Issue #32: The Horrors of Womanhood đč
Kindred + Promising Young Woman
This week felt like one long deep breath. Not in a bad way â the first half of the week we sucked air in and waited for Wednesday, and now here we are, on Friday continuing to remind ourselves what it is to truly exhale. Thereâs work to be done all around, but with 17 executive orders under our belts on Day 1, it feels like maybe we can actually start tackling the hard stuff.
So this week weâre bringing you reviews of two movies that explore some hard stuff. Womanhood is a blessing, but every rose has its thorns: In Promising Young Woman, Zosha explores rape culture and the daily chasm of grief. And in Kindred, Cate looks at the helplessness that comes with a loss of control. Itâs a rough week, but weâll muddle through.
Zosha on Promising Young Woman
The word that popped into my head moments after stopping Promising Young Woman, and has rattled its way into every discussion about the film Iâve had since is: electrifying. To indulge whimsy for a moment, the word carries with it a certain tone in my mind â itâs eLECtriFYing â but in this case it felt darker, like a third rail, a shiver through your spine that loosens a crack you didnât even know you had. Because lord, what a fucking film.
I should also note that Promising Young Woman is fantastic to go into blindâitâs heady stuff, and you want to be prepared for that, but even knowing the bones of the film from the trailer felt like too much for me. If it were up to me you would stop reading this (or at least just read Cateâs), go watch the film, then come back to discuss. Ye be warned; spoilers abound.
What I love about Promising Young Woman is how the movie is always exactly what it purports to be, and yet indulges our idea of what it might be anyway. Itâs a black comedy, about a woman who ensnares would-be assaulters and punishes them accordinglyâright up until itâs not. Sure, itâs a ârape revengeâ film, but I might put a comma between those, and itâs got a fluffy pink aestheticâat least, until the point where it isnât those things.The truth is Promising Young Woman is never those things. Itâs not a film about the rage of revenge so much as the misery of it. This is a movie about grief, and how it can swallow your whole life. With expert (and exquisite) care by first-time writer/director Emerald Fennell, Promising Young Woman braids the strands of its story together, weaving them together until they are all choked out by each other.
It is not easy to watch â bone-deep sadness never is. And yet, almost as soon as it was over, I felt another thought rising in my head: I want to watch that again. I am (as friends can attest) not a masochist for these things. But I have a deep appreciation for those who can make something so enthralling, so impeccably constructed, that whatever faults (and, sure PYW has them) a film has feels secondary to its hefty weight on my mind. PYW sits with me, days later, and I feel precious about my thoughts on it, straying away from coverage I was so excited to read. Itâs such a gift to get to pick apart a film like this, something that so deeply considers the subject matter of sexual assault without being owned by it.
In the world of Promising Young Woman, sexual assault is a benign threat and an acutely felt one, at all times. Sexual violence is a dialect of the world Cassie (Carey Mulligan with an all-timer) moves through, and she has made herself fluent by necessity. Itâs not unfamiliar, but in the hands of Fennell, itâs certainly lit by a harsh glare. To balance the various tones â ârape, revenge,â drama, black comedy, even rom-com at parts â Fennell is surreptitious with information. She doles out what we get to know in drabs, using the time in between to solidify a character study that will pay dividends once the whole picture is revealed. Mulligan is carnivorous in the role, sometimes opaque but always stunningly lived-in.
Again and again the pair teach you what youâre watching. Despite drawing you in with the idea of a glitzy revenge thriller, Cassieâs night life is punctured by sharp needle drops, each more fitting than the last (A slow, thematic cover of âItâs Raining Menâ or the piercing violins of âToxicâ). And yet her daily life is all diegetic sound, sometimes even silence. We feel lulled into the idea of an avenging angel only to be confronted with the idea that this is a situation much more common than we care to admit.
As the film shudders into its conclusion, I found myself still doubting the writing on the wallâthis despite the numerous violations, cruelties, even reliefs I had been afforded. In the world of Promising Young Woman there is no such thing as a purely happy ending. But maybe thatâs the most electrifying thing about it: by refusing to give us the movie we wanted, it gave us a movie far better.
Cate on Kindred
One of the jokes of Black AF, the Netflix retread of Kenya Barrisâ series Blackish is that all of the episode titles posit that every issue black people currently face is rooted in slavery. For the showâs purpose, itâs a tongue in cheek reference to the racial self-consciousness of the showsâ protagonist. For the purposes of Kindred, it serves as a reminder that the tentacles of historical racial trauma are never far enough from the present day.
In Kindred, Charlotte (Tamara Lawrance) is drawn into a malicious web of gaslighting and deceit when her loving boyfriend Ben (Edward Holcroft) dies suddenly in a freak accident during a visit to his motherâs decaying estate. Newly and reluctantly pregnant, Charlotte tries to continue her pursuit of the life they had planned to build together, only to find herself thwarted at every turn by Benâs mother Margaret (Fiona Shaw) and her enterprising stepson Thomas (Jack Lowden).
The intrusions begin mildly enoughâthe pair takes over the arrangements of Benâs funeral and organize his effects. But things quickly ratchet into disquiet and terror as Margaret sells the cottage Charlotte and Ben lived in together out from under her, leaving her with no place else to go.
It soon becomes clear that the subject of Margaretâs fixation is Charlotteâs pregnancy. Controlling and rigid in her sonsâ youth, Margaret was initially apoplectic at the prospect of the young coupleâs plans to move to Australia, and take her grandchild with them. Now, with Ben gone and Charlotte helpless, she imposes her will so firmly that Charlotte is left fighting for her life.
Kindred was terrifying to watch because it was marked not by force or physical violence but continued and unending gaslighting. Charlotte had never wanted children, sensitive to her own motherâs debilitating postpartum psychosis. Margaret uses this trepidation against her, insisting that Charlotte is not well, cannot take care of herself, and must be forced to stay in her and Thomasâs care. The two work together to drug and subdue Charlotte, confine her to their sprawling home and ensure that she has no means of escape.
Naturally, Charlotte is resourceful and repeatedly concocts schemes to try to get away. But Margaret, Thomasâand soon it seems, the entire townâ are conspiring to keep her imprisoned and on her back foot. A doctor she approaches for a possible abortion, chastises her then confirms Margaretâs lay-diagnosis of insanity. A stable hand she reaches out to for help drives her right back onto the property. Nothing and nowhere is safe for her, an all too apt metaphor for the dangers that black women face in the real world.
Charlotteâs blackness makes the terror of the story all the more visceral. Here she is, a young black mother trying in vain to take control of her own fertility and her life, only to be thwarted again and again by the white people around her who refuse her that right. All the while, she dreams of crowsâominous symbols of death that haunt her. But no matter her efforts, no matter the dangers she endures, no one will help her. In the end, it is the product of her conceptionâ the child she didnât want but now wishes only to protectâthat marks her only value.
The filmâs ending was so upsetting that I sobbed. After one last failed escape attempt, Charlotte crashes the getaway car she is driving and wakes up in a hospital, no longer pregnant. Her child was born when she was unconscious and has been delivered into the custody of her jailers. Now, she is imprisoned forever in a mental health facility, lost to timeâa newly established statistic, separated from her child. The despair on Charlotteâs face as Thomas took her son away will haunt me forever. As it turns out, the scariest part of Kindred is that itâs all too real.
Assorted Internet Detritus
CATE: Lots to read this week including a remembrance of Samantha Jones, an essay about the problem with âhot for teacherâ narratives, a look at the aesthetics of fascism, a note about the best show you didnât watch (itâs about cheerleaders), a recognition that sports movies are good actually, and my personal favourite, a breakdown of why weâre all into sea shanties right now.
ZOSHA: The unexpected shared world of The Crown and Loverâs Rock. Why you should always choose the tiniest spoon to eat something with. Iâve now watched one (1) whole season of GBBO, so please accept this about how its kindness sets it apart. The ever-changing world of Star Wars figures and dolls. A surprisingly salient and intriguing discussion of why it matters what is film and what is TV.
See you next week!
Settling into a new administration and yelling about movies,
Zosha + Cate <3
Twitter:@30FlirtyFilm
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