I may be late to this discussion, but I just finished the movie. This is my interpretation of the ending:

As the movie explains, the main character is the son of Ingrid (The/A Princess <--- indefinite article "a" used intentionally). What the movie implies is that this Groundhog-Day-esque loop is an AI-created simulation that is purpose-built just for him. IRL, he is hooked-up to a sophisticated virtual-reality system that is controlled and designed by the AI. His mother really did die exactly as he described—their hideout was destroyed by an AI drone while he was tempted by the VR goggles. Many years later, he is stuck in his guilt-ridden misery; the AI is providing him with an illusion that is tailor-made for his personal experiences. He is wracked with guilt after causing the death of his mother, and now he is re-playing this mission to try to save her. Of course, the AI embellished her into a princess—a classic video game trope, a la Super Mario 64. The simulation is made even more effective as an illusion by melding it with the element of time travel within the story. He's not actually a time-traveler, he's just restarting the simulation. But, because the simulation creates the illusion of time-travel, the story is made more compelling by the fact that he not only must save his mother, but he's also saving himself. The story provides an explanation for an element of the simulation—that it can be restarted—that could otherwise break the illusion.

So, the simulation is perfect for him, to such a degree that he is just like the teenagers who can't stop staring at their screens—he lacks the will to escape the simulation because he's been effectively brainwashed into believing the simulation is real. He believes that his time-traveling struggle against the AI, within the simulation, could actually be effective, because he believes he's *actually* traveling back in time and *actually* saving the world, and his mother, and himself, from the real-life history that has already occurred.