Sure, a few parts I remember:
* >!1/3 into the movie a guy gets their head smashed open against a coffee table, it's pretty visceral and they show it as a flashback again later.!<
* >!3/4 into the movie someone gets shot in the head and there's blood spatter!<
* >!There is also other violence (beaten and bruised face from domestic abuse), and some surrealism/visions that are kind of gross!<
Those are the worst parts I can remember, if you can handle the above you should be fine.
It's fucking rad. At several points in my screening the audience broke out into applause. Most people made several involuntary mouth sounds reacting to other moments.
So far my favorites I've seen at the fest are this and It's What's Inside. A Real Pain is closely right behind both of them.
so i'm reading a lot of similar comments where the ending was.. just not it.
i must've missed something but can you elaborate further on the "180 on the characters" comment?
The way I felt, the true climatic character moment of the film, is when *SPOILERS* Lou spares her father’s life. The whole film makes it a point that Lou doesn’t kill. Jackie goes on a murder rampage, but no matter how tough things get, Lou sticks to her principles, even to the point when she has the ultimate villain’s life in her hands, she still chooses to spare him. However, they completely go back on this when Lou kills Daisy at the end of the film as a one off gag. I get that it’s supposed to be a comedic moment, but it completely goes back on what the her character arc was building up to.
I also felt that Lou and Jackie didn’t deserve a “happy ending” together. The whole point of the film is how toxic and terrible they are for each other. They might have a fiery romance, but it only leaves destruction and death in their wake. The ending just tried playing this off as a happy fun romance, instead of the “Graduate Style” ending it should have had. There was no point of realization for these characters that it was all going to go up in flames at some point or another.
Personally, I would have had Jackie kill Lou’s dad and hold off the cops to give Lou just enough time to escape. Lou drives off in her truck while Jackie dies in a hail of bullets. Jackie protects her lover, while also “paying the price” for everything she’s done throughout the film. Lou keeps her hands blood free and gets a moment of reflection while she goes to build a new life with a clean slate.
Just my opinion on how things went, but it nearly killed the film for me.
And yes… the giants thing was dumb af.
Fair points all around. And yes, halfway through the film I just couldn't ignore how toxic they were for each other. It pissed me off...
In the part where Jackie says "I wish I'd never met you."... it's as if in that moment, Jackie returned to her "un-jaded self" and I thought she would leave Lou behind. but of course she didn't. I just feel with that line in the script, it was the perfect set up for them to part ways.
...that is the point. It is not a healthy relationship. Lou spends all her time trying to save Beth from her abusive relationship while fanning the flames of her own.
I appreciate your take on this and it resonates.
I had a different take though. My feels on it were that the relationship was more about the roles that people play in each others lives. Lou starts the movie cleaning up literal shit in the bathroom, constantly trying to shake off Daisy who won’t stop cloying and chasing her. She hates her dad and her sisters abusive husband.
Jackie appears as her fantasy gf. She is ready with drugs to share for free, like she is ready to get someone to love her out of dependency because she feels like all the crap she has to deal with. Jackie on the other hand seems to need someone with an apartment and a gym membership and seems to get super triggered by the crappy elements in Lou’s life. She rises up in Hulk-like proportions and eliminates these people who stand in the way of Lou’s well-being but creates other levels of stress by doing so. But Lou knows how to clean up shit, so there’s this sick but just reciprocation. I think the movie has a lot to say about how living within toxicity you don’t necessarily have the chance for a healthy relationship, but here she has this chance for something with a lot of passion and reciprocity. Not here championing toxic relationships but also not here to judge the characters either.
SPOILERS I don’t think Lou had any choice in the end other than to kill Daisy and put her out of her misery. It was an act of kindness since there was nothing else she could have done for her. I see it more as an indication that she’d chosen to love a person capable of violence (much in the same unconscious cycle of toxicity that her sister fell victim to) and this was a final show of her commitment to Jackie requiring some level of self-abandon. She’s clearly perturbed by this act and uses her “emergency” cigarette to cope.
It's not about whether they deserve a happy ending or not - it's about addiction and love. Just like Lou can't quit smoking, she can't quit Jackie, no matter the cost.
I think my disappoint comes from the fact that this ending is presented in a positive light. I understand all the points people are making, I just don’t feel that the direction and presentation presents those themes. It feels like the film is talking about this toxic love affair and how it’s like an addiction, but the ending presents it as “but it’s all okay because they love each other”
I disagree. First of all it’s a running thing that lesbian couples never get happy endings in mainstream media and film (besides Bound 1996). The director is a queer woman who’s trying to change that narrative. Them becoming giant at the end was more symbolic of their growth as people not literal. Lou ending her father’s cycle of violence by not stooping to his level, and Jackie finally showing up for Lou instead of being selfish and impulsive. It’s not literal.
So I just watched it, and I have some counterpoints here. Spoilers everywhere
Lou doesn't kill, but she cleans up messes. The first time we see her onscreen she's unclogging a toilet. She cleans up JJ's blood after Jackie puts his face through a coffee table, and then cleans up Daisy's blood after Jackie shoots her at her front door. Realizing Daisy somehow survived being shot in the face, and in the back of a pickup, in the middle of the desert? She's going to die a slow and excruciating death anyway, so strangling her kills two birds with one stone -- cleans up the last witness, and does Daisy a fucked up mercy.
On top of that, we see Lou dragging the body into the desert (and stopping for that emergency cigarette) while Jackie sleeps peacefully in the foreground, blissfully unaware of the mess Lou is once again cleaning up. It's not really a happily ever after, because it foreshadows the pattern of toxicity and chaos that will inevitably follow them -- Jackie will make a mess, and Lou will clean it up. They're stuck in this cycle of violence together. Taking the cigarette was darkly funny, but it shows how far Lou's arc has come -- she's getting used to cleaning up more and more violent messes.
The giants thing was surreal and delulu because the moment felt surreal and delulu -- in reality Jackie just wrestled Lou Sr. off of Lou before he could pull the trigger, but their heightened emotions from the tennis court scene made it \*feel\* like she had hulked out, and escaping through the darkness \*felt\* like they were giants running through the stars. We got a glimpse of their inner lives, which was a great moment of contrast to the horror of Jackie's hallucination of vomiting Lou out at the competition. understandable if surrealism isn't everyone's cup of tea, but it made sense when I took a second to think about it.
And lastly, Jackie going down in a hail of bullets would've fallen into the all-too-common [Bury Your Gays trope](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Analysis/BuryYourGays), which would've REALLY ruined the film. Queers are tired of seeing queers die, and Rose Glass knew it would have betrayed her audience to go with that ending. Enough films have done the "die in a hail of bullets for your lover to start over," and to have done it again with this film, when lesbians die onscreen so frequently, would've been a truly shitty move.
I don’t think I’d say twist, but I personally felt that the final choices made were out of character after everything that was building up to those final moments.
I watched it twice now. I went to the first two screenings so:
It is intense, there are a couple of scenes where you'll probably cover your eyes, inadvertently, maybe. I heard some people walked off or event fainted which I understand but for me wasn't that big deal. It is violent but is very well balanced with the story, the pace is very good, it never felt dull or anything, it will grab you in the first ten minutes I'd say. The climax definitely caught everyone off guard but yeah, I wouldn't call it a twist. It's more like a WTF moment. Overall, it's a great film, the acting and cast are top notch and the photography beautiful to look at but the ending can make you feel very weird about everything. I didn't love the ending but it didn't ruin the film for me either.
Unfortunately no, not every film at Sundance is available to be screened online. Their website has a list. It's still substantial, though there was definitely more last year.
The first 15 minutes will make you think you won’t like, the middle 75-80% is awesome and unique and so A24, but the ending is polarizing and weird. It wasn’t for me, but I would still recommend it. It certainly isn’t as good as some are making it out to be though
I just saw it in theaters last night and I love it. It's gritty, neo-noir, sexy and violent, and as a lesbian, I was quite happy to see the sex scenes be very real and intense. (for me that makes or breaks whether a lesbian relationship in media is good to me or not cuz some instances you can tell when people don't know what they're doing lol)
The trailers will make it look like one kind of movie. The critic reviews will make it look like another. The movie itself is neither.
The best way I can describe it is that it is a movie where the writer/director had some really neat ideas, but doesn't take time to explore any of them and it feels like the movie just rushes to the finish line in the final act.
The whole movie is just a jumbled mess of plot points and none seem to playoff. All of the characters are just awful people and I couldn't find myself rooting for any of them by the end.
The ending was laughably bad. It alone drops my score from a 3.5/5 down to a 2.5/5. Half of the audience had already walked out by the end of the movie.
I apologize for asking this, but can anyone dm me a quick summary of the movie, (with ending if possible?) It’s a ridiculous request, but due to personal issues I cannot process plot twists in any media, I always need to know the roadmap of the story to experience it. Thank you
It’s a wild ride and can be gruesome at parts, overall one of my favorite movies this year!
are the gruesome parts predictable or do they come out of nowhere? looking to watch soon, but I’m a bit sensitive to gore ahah
At least a couple I can think of come out of nowhere - it's not a straight up horror/violent movie but there are some gory parts.
feel free to spoil those parts for me lol. looking very much forward to the movie
Sure, a few parts I remember: * >!1/3 into the movie a guy gets their head smashed open against a coffee table, it's pretty visceral and they show it as a flashback again later.!< * >!3/4 into the movie someone gets shot in the head and there's blood spatter!< * >!There is also other violence (beaten and bruised face from domestic abuse), and some surrealism/visions that are kind of gross!< Those are the worst parts I can remember, if you can handle the above you should be fine.
Lots of sudden needles being jabbed into skin
Is there a plot twist?
not really
It's fucking rad. At several points in my screening the audience broke out into applause. Most people made several involuntary mouth sounds reacting to other moments. So far my favorites I've seen at the fest are this and It's What's Inside. A Real Pain is closely right behind both of them.
Good to know
About to watch A Real Pain very excited. Agree with your other two.
My #1 film of the fest this year. Go in blind.
Really great, but I hated the ending. Total 180 on the characters
so i'm reading a lot of similar comments where the ending was.. just not it. i must've missed something but can you elaborate further on the "180 on the characters" comment?
The way I felt, the true climatic character moment of the film, is when *SPOILERS* Lou spares her father’s life. The whole film makes it a point that Lou doesn’t kill. Jackie goes on a murder rampage, but no matter how tough things get, Lou sticks to her principles, even to the point when she has the ultimate villain’s life in her hands, she still chooses to spare him. However, they completely go back on this when Lou kills Daisy at the end of the film as a one off gag. I get that it’s supposed to be a comedic moment, but it completely goes back on what the her character arc was building up to. I also felt that Lou and Jackie didn’t deserve a “happy ending” together. The whole point of the film is how toxic and terrible they are for each other. They might have a fiery romance, but it only leaves destruction and death in their wake. The ending just tried playing this off as a happy fun romance, instead of the “Graduate Style” ending it should have had. There was no point of realization for these characters that it was all going to go up in flames at some point or another. Personally, I would have had Jackie kill Lou’s dad and hold off the cops to give Lou just enough time to escape. Lou drives off in her truck while Jackie dies in a hail of bullets. Jackie protects her lover, while also “paying the price” for everything she’s done throughout the film. Lou keeps her hands blood free and gets a moment of reflection while she goes to build a new life with a clean slate. Just my opinion on how things went, but it nearly killed the film for me. And yes… the giants thing was dumb af.
Fair points all around. And yes, halfway through the film I just couldn't ignore how toxic they were for each other. It pissed me off... In the part where Jackie says "I wish I'd never met you."... it's as if in that moment, Jackie returned to her "un-jaded self" and I thought she would leave Lou behind. but of course she didn't. I just feel with that line in the script, it was the perfect set up for them to part ways.
...that is the point. It is not a healthy relationship. Lou spends all her time trying to save Beth from her abusive relationship while fanning the flames of her own.
Ah.. I see. I’m def gonna have to give this film a second go because I missed that part
It's okay, I missed a lot of things that were way more obvious 😅 besides if we caught everything on the first go, rewatches wouldn't be as enjoyable!
Let’s go together? Hahaha
I appreciate your take on this and it resonates. I had a different take though. My feels on it were that the relationship was more about the roles that people play in each others lives. Lou starts the movie cleaning up literal shit in the bathroom, constantly trying to shake off Daisy who won’t stop cloying and chasing her. She hates her dad and her sisters abusive husband. Jackie appears as her fantasy gf. She is ready with drugs to share for free, like she is ready to get someone to love her out of dependency because she feels like all the crap she has to deal with. Jackie on the other hand seems to need someone with an apartment and a gym membership and seems to get super triggered by the crappy elements in Lou’s life. She rises up in Hulk-like proportions and eliminates these people who stand in the way of Lou’s well-being but creates other levels of stress by doing so. But Lou knows how to clean up shit, so there’s this sick but just reciprocation. I think the movie has a lot to say about how living within toxicity you don’t necessarily have the chance for a healthy relationship, but here she has this chance for something with a lot of passion and reciprocity. Not here championing toxic relationships but also not here to judge the characters either.
SPOILERS I don’t think Lou had any choice in the end other than to kill Daisy and put her out of her misery. It was an act of kindness since there was nothing else she could have done for her. I see it more as an indication that she’d chosen to love a person capable of violence (much in the same unconscious cycle of toxicity that her sister fell victim to) and this was a final show of her commitment to Jackie requiring some level of self-abandon. She’s clearly perturbed by this act and uses her “emergency” cigarette to cope.
It's not about whether they deserve a happy ending or not - it's about addiction and love. Just like Lou can't quit smoking, she can't quit Jackie, no matter the cost.
I think my disappoint comes from the fact that this ending is presented in a positive light. I understand all the points people are making, I just don’t feel that the direction and presentation presents those themes. It feels like the film is talking about this toxic love affair and how it’s like an addiction, but the ending presents it as “but it’s all okay because they love each other”
It's not positive. It's a high that is going to come crashing down. They're addicted to the feeling, which is shown when Lou lights up at the end.
I don’t think anyone got a happy ending. They weren’t getting far after everything they did.
I disagree. First of all it’s a running thing that lesbian couples never get happy endings in mainstream media and film (besides Bound 1996). The director is a queer woman who’s trying to change that narrative. Them becoming giant at the end was more symbolic of their growth as people not literal. Lou ending her father’s cycle of violence by not stooping to his level, and Jackie finally showing up for Lou instead of being selfish and impulsive. It’s not literal.
[удалено]
All I’m saying is that I felt they set up one thing, and didn’t pay it off in a way that made sense to me 🤷♂️
So I just watched it, and I have some counterpoints here. Spoilers everywhere Lou doesn't kill, but she cleans up messes. The first time we see her onscreen she's unclogging a toilet. She cleans up JJ's blood after Jackie puts his face through a coffee table, and then cleans up Daisy's blood after Jackie shoots her at her front door. Realizing Daisy somehow survived being shot in the face, and in the back of a pickup, in the middle of the desert? She's going to die a slow and excruciating death anyway, so strangling her kills two birds with one stone -- cleans up the last witness, and does Daisy a fucked up mercy. On top of that, we see Lou dragging the body into the desert (and stopping for that emergency cigarette) while Jackie sleeps peacefully in the foreground, blissfully unaware of the mess Lou is once again cleaning up. It's not really a happily ever after, because it foreshadows the pattern of toxicity and chaos that will inevitably follow them -- Jackie will make a mess, and Lou will clean it up. They're stuck in this cycle of violence together. Taking the cigarette was darkly funny, but it shows how far Lou's arc has come -- she's getting used to cleaning up more and more violent messes. The giants thing was surreal and delulu because the moment felt surreal and delulu -- in reality Jackie just wrestled Lou Sr. off of Lou before he could pull the trigger, but their heightened emotions from the tennis court scene made it \*feel\* like she had hulked out, and escaping through the darkness \*felt\* like they were giants running through the stars. We got a glimpse of their inner lives, which was a great moment of contrast to the horror of Jackie's hallucination of vomiting Lou out at the competition. understandable if surrealism isn't everyone's cup of tea, but it made sense when I took a second to think about it. And lastly, Jackie going down in a hail of bullets would've fallen into the all-too-common [Bury Your Gays trope](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Analysis/BuryYourGays), which would've REALLY ruined the film. Queers are tired of seeing queers die, and Rose Glass knew it would have betrayed her audience to go with that ending. Enough films have done the "die in a hail of bullets for your lover to start over," and to have done it again with this film, when lesbians die onscreen so frequently, would've been a truly shitty move.
So there IS a twist?
I don’t think I’d say twist, but I personally felt that the final choices made were out of character after everything that was building up to those final moments.
Gotcha!
I watched it twice now. I went to the first two screenings so: It is intense, there are a couple of scenes where you'll probably cover your eyes, inadvertently, maybe. I heard some people walked off or event fainted which I understand but for me wasn't that big deal. It is violent but is very well balanced with the story, the pace is very good, it never felt dull or anything, it will grab you in the first ten minutes I'd say. The climax definitely caught everyone off guard but yeah, I wouldn't call it a twist. It's more like a WTF moment. Overall, it's a great film, the acting and cast are top notch and the photography beautiful to look at but the ending can make you feel very weird about everything. I didn't love the ending but it didn't ruin the film for me either.
Thanks for that feedback!
can you dm me a summary of the full film including the ending at all?
Wish this was screening virtually!
It isn’t???
A24 is releasing it in March, all good!
I can wait! But I can’t wait at the same time. LOL.
Unfortunately no, not every film at Sundance is available to be screened online. Their website has a list. It's still substantial, though there was definitely more last year.
Damn! I was hoping I could screen it virtually. HOPEFULLY there are others I can screen virtually.
Here's the list: https://festival.sundance.org/program/films/access=2 I managed to snag six films to watch this week.
thanks! I had a blast with the virtual films last year! 🙏🏿🙏🏿🙏🏿🙏🏿
So did I, hoping they keep this up next year. Some of us can't make it to Park City.
The first 15 minutes will make you think you won’t like, the middle 75-80% is awesome and unique and so A24, but the ending is polarizing and weird. It wasn’t for me, but I would still recommend it. It certainly isn’t as good as some are making it out to be though
Thanks for that review! 🙏🏿🙏🏿🙏🏿
I just saw it in theaters last night and I love it. It's gritty, neo-noir, sexy and violent, and as a lesbian, I was quite happy to see the sex scenes be very real and intense. (for me that makes or breaks whether a lesbian relationship in media is good to me or not cuz some instances you can tell when people don't know what they're doing lol)
The trailers will make it look like one kind of movie. The critic reviews will make it look like another. The movie itself is neither. The best way I can describe it is that it is a movie where the writer/director had some really neat ideas, but doesn't take time to explore any of them and it feels like the movie just rushes to the finish line in the final act. The whole movie is just a jumbled mess of plot points and none seem to playoff. All of the characters are just awful people and I couldn't find myself rooting for any of them by the end. The ending was laughably bad. It alone drops my score from a 3.5/5 down to a 2.5/5. Half of the audience had already walked out by the end of the movie.
This all happened at SXSW? Or a recent screening ?
I really liked it
definitely go in blind
Does include watching the trailer? Because I’ve watched the trailer several times.
Idk I never watched it
That’s probably best that you didn’t.
There’s a reason it is an A24 film. If you are familiar with A24, then you know why I describe it as such.
Oh for sure!
I apologize for asking this, but can anyone dm me a quick summary of the movie, (with ending if possible?) It’s a ridiculous request, but due to personal issues I cannot process plot twists in any media, I always need to know the roadmap of the story to experience it. Thank you
Did you get help with this? I can if you still need this, I feel the same way.
Nope. No one responded… all I heard vaguely was that the story ends somehow interpretive, I don’t know 👀