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Ginger & Rosa
Feb. 27th, 2014 09:57 amLondon, 1962. Seventeen-year-old Ginger can’t stop worrying about the atomic bomb. Ginger’s best friend Rosa, born on the same day, is worried too - about whether Ginger’s father Roland will realize that Rosa is his true love.
Roland is a famous pacifist thinker, beloved by the Left and persecuted by the government, which put him in solitary confinement during World War II. The adoration and the martyrdom have combined in Roland’s mind to make him morally infallible in his own eyes: if he wants to abandon Ginger’s mother, sleep with Ginger’s best friend, and use Ginger as a cover for his illicit affair, clearly this is because he’s sticking it to conventional morality and not because he’s a terrible, selfish human being.
It’s the “using Ginger as a cover” bit that is simply gobsmacking. Not content to simply boink Rosa behind his daughter’s back, Roland all but rubs Ginger’s nose in his betrayal of Ginger’s mother. When he takes Rosa on his yacht for a tryst, he takes Ginger too, so that observers will think he’s just taking his daughter and her BFF for a nice sail.
Worst. Father. Ever.
On top of everything else, he’s basically trained Ginger that she’s not allowed to have needs. Having grown up watching her father dismiss her mother’s expression of needs as “emotional blackmail” (which seems to be defined as “wanting something that is inconvenient for Roland”), Ginger never complains about any of his behavior.
Unable to express emotions about the wreck of her personal life, Ginger channels her pain into worrying about the atomic bomb. It’s not that her worry is not sincere, but it becomes stronger because it’s the only worry she’s allowed to express: it’s a worry that Roland approves of, that doesn’t make any demands on him, unlike her pain over his affair with Rosa.
Ginger never says anything about his affair with Rosa. She stares down at her plate of spaghetti and weeps, but she doesn’t speak, because she knows it won’t do her any good. And she hopes against hope that keeping quiet might convince her father that she’s a good girl and deserves to have him take account of her feelings.
Worst. Father. Ever.
Ginger & Rosa is emotionally very effective. Just thinking about Roland makes me angry; I all but threw things at the screen when no one smacked him across the face during the climax. But it’s also somewhat one-note. I felt bad for Ginger, but the filmmakers didn’t give any of the characters enough substance to make me love them. Probably not worth seeing unless you want to get your righteous rage on.
Roland is a famous pacifist thinker, beloved by the Left and persecuted by the government, which put him in solitary confinement during World War II. The adoration and the martyrdom have combined in Roland’s mind to make him morally infallible in his own eyes: if he wants to abandon Ginger’s mother, sleep with Ginger’s best friend, and use Ginger as a cover for his illicit affair, clearly this is because he’s sticking it to conventional morality and not because he’s a terrible, selfish human being.
It’s the “using Ginger as a cover” bit that is simply gobsmacking. Not content to simply boink Rosa behind his daughter’s back, Roland all but rubs Ginger’s nose in his betrayal of Ginger’s mother. When he takes Rosa on his yacht for a tryst, he takes Ginger too, so that observers will think he’s just taking his daughter and her BFF for a nice sail.
Worst. Father. Ever.
On top of everything else, he’s basically trained Ginger that she’s not allowed to have needs. Having grown up watching her father dismiss her mother’s expression of needs as “emotional blackmail” (which seems to be defined as “wanting something that is inconvenient for Roland”), Ginger never complains about any of his behavior.
Unable to express emotions about the wreck of her personal life, Ginger channels her pain into worrying about the atomic bomb. It’s not that her worry is not sincere, but it becomes stronger because it’s the only worry she’s allowed to express: it’s a worry that Roland approves of, that doesn’t make any demands on him, unlike her pain over his affair with Rosa.
Ginger never says anything about his affair with Rosa. She stares down at her plate of spaghetti and weeps, but she doesn’t speak, because she knows it won’t do her any good. And she hopes against hope that keeping quiet might convince her father that she’s a good girl and deserves to have him take account of her feelings.
Worst. Father. Ever.
Ginger & Rosa is emotionally very effective. Just thinking about Roland makes me angry; I all but threw things at the screen when no one smacked him across the face during the climax. But it’s also somewhat one-note. I felt bad for Ginger, but the filmmakers didn’t give any of the characters enough substance to make me love them. Probably not worth seeing unless you want to get your righteous rage on.
