hello lovelies! i’m not marking this review as containing spoilers, because i want to say some things that are very important to me, much as in my review of the master. but! i will be talking about the ending of this film in detail, so please be forewarned. and make no mistake: THE ENDING IS ESSENTIAL. content warning for lots of discussion of abuse.
the central uncertainty here isn't, as a lot of people have thought, ‘is howard abusive or is…
if i quote you in this review, i promise i don’t hate you or dislike you; i love and respect your work, which is why i’m engaging with you! ❤
it’s properly gobsmacking how many people misinterpret this movie. or movies about abuse in general. i’m not trying to say that this film is difficult; it’s elliptical, sure, but not in any sense puzzlingly so. every scene has a direct connection to the next and completely understands its place in…
have you ever watched a film and been so deeply, profoundly moved by its unabashed—no, brazen open-heartedness in the face of catastrophic cause for systemic despair that you came crawling back to letterboxd after nigh-on two years too shut-up to write a review?
this is the rainbow god set in the sky to promise she would never destroy me.
i love her with all my heart.
she makes me new.
was all set to talk about blanche’s description of high-school english literature as hawthorne & whitman & poe, and how much this whole text in itself feels like a high-school english required reading—probably is in some places—and also note oh hey huey long mention wow! but by the time the lights came up parts of my body were moving involuntarily and shortly after that i was in fairly unpleasant convulsions, even if admittedly for only a few seconds, so i guess this film has that going for it, or against it, left as an interesting exercise for the interested reader
everyone in this film is so earnest—about fashion or first love or skateboarding or getting students to care for people in need—and so rewarded for earnestly trying to be better. mean girls wants its audience to regard its sick burns as sick burns, and the characters suffer for it. in clueless, 'you're a virgin who can't drive' is a devastating moment that must be resolved, and the resolution comes in the form of mutual overflowing heartfelt over-the-top apologies, which is honestly the sweetest thing i've ever seen on-screen and i would watch seventy thousand films consisting of nothing but that sort of relationship dynamic
