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JuleenAnn's Replies
I think the whole point is that as much as people might not want to admit it, everything this movie portrays about women is often true and is a part of our humanity whether we like it or not. The feminist movement is bullshit bc it in fact pathologizes the female essence. It's NOT a "myth" that "women get attached to men they sleep with and then act desperate for those men", are you kidding me, this happens all the time. Women are wired to be more attachment-seeking, social conditioning pathologizes this and makes it wrong, and then "feminism" tries to force women into being less attachment-seeking and more like men are wired, which is to be more independent. There is nothing wrong w any of that innate wiring, but we MAKE it into something wrong.
I noticed that too and chalked it up to the fact that dancing probably isn't Bradley Cooper's strength at all, and it was just easier to not have to have him learn any choreography when it worked well enough to just let Jennifer Lawrence carry the dancing scenes.
I think it's just a great example of the many facets of humanity that everyone has anyway..he can also be dumb as a stump but very sophisticated in some ways!
No not necessarily, bc what they believed she did WAS malicious...like I was saying, once ppl are targeted they will become defensive and lose their ability to think rationally, that's how and why it is easy to manipulate them. The stuff that was in that email was so extreme; "she" wished the sister's death and slammed and criticized her whole personality. Then clocked a child in the face REALLY frigging hard. It automatically put everyone in the position where empathy was not going to really be accessible to them bc what happened was so personally hurtful and threatening to them. That's what makes that type of manipulation so "brilliantly" effective.
I actually think in the trailer they used a line that was in the movie that I thought I remembered hearing, but w an image from a different scene, which made it appear like a different part but I think it was just the way they spliced things. But really if they thought that was so creepy then why not actually film it that way lol. Unless it was too late by the point the trailer is made I suppose. There was also a line in the trailer where she says eventually "he even controlled what I thought", which I thought would have been a super creepy thing to do in a movie, so I was a little disappointed that that was a bit misleading too lol bc that wasn't really what she was talking abt. Although it was in fact creepy when she then went on to explain how he "knew" what she was thinking one time when she was contemplating how to leave him..
This film made me exceedingly physically uncomfortable in my body, and I give props to any film that can do that. The sound had a lot to do w it including the deafening sound effect whenever (or often) there was a bodily impact, it really just made it seem shockingly violent.
No there isn't but that's kind of a funny comparison lol. I just saw Hereditary last night actually.
Yes in fact I was in the middle of trying to bring everyone I knew to the theater to see it and was rudely interrupted by the Covid-19 pandemic 🙄
I'm actually not even sure I noticed that abt the gun at the time; the thing that bothered me the most was that when she ran out of the hospital waving a gun, something clearly being amiss, why did it take FOREVER for anyone to run out after her??? They were sitting right there by the door.
The way it was shot, it appeared to me that Cecelia was close enough to reach her, and even though it came out of literally nowhere, it was disorienting enough to make it believable, bc the brain is just going to fill in that gap logically for you if you get hit and someone is within arm's length. Maybe that wasn't actually the case in the scene, but that's how I remembered it being anyway.
I think the sister did know something abt the abuse, bc Cecelia began to tell her when they were sitting at the table shortly after they learned of Adrian's "death".
I found this aspect the most disturbing thing in the whole movie, knowing that this is a common dynamic, and that it is not that difficult to do. I'm a therapist and see sociopaths manipulate groups of ppl all the time. All they need to do is to start to trigger their target and then use their reactions against them. And when someone is in a abusive relationship, they are pretty much ALWAYS triggered. Meaning their responses become reactivity that begins to make them more and more vulnerable, until there is nothing they can say or do to be believed anymore. It is horrifying to see this happening in the real world.
If you are familiar w the dynamics of sociopathic abuse, this was pretty believable. In fact this was the scariest part of this movie to me, knowing that this is a dynamic that does happen. But especially, in this case, the alternative was having to believe in something that was akin to being supernatural. For any average person, the brain will only allow something like that as a last resort and even then it will resist it heavily. It was and is a lot more believable unfortunately to begin to question the deteriorating stability of a trauma victim instead, esp if said victim appears to act in ways that are personally hurtful to others, which is something that also makes the brain not think clearly, if it feels it's being attacked in some way. The human brain is very very easy to manipulate, if someone knows exactly what they are doing.
Personally I found this aspect of the film TERRIFYING, watching this guy systematically dismantle this girl's whole life and taking away one by one everyone and everything that afforded her any safe foundation, even her basic literal freedom. He completely made everything she was a complete lie and she had absolutely nothing left, even her ability to communicate the truth was compromised bc he took away any reasonable ability for anything she said or did to be credible...rendering everything abt the normal world completely threatening to her, no refuge or recourse whatsoever.
I think it's so so interesting what makes something terrifying for one person and not another. I can see why ppl think that there are a lot of "things we've seen before", but for me they felt fresh (except that ending). There was something abt the way this film was done that allowed it to get away w using certain imagery and plot points and still have it be creepy AF. I actually also have never seen a film handle the immediate aftermath of a tragic death the way this one did w the son in shock just going upstairs and leaving the body in the car for the family to find. That whole thing had my jaw on the floor.
For me it was Toni Collette crouched up in that corner of the son's room watching him in this you-can-barely-see-it type of way for what felt like FOREVER. Personally for some reason for me that's one of the scariest types of imagery in general is that hovering up in the corner of the room or on the ceiling thing.
Sorry I'm replying to such an old thread but I just saw this movie last night lol. I agree the ending was too over-the-top for me and predictable, but the movie was so well done in other ways that this is forgiveable as someone else said. There are so many movies that feel as if they've had this same type of overkill (HA!) ending that it is almost too out there to be scary. I'm talking abt the final final scene w him going up into the treehouse where it's finally all narrated of what was happening.
The decapitation I feel I've seen before, maybe not a kid, but I feel that's been done. But it was done pretty well here.
I'm realizing how old these threads are that I'm replying to lol but I agree that I've never seen anything like that before, not necessarily just the decapitation but the son's response it was so so so bizarre. But I love when there are aspects like that in movies that are unique. And yes the moments after the decapitation happened were equally as horrifying w the reality of what just happened sunk in..
This was perhaps one of the most disturbing parts of the movie for me was how they played that scene, it was super unique I thought bc you weren't expecting such a strange response. You had to suspend your disbelief around the odds of someone being so in shock that that happened that way, but the effect especially of the camera on his face lying in bed listening to his family in the morning going abt as usual until the mother got to the car, was SO disturbing to me!!!!
I absolutely hate spoilers so I only usu glance at the very beginning of a review to get the gist and even then sometimes it's too much 🙄