Dude

[osprey_archer]

I wanted something relaxing to watch after an evening of hard-core cooking, so I started watching the Netflix original movie Dude. The preview pictures led me to believe it would be a fairly light-hearted look at four girls’ friendship during the last weeks of high school. HA. In the first, Lily's boyfriend Thomas (who is the brother of Lily's best friend, Chloe) dies in a car crash.

Fast forward a year. Lily is now in charge of senior prom. Multiple characters tell her that she needs to let go of her need for control, delegate, loosen up, etc. There’s an execrable sequence where one of her fellow student council members asks her to prom by singing her a song, accompanied by ukulele, during a student council meeting, with the connivance of the teacher. Lily, horrified, ends the meeting and flees.

But then! But then! Later on, Lily apologizes to him: “I was such a bitch,” she says. HOW DARE SHE HAVE NOT INSTANTLY SAY YES WHEN A GUY SHE DOESN’T WANT TO DATE SINGS TO HER ON A UKULELE IN FRONT OF THE ENTIRE STUDENT COUNCIL. HOW VERY DARE. What a manipulative bullshit move on his part. He’s arranged it so she HAS to say yes or she’ll look mean.

Just to drive this point home, when Lily tells her best friend Chloe about it, Chloe is all, “That’s so sweet!” Thanks for nothing, Chloe. (Chloe secretly wants to go to prom with a guy rather than together with Lily as friends, not that she’s told Lily this. Chloe’s main character note seems to be “vaguely resenting Lily for not knowing things that Chloe hasn’t told her.” I loathe Chloe.)

At this point I decided to look up reviews online to see if this story was going the way that I thought it was going, viz, Lily is going to learn some Very Important Lessons about not being bossy a control freak, probably by having the prom she has labored so hard for go terribly wrong, and also by having her best friend Chloe sneakily back out on their plans to go to college close to each other.

I did not learn if either of those two things happen. My money’s on yes, but I’m not watching the rest to find out, because in the course of checking out reviews I discovered Lily gets raped. This strikes me so hard as “this narrative is punishing a female character for wanting too much control of her life by taking all control away from her.” UGH.

Someday I want to read a book or watch a movie or just in general experience a piece of media about a woman who is a complete control freak and the narrative never tries to teach her a lesson about it at all even slightly.

So I stopped half an hour into the movie. Did not enjoy, do not recommend.

Comments

[staranise]

YIKES.

And yes. I want a movie where a woman is the secret mastermind who engineers an important plot, and there's a part with cool music where all her plans come to fruition interspersed with footage of a Rube Goldberg machine slowly working its way to a satisfying close. And the character who got told a million times NOT to move the thing on her desk moved the thing on her desk and gets totally squashed as a consequence. The thing was keeping them safe.

[osprey_archer]

Did you say: Ocean's 8?

Debbie is the secret mastermind who occasionally drives people (read: Lou) crazy with her intricate plots, but nonetheless they totally work and everyone walks out with like a billion dollars and the narrative never punishes her for it or goes all YOU NEED TO OPEN YOURSELF UP TO LOOOOOOVE, DEBBIE OCEAN. She opened herself to looooooove (or, you know, lust or something) once and how did that end up? PRISON.

[staranise]

I have seen it! But I need MORE. And I especially to see more of the interior of the Debbie/Lou relationship, because they deliberately kept the audience in the dark about what they were up to, and it makes me sulky.

[sovay]

I have seen it! But I need MORE.

Have you seen Bound (1996)? Excellent heist plotting by two women and no narrative punishment.

[staranise]

...*reads up*

Bound is a 1996 American neo-noir crime thriller film written and directed by The Wachowskis in their feature film directorial debut. Violet (Jennifer Tilly), who longs to escape her relationship with her mafioso boyfriend Caesar (Joe Pantoliano), enters into a clandestine affair with alluring ex-con Corky (Gina Gershon), and the two women hatch a scheme to steal $2 million of mafia money.

Bound was the first film directed by the Wachowskis, and they took inspiration from Billy Wilder to tell a noir story filled with sex and violence. Financed by Dino De Laurentiis, the film was made on a tight budget with the help of frugal crew members including cinematographer Bill Pope. The directors initially struggled to cast the lesbian characters of Violet and Corky before securing Tilly and Gershon. To choreograph the sex scenes, the directors employed "sex educator" Susie Bright, who also made a cameo appearance in the film.

HOLY SHIT

[sovay]

HOLY SHIT

IT IS INCREDIBLY GOOD.

I have not yet managed to write about it despite seeing it for Pride last year because every time I try, I just get sort of all-caps incoherently enthusiastic, but it is INCREDIBLY GOOD and I highly recommend it. It is not necessary to have any familiarity with the tropes of film noir in order to enjoy the movie, but if you do, it is especially delightful.

[osprey_archer]

So what I got out of the movie is that they were TOTALLY DATING (if not during then movie, then definitely in the past) but the movie just didn't quiiiiite make that explicit and... c'mon, guys.

I also would have liked to know about the second part of the jewelry heist before it showed up as a surprise at the end. Show us the wheels within wheels, powers that be!

[staranise]

Yes! I'd at least like more of a sense that they were doing SOMETHING extra during the heist, even if you didn't know WHAT.

[rmc28]

I realised at the reveal that I had seen Lou (?) buy the remote-controlled boat thing earlier but hadn't realised that it hadn't been accounted for. I kind of want to watch it again to see if there are any other hints along the way.