He tries to make his marriage work, but he doesn’t know how to help Elise.
- Dead Alternate Counterpart: In two timelines he dies either on the trip to or from Mars.
- In Spite of a Nail:
- If he starts a relationship with Elise, he ends up living in the same house regardless of whether she lives or dies. If she dies, he also ends up with the same job as the version of Nemo who married Anna, who also wears glasses.
- If Elise dies, he either meets Anna at her husband's funeral or while leaving Mars.
- Point of Divergence:
- He wears glasses in this timeline, and unlike one version of Anna's Nemo this doesn't appear to be an affectation.
- He's an executive at a plant that makes photocopying machines, at least until he quits, which is a job none of the other versions of Nemo have.
- In two timelines Elise is killed on their wedding day from an explosion, which leads him to either taking her ashes to Mars or living alone and having a job narrating educational documentaries, while in another Nemo ends up in a coma after seeing Elise with Stefano and suffers an accident on his motorbike.
- Jean’s Nemo is also a derivative of this Nemo.
- Two-Faced: If Elise dies, he gets a small but noticeable burn scar on the left side of his face.
- Visions of Another Self: At one point he briefly sees Anna’s Nemo, who appears to now be homeless. Given the Mind Screw nature of the film, it’s unclear why this happened. As a teenager he writes a science-fiction book about Mars, which eventually comes true in one of his futures where Elise died.
- Widowed at the Wedding: In one version of events, Elise is killed from an explosion on their wedding day while Nemo receives a burn scar on his face. This branches off into two different timelines: he either narrates an educational documentary while never moving on from his wife's death, or he spreads her ashes on Mars like she made him promise that he would.
Jean’s Nemo
- Awful Wedded Life: His lack of passion for his life and growing depression leaves him a miserable marriage, made worse by the fact that he only married Jean since he vowed to marry the first girl to dance with him.
- Dead Alternate Counterpart: His risky and suicidal tendencies eventually catch up with him after he steals the identity of another man, and is then killed by someone who believed he was that man.
- Driven to Suicide: His depression leads him to make risky decision and to try and kill himself.
- Heads or Tails?: His depression leads him to Take a Third Option, and instead of making choices he just flips a coin when confronted with a decision. This leads to his death when he takes the identity of another man.
- Lonely at the Top: Subverted, as he has a loving family. But he feels lonely after achieving everything he wanted.
- Mighty Whitey and Mellow Yellow: He's a wealthy and successful white man who's choices affected his entire relationship with Jean, who's little more than a Flat Character especially when compared to his wives in other timelines.
- Point of Divergence: He’s the result of Elise telling Nemo that she loved Stefano and Nemo, being upset with being rejected, deciding to marry the first girl to dance with him, which ends up being Jean.
- Ridiculously Successful Future Self: Deconstructed. Once he was just a weird kid obsessed with space, taking care of his disabled father and writing a science fiction book as a way to cope. Then Elise broke his heart and he set out specific goals to achieve, such as marrying Jean and becoming wealthy and successful. But now that's he's achieved everything he set out to do, he’s completely miserable being married to a woman he doesn’t love and having achieved everything he wants means there are no more challenges in his life. This makes him suicidal, especially since he feels that there are no more choices or excitement to be had though this might have more to do with his ability to perceive alternate timelines.
- Same Character, But Different: He lived the exact same life as Elise’s Nemo up until choosing to date Jean, dedicating himself to gaining all the material wealth he could want.
- Visions of Another Self: Since he lived the same life as Elise's Nemo, he once wrote a science-fiction book about Mars that eventually came true in the timeline where Nemo takes Elise's ashes to Mars.
Mr. Nobody
Mr. Nobody
Portrayed By: Rhys Ifans
Nemo’s father, who is traumatised after his car accidentally ran over a woman which leads to his divorce.- Ambiguous Situation: The circumstances behind him being in a wheelchair and his decreased ability to understand what is happening is never explained.
- Uncertain Doom: His fate in timelines where Nemo lives with his mother is unknown, as he doesn’t even get a passing mention. Given that the circumstances behind him losing the ability to walk, and his decreased ability to understand what is happening, are never explained, it’s unlikely he survived without Nemo. It’s also unclear what happened to him once Nemo becomes an adult.
Mrs. Nobody
Mrs. Nobody
Portrayed By: Natasha Little
Nemo’s mother, who ends up having an affair with Anna’s father Harry before leaving Nemo’s father to move to Montreal.- Abusive Parent: While Nemo does intentionally try to anger her, she at one point slaps Nemo for saying when Harry will die and later says that he could have stayed with his father. She also admits that she wonders whether he somehow moved the handbreak so the car to move and run over the woman with the baby.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: It’s never explained what happens to her when Nemo becomes an adult, and she only reunites with her ex-husband in the timeline where Nemo ended up in a coma.
Nemo’s Wives
Anna
Anna
Portrayed By: Diane Kruger (adult), Juno Temple (teenager) and Laura Brumagne (child)
Nemo’s stepsister in the timeline where he left with his mother, who he ends up falling in love with.- Color Motif: She often wears something red, which stands for passion and reflects how Nemo's relationship with her is the happiest.
- Dead Alternate Counterpart: In the timeline where Nemo goes to Mars, she is killed shortly after meeting him. She presumably also died in the timeline shown at the start of the film, where Nemo dies during the trip to Mars.
- First Girl Wins: Sort of, as from Nemo's perspective his relationship with Anna began around the same time as his relationships with Elise and Jean in other timelines, and he knew all three of them as children. However from the viewer's perspective, her relationship with Nemo begins before the others and she's confirmed to be his One True Love across all realities, with the film ending having Adult!Nemo reuniting with Anna.
- Forgotten First Meeting: In the timeline where Nemo stayed with his mother, she doesn't seem to recall that she knew Nemo as a child. This is more understandable in other timelines, where they haven't seen each other for decades.
- In Spite of a Nail: She has a tendency to run into Nemo, however briefly, in a number of timelines.
- One True Love: In the timeline where he lives with his mother, she becomes Nemo’s first and only love with him seemingly being the same. It’s deconstructed however since in order to wait to see him again, she cut herself off from even the possibility of falling in love again and is scared upon being reunited with Nemo. The ending reveals that she’s the only woman for him, as Elise didn’t love Nemo and he never loved Jean, and he repeatedly runs into her across multiple timelines.
- Point of Divergence: Her falling in love with Nemo depends on him leaving with his mother and opening up that he can’t swim, as otherwise she ends up marrying Peter and having two kids. Another timeline shows that the two did get married and had two kids of their own, an unnamed son and daughter, before Nemo dies in a car accident. In two other timelines where Elise died, Nemo either meets her at her husband's funeral or on Mars shortly before they die where she explains that she studies time.
Elise
Elise
Portrayed By: Sarah Polley (adult), Clara Stone (teenager) and Lea Thonus (child)
Nemo’s wife in the timeline where he stays with his father, but their marriage is difficult due to her depression and mood swings. They have two daughters, named Joyce and Eve, and a son, named Noah.- Awful Wedded Life: Her emotional issues lead to a bad marriage with Nemo, and she comes to the conclusion that it’s because she’s still in love with Stefano and leaves her family.
- Color Motif: She often wears something blue, which stands for sadness and reflects how all the timelines with her ends badly for both Nemo and Elise.
- Dead Alternate Counterpart: She is killed by an explosion on her wedding day in two timelines.
- Her Own Worst Enemy: Elise’s Mood-Swinger tendencies and emotional issues are what stop her from truly being happy, and she’s painfully aware of this face. However her guilt for being a terrible wife and mother only make her feel worse and cause her to have more meltdowns.
- Like Parent, Like Spouse: It’s implied that Nemo subconsciously noticed similarities between her and his mother, as Anna’s Nemo who got married narrates how attraction might be caused by familiarity. Like his mother she has emotional issues that lead to a bad marriage and a difficult relationship with Nemo.
- Loving a Shadow: Despite claiming to love Stefano, she failed to notice when she meets him again as an adult despite having just been looking at a picture of him.
- Mood-Swinger: She can fall apart and become depressed over the smallest things, but she can also go from that to suddenly being happy and joyful. This causes her the most guilt, since she knows it's hurting her family and that she should be more content with her life.
- Parental Abandonment: She leaves Nemo and her kids, believing that she’s only hurting them.
- Point of Divergence: In two timelines she dies in an explosion, and in one Nemo takes her ashes to Mars like he promised, while in another she goes to the school dance with Stefano and Nemo starts with a relationship with Jean. It's implied that in the timeline where he's in a coma, she becomes his nurse.
- The Resenter: Due to being a Mood-Swinger, she ends up admitting that she resents Nemo and her life with him. However it’s implied she also resents him for trying to be strong in their marriage and support her, making her feel worse for not appreciating him.
Jean
Jean
Portrayed By: Linh Dan Pham (adult), Audrey Giacomini (teenager) and Anais Van Bell (child)
Nemo’s wife in a timeline where he’s rejected by Elise, leading to a passionless marriage after he’s achieved everything he wanted. They have two sons, named Paul and Michael.- Awful Wedded Life: She loves Nemo deeply, but slowly comes to realise that he doesn’t love her.
- Color Motif: She often wears something yellow, which stands for happiness but also caution and reflects how Nemo ends up with a seemingly perfect life but is also completely miserable.
- Flat Character: Unlike Anna and Elise, she gets less characterisation beyond being worried and angered by Nemo’s lack of interest and passion in their marriage and his life.
- Mighty Whitey and Mellow Yellow: She's little more than a Flat Character, especially when compared to Anna and Elise, while Nemo is the one who's choices affected their entire relationship and becomes wealthy.
Other
Angels of Oblivion
Angels of Oblivion
Portrayed By: Alice and Juliette van Dormael
Two angels who, before children are born, are responsible for erasing all of their memories of possible futures. However they failed to erase Nemo’s memories of the future.- Small Role, Big Impact: They appear only briefly, but they missed Nemo and left him with the knowledge of the future. This caused him to experience multiple futures and timelines unlike everyone else in the world.
- The Voiceless: They don’t have any lines of dialogue
Nemo's Children
Joyce, Eve, Noah, Paul and Michael Nobody
Portrayed By: Roline Skehan (Joyce), Emily Tilson, Anders Morris (Noah), Nathan Boydell (Paul), Vincent Dupont (Michael), unknown actor and unknown actress
Nemo's children in the many different timelines. Joyce, Eve and Noah are his children with Elise, Paul and Michael are his sons with Jean, and in some timelines he has an unnamed son and daughter with Anna.
- Alternate Self: Averted, they are all Nemo's children but they're different people to each other. And unlike their parents there aren't any other timelines shown where they exist.
- Out of Focus: Only Elise's children really get any focus, and even then it's simply to show how Elise's mood swings impact Nemo's family. Paul and Michael, much like their mother, have very little to do and Nemo's children with Anna only appear in one scene.
Peter
Peter
Portrayed By: Daniel Brochu
A co-worker of Nemo in the timelines where he married Anna and lost Elise on his wedding day, helping manage his show.- In Spite of a Nail: It seems logical to assume that he’s the man Anna marries in other timelines where she doesn’t start a relationship with Nemo as she has kids in others.
- Point of Divergence: If Nemo marries Anna, he ends up in a car accident and drowns in a lake. If Nemo marries Elise and she dies, he marries Anna and ends up dying in the same car accident instead
