IT'S COMING BACK.

After a really long hiatus (because life got BUSY), I've decided I should really try to get this back up again. Reviews/criticisms will probably be much more streamlined and will probably feature more than one review per post. Apologies for being away so long.

We take a break from our regularly scheduled programming...

This blog will be taking a brief hiatus for a week, until my spring break. :) Enjoy your break!

Girl, Interrupted - PASS

*Spoil--interrupting cow!--ers.

Girl, Interrupted features one of my favorite Dorothy Parker quips, entitled Resume: "Razors pain you/ Rivers are damp/ Acids stain you/ And drugs cause cramp./ Guns aren't lawful/ Nooses give/ Gas smells awful/ You might as well live." Featuring pre-shoplifting Winona Ryder as said interrupted girl, this film provides an interesting slice of what female mental illness was like in the 1960's. As it takes place in an all-female ward of a mental institution, it passes the Bechdel test quickly and often.

Based on a true story, Girl, Interrupted revolves around Suzanna (Winona Ryder), a young woman placed in a mental institution after she downs a nearly fatal mix of a bottle of asprin and vodka. She is defensive and unhappy with her placement, fixating on the fact that she is certainly not crazy and only had a headache. Over time, she bonds a bit with her fellow patients (who each comes with their own set of neuroticisms and disease), and finally meets Lisa (Angelina Jolie), who is a wild, incorrigible sociopath. She finds a place for herself with the patients, finding real friends for the first time in perhaps her entire life. She's diagnosed with borderline personality disorder, and a few events occur within the asylum--a past boyfriend comes to visit, she ends up escaping with Lisa once before being caught and finally committing to getting better.

Girl, Interrupted questions what it means to be crazy, and to be a woman and be crazy. There's a great line where one of the doctors informs Suzanna that her being "promiscuous" is a symptom of her disorder. She questions her doctor about what that means--and if any boy who slept with as many women as he wanted would be labeled as "promiscuous." These definitions obviously need revisiting, as does the definition of "crazy," or perhaps even "borderline."


Each resident crazy of the asylum's female ward is remarkably three-dimensional--and it's no coincidence, as these experiences are based on a true story, a book of the same name. Lisa in particular is incredibly interesting as a sociopath ("We are very rare and we are mostly men"). She effectively manipulates the other patients into smiles, laughter, or complete depression. She even inspires a former patient to kill herself, revealing a scalpel-like insight into others' lives and abuses. One wonders how much is the psychological disorder, and how much is actually Lisa. She is capable and obviously rather efficient with her manipulations.

There are very few men in Girl, Interrupted. One is Suzanna's father--a typical out-of-touch parent. Another is Suzanna's boyfriend, a young man who drives to the asylum in hopes of taking Suzanna away to Canada and dodging the draft. The last is another out-of-touch man, one of Suzanna's psychologists. These men are, overall, portrayed as a bit out of touch (and perhaps rightly so, as they are apparently real and Suzanna is living with a mental disorder), but maybe that's where her unstable and rather "casual" relationships come from. Suzanna needs people who are in-touch with her sensibilities, and that's where her fellow patients come in: they're her first friends.



These intrinsic human relationships are really what make Girl, Interrupted a worthwhile watch. Angelina Jolie actually won an Academy Award for her portrayal of Lisa the sociopath, and rightly so. It's a character study of what it means to be crazy, even promiscuous, and we find those terms re-defined within the movie's sphere.

Persepolis - PASS

*This is probably one of the best movies ever. Of course I'm going to spoil it.

Marjane Satrapi has said that the reason she chose a black-and-white animated style to convey the story of Persepolis because it erased the relatable context of the film, citing that many people would just dismiss it as just another Middle Eastern movie. Instead, this film emerges as the portrait of a young woman coming of age in a country where a female's coming of age has been rendered impossible.

The movie is the memories of Marjane Satrapi, an Iranian comic memoir-ist who came of age during the Iranian Revolution, the reinstatement of Islam fundamentalism and the subsequent war between Iraq and Iran. She grows up in this harsh environment surrounded by a protective coccoon of family, in a world where the veil really is law and window washers can become heads of state because of religious belief. After tragedy strikes too close to home, Marjane's parents send her to Vienna, where after a couple of years of loneliness and soul-searching, she returns to Iran to attend university. The film ends with her leaving Iran again, too cloistered by its fundamentalist practices and is forbidden by her mother to return.

The authenticity of this movie is what captures its audience so grippingly. Marjane is a completely earnest heroine, getting into hijinks and misadventures just like any child. One can can easily admire her personality--there are memorable scenes where she combats the forces of "sit down and shut up" versions of tyrannical rule. But she makes mistakes too--she can be selfish and unable to see the big picture of what this means to her country. However, since we see her age from four year old to twenty-two year old, the audience is granted a rare insight into a fictional character, and one can sense that Satrapi isn't leaving a single stone unturned.

While the movie does diverge from the books (skipping over parts, but never changing them), the element of family relationships crosses from comic to screen effortlessly. Marjane's mother and grandmother are figures of very honest strength and vulnerability. It's the mother that decides Marjane should get as far away from Iran as possible, fearing for her daughter's future in the eyes of Islamic fundamentalism. And it's the grandmother who cuts Marjane down to size in a moment of supposed-survivalism.

At any rate, Persepolis passes the Bechdel test with flying colors and should be seen by any girl (or boy) looking for one of the most authentic coming of age stories in a long, long time. The animation is gorgeous as well as the intricate plot line.

The Stepford Wives (1975) - PASS

*Stepfordian spoilers.

The Stepford Wives is not so much a thriller in this day and age--as it was probably meant to be, given it's written by Ira Levin--but is much more a piece of social commentary, a sort of living expression of Betty Friedan's "Problem with No Name." It definitely passes the Bechdel test, and presents a very interesting problem that is a bit timeless.

Summarizing The Stepford Wives: A young, beautiful woman named Joanna moves with her husband and two children from Manhattan to a small suburb town called Stepford. She feels constrained by the picture-perfect lifestyles--most of the women are weirdly content with cleaning, cooking and childcare. She finds solace with a fellow recently-moved-New-Yorker named Bobbie, who also notes the strange attitudes of the fellow housewives, and also that most of the town is run by a Men's Association--a sort of town council/board idea.

Joanna and Bobbie really dislike how everything is run so "archaically" and try to make a consciousness group of their own. What few members they do have slowly begin turning stranger and stranger--one by one, they dress differently, talk differently and about domestic things only, and seem to be completely different people. Joanna and Bobbie search for an answer until Bobbie herself is changed, and Joanna finds out the terrible truth: the Men's Association is making robot versions of their wives and switching them out, one by one. Why? "Because we can."

As I have said before, the social commentary in The Stepford Wives is highly engaging. There's a very conscious decision in the costuming--pre-robot women dress with individual style and flirtatiousness, while their mechanical substitutes all wear the same lace-and-plaid-apron get-up, or some variation of the same thing. Women who don't want to be part of this social system are treated like crazies, as seen when Joanna goes to her husband after Bobbie becomes what she is not. He treats her as though she is insane, though one can attribute that to his being intricately involved in these rather unpleasant doings.

The fact that the problem of women wanting more than to pleasure men is solved by robotic intervention is interesting--one is reminded of "housewife syndrome," or women so intellectually unstimulated by their roles as home-makers that they were prescribed anti-depressants and tranquilizers by doctors, or became addicted to alcohol and prescription pills. Perhaps, it can be said, they eventually were programmed into submission with the aid of the popular culture of the time, and of course, some mind-altering substances. There's also a rather loud message here: these wives of Stepford seem to be better off dead. None of them desire the life that their husbands require of them. It is dehumanizing to a point of caricature, both male and female.

The Stepford Wives is definitely worth checking out, as it quickly passes the Bechdel test and presents many rather thought-provoking ideas that are sure to spark a bit of life in your programmed brain.

The Bridges of Madison County - PASS

*Note: Wednesday's blog post will be on Friday. Apologies all around.

*Spoilers!

Sweet tap-dancing Jesus, a film starring Clint Eastwood where he doesn't shoot some criminal in the face or beat the shit out of anyone? Sign me up. The Bridges of Madison County is a rather sentimental movie that barely passes the Bechdel test, but still frames the relationship between two people rather beautifully.

Set in the 1960's, Francesca (Meryl Streep) is an Italian war bride who lives on a farm in Madison County, Iowa. Robert (Clint Eastwood, who also directs) is a National Geographic photographer on an assignment to photograph the famous covered bridges of said county. He drops by Francesca's house to ask for directions, and "one of those electric things between people" happens. Francesca's family is away for four days at a fair, in which Francesca and Robert fall passionately in love and carry on an affair.

I enjoy Robert and Francesca's relationship in the sense that it's very much an equal animal. To explain, because they are both adults they understand the brevity of the affair and the consequences of it becoming permanent. Francesca has enough sexual agency to both begin her affair with Robert and realize the consequences of it--she's very much the unhappy housewife, though it takes meeting someone who's traveled Africa to make her realize it. But when she realizes what she wants, she goes for it. It's refreshing.

She's very down to earth and realistic about her priorities--she wants to run away with Robert, but her duties as a mother and a wife come first. Also, marriage and children aren't sacrificed to preachy beatnik gobbledygook. Robert tries to persuade her to leave her husband because she's unhappy and her kids are almost grown--and even I hoped she would, so she could truly be happy--but the guilt of leaving her commitments would destroy their relationship. I really appreciate the level of realism that is invested in her character. Ironically enough, Francesca's affair becomes a lesson to her two children--do what you want for yourself, or forever let real love pass you by. The story is told by the two reading her journals after her death.

It also duly examines the "scarlet woman" syndrome that is typical of the small towns--Francesca's greatest friend becomes the woman who had an affair with a married man, and so they become two women bonded by their romantic choices. And they live with these things until the day they die. It's a resounding message about both judgement and the freedom of women in society--it's the woman the town gossips about, not the married man.

But really, The Bridges of Madison County is a character study of a brief, incredibly passionate affair that goes on to shape lifetimes to come. It's a movie well worth checking out, as it passes the Bechdel test and also features a woman willing to take control of her own life and the consequences that follow.

Academy Award Wednesdays: Changeling - PASS

*Spoilers for yet another sad movie with some wha-pow shock factor.

I'll start this review with something that's been said by many who review Clint Eastwood's Changeling: do not watch this film if you are an expectant mother. That all said, Changeling is, despite its great despairing weight, a nearly inspirational story that is currently nominated for three Academy Awards, and passes the Bechdel test to boot.

Again, a synopsis: Christine Collins (Angelina Jolie, Best Actress nominee) lives in a strangely-nice-for-a-one-woman's-single-income-in-the-1920's-house with her young, nine-year-old son Walter. One spring Saturday, she's called into her job as a telephone operator supervisor because the staff is shorthanded. She leaves Walter at home alone, returns to her house in the evening to find that her son is gone. The police are called, and Christine and the LAPD search for her son for a good while. After about five months, the LAPD find him, but upon reunion at the train Christine discovers a shocking truth: this boy is not her son. And so unfolds the rest of the film, with Christine desperately trying to persuade the police that this newly returned boy is not her child and that they should keep scouring the states for her "real" son. Unfortunately, the LAPD is completely corrupt and are afraid this one more failure will set the entire city off against them. They paint Christine as delusional, and after she persists, an LAPD captain has her sent to the psychopathic ward under Code 12, which in our modern colloquial stands for "this woman pissed us off, so we need to send her to the psych ward to make her shut the hell up." Oh, the twenties.

While she's locked up, a juvenile comes forward to confess his forced involvement in a series of random child slayings by his uncle. When a police officer asks the boy to go through a series of missing children photos and identify which ones were victims of the murderer. He identifies about twenty young boys, including a picture of Walter Collins. The paper gets hold of it, Christine's supporters get her out of the psych ward, the murderer's arrested, the city council takes the LAPD to task by removing the chief of police and that shitty police captain that sent Christine to the mental hospital. Unfortunately, even though Christine helps bring down the corrupt police force, she never finds her son.



Changeling belongs to that vein of one-woman-goes-up-against-lots-of-power-playing-men movies, and it brings its own nuance to the table. Christine isn't fighting for legal equality, not really, she's just fighting to bring her son home. It doesn't even seem that courage is a factor she considers, so whole is her devotion to this cause. Something I noted is that Christine never goes to other men for help--she tries and tries on her own until a pastor with a vendetta against LAPD forces approaches her, ends up helping to bust her out of the psychiatric ward and gets her a lawyer when the LAPD are taken up in front of the council. In her "everyday" life, it's nice to see her portrayed as a capable supervisor who's even being offered up for promotions---though I don't understand how she'd be able to afford the sprightly little twenties house she lives in. Regardless, she is an ordinary women in extraordinary circumstances, and she rises to the occasion, even as the police snap at her abilities as a parent.

Her true character and situation comes out when she's imprisoned in the psycho ward. She is "escorted" there by police, stripped down and searched--(something I always wonder: when men get tossed into the psycho ward in a film, do they have scenes of them being sprayed nakedly with firehoses or the body cavity search?). She meets Carol (a lovely turn by Amy Ryan), a prostitute who was thrown in because a police cop client was smacking her around and she dared to file a complaint. She fills her in on all the other "Code 12s," even coming to her defense and punching the head doctor in the face when they try to force sedation pills down Christine's throat. She gets put through some pretty nauseating electroshock therapy treatments for doing it. Christine sneaks into her room afterwards, and Carol gives her some advice: "Fuck them and the horse they rode in on." When Christine spits the same quip at the head doctor later, it seems a little out of character, but its her only weapon now against the tide as she's dragged off for electroshock. One of the movie's few fulfilling moments comes when Christine comes back with a hoarde of lawyers and lets every Code 12 woman out of the psycho ward. At least someone gets saved in all these dark turns of events.


Overall, Changeling tells a dark period story that ends on a note of hope despite its rather deep, desponding story arcs. It features a woman fighting for what's hers and she eventually suceeds...though...not really. It also passes the Bechdel test. Also, it features Angelina Jolie still somehow retaining eyeshadow and mascara on her face. In a mental hospital. After a fire hose sprays the hell out of her. You make the call.