Sundance Exclusive Review: Promising Young Woman

“Promising Young Woman” is one of those films that begins with a very good idea. Ideas that involve the camera lasciviously objectifying men on a dance floor the way women typically are. Granted, it’s played for laughs rather than sex appeal, since there’s nothing resembling eye candy, but you can’t have everything. Or maybe it’s an early indicator of what the movie’s real agenda is, which is condemning anyone who violates its ideas of what good behaviour should be, rather than people who suffer from such expectations.

Not that it’s a bad idea to condemn violence, which is the real villain in “Promising Young Woman.” In case the marketing left any doubt, the movie addresses a very specific kind of violence that dares not speak its name here. Continue reading Sundance Exclusive Review: Promising Young Woman

The Very Last Day Examined

Sexual assault is a crime that has been perpetrated upon far too many women; some who’ve unfortunately gone through this may find this film to be one too difficult to sit through. An experience like this is not one which needs re-living–especially when it hits this close to home (which happens to be the case of the director/screenwriter/producer, Cédric Jouaire according to my press notes). 

A best-selling writer is seduced, then kidnapped by a stalker who accuses him of rape. She claims that the rape occurred 20 years ago and that he has used her personal tragedy and exploited it by making it the plot of his latest novel. The author insists that this is merely a coincidence and that his work is merely one of fiction, yet the vengeful woman persistently forces him to confess. Continue reading The Very Last Day Examined

ITOL Top 50 Films of the Decade, Entry No. 16: Revenge

A young woman arrives in an idyllic poolside estate overlooking the desert with her wealthy, older boyfriend. She is scantily clad and coquettish–working a lollipop in quite the lasciviously suggestive way. What seems like a hedonist fantasy at first (an older, wealthy, married man all alone in a beautiful house with a young sexy woman and a weekend filled with their vices of choice: drugs, alcohol, sex) gets upended when Richard’s (Kevin Janssens) sketchy pals, Stan (Vincent Colombe) and Dimitri (Guillaume Bouchède) arrive unannounced. This sticky situation is further aggravated when, during a night of partying, Jen (Matilda Lutz) proceeds to drunkenly flirt with them all.  Continue reading ITOL Top 50 Films of the Decade, Entry No. 16: Revenge

31 Days of Horror, Day 3: Revenge

The sub-genre of “rape-revenge” movies has often proved to be an uncomfortable viewing experience. A staple of Grindhouse and horror, it has the potential to present the empowerment of a victim over her (and it always is a her) attackers. Yet all too often such films explicitly linger on the cruelty and assault, throwing in nudity which seems designed to titillate rather than bring sympathy and aimed to appeal towards the desires of a male audience.

With Coralie Fargeats “Revenge” (2018) a balance is addressed, which reclaims the tropes of the genre to offer a bloody and gory empowering female perspective. Continue reading 31 Days of Horror, Day 3: Revenge