am i worth fighting for?

Back in January, I went on a trip with my Mum. We were pampering ourselves - think hot springs, spa days, yummy food.

Over two subsequent nights, we watched two films; these films and their themes have continued to knock about my brain.

a note before I begin

Please do not take this lighter essay as a sign that my mind is not disturbed beyond belief by Palestine, Iran, Trump’s desire to swing us all head long into World War Three, Epstein etc. As is now a common experience, I am finding it difficult to engage in the “small world”1 activities and yet and yet I feel it is important to continue. Whether you are making art, or posting essays, or taking pictures of your day surely we have to keep engaging with our everyday before we all collectively lose our minds and our wills. I do not believe that this kind of activity counteracts the necessary fight happening alongside it. As you protest, and march, and read, and learn, and vote, I think we also have to dance or sing or some such cheesy activity that brings joy. This essay is going to be on the lighter side of certain dynamics around feminism/women that I have noted recently. I add this caveat because between Epstein and the manosphere (vom) there are definitely more serious essays to be written. However, there are some dynamics of storytelling at play in the finer print that I would like to write about. Many people cleverer than I are keeping the world informed as to the apocalyptic times in which we find ourselves. Although, that’s no promise that the hubristic part of my brain that’s very proud of my Minor in Government (more specifically2 Political Theory Ladies and Jellyspoons3) won’t compel me to commit one of the many rants I go on every day to paper.

Back to the task at hand.

The first of our films is called Eternity. Let me give you a brief4 summary (spoilers):

We find ourselves watching an old married couple bicker as they head to their grandchildren’s something. At this event, Husband (we shall call him Husband Two - or H2 for short) dies. He ends up at a train station purgatory where one is given a week to decide on the Eternity (roll credits) of one’s choice. He chooses Beach Eternity (very Ken of him) and assumes that his wife - let’s call her Elizabeth Olsen (as she was played by Elizabeth Olsen and I cba to look up the character’s name and EO was indeed lovely in this role) - will agree with this decision and join him. It turns out Elizabeth Olsen has cancer (spoiler) and promptly dies (spoiler). As H2 is heading to Beach Eternity, Elizabeth arrives and they reunite.

But PLOT TWIST: it turns out that her first husband (whom we shall refer to as H15) and has ben waiting for FIFTY years for her to die so they could have the aforementioned reunion. She is torn and the powers that be allow her to go on a date with each man in an Eternity of their choice. (IMPORTANT: earlier in the film when they were both alive Elizabeth and H2 had been arguing about whether to go to the mountains or to the beach for their next vacation; she was mountains and he was beach).

H1 chooses Mountain Eternity and they have a date that starts awkwardly, gets a bit sexy (H1 is - we are constantly reminded - a Very Sexy Man), and then ends in a bit of a fight about her remarrying. H2 chooses Beach Eternity (we cannot fault the man his consistency) and they have a comfortable date where they bicker. Yes we are not being served story in any subtlety here. Elizabeth is torn, gets drunk with a friend, and decides she wants NEITHER of them and is going to go to Paris Eternity. Honestly: Mood.

As she sits on the train with her friend, H2 comes running up to her (after an illuminating night of drinking and bonding with H1 where we get to know each man WAY more than we get to know Elizabeth but whatever that’s fine I guess) and heroically, self-sacrificingly, devastatingly (eye roll eye roll) tells Elizabeth that she must get off her chosen Paris train and choose H1. When you get to Purgatory, you physically revert to whatever you looked like in your Happiest Moment. H2 realises that Elizabeth’s hair is longer than he’s ever seen it6, so her Happiest Moment must’ve been in her first marriage and so she should choose H1.

Sigh7.

She does. It ends up going poorly. She escapes and finds H2. And the film ends with Elizabeth and H2 walking off into the sunset of Suburban Eternity which looks exactly like the town they lived in which was _______ [insert some state here, probably Florida].

I am going to show EXTREME restraint and not rant about how Suburban Eternity would be my personal hell and WAS THE WORST OF ALL THE CHOICES (of the ones I remember) because I am mature and begrudgingly recognise that To Each Their Own or some such nonsense.

What I found infuriating was watching a film that I found well acted, pretty to look at, and entertaining in its writing seemingly parade a woman around as a main character while treating her like a puppet buffeted about by the whims of two buffoons. This story is sold as one between three people but by the end of it we’ve actually learned nothing about Elizabeth and what she wants. We’re excluded from her decision process entirely. H2 emerges as the true hero of the film with H1 in a close second. This woman’s entire life boils down to her “choice” but when it really comes down to it, the entire movie hinges on a moment where THE MAN finds her to tell her that the only decision in the entire film SHE ACTUALLY MAKES is the wrong decision and she should do what he says and choose differently.

Please do not mistake this essay for a rant about predictable rom coms. I love a romance. I love a predictable love story. I do not mind that it’s predictable (I’ve actually already written about that! wow. You can read it HERE - not me linking to my own substack THE AUDACITY). It’s just that Elizabeth is a prop in what seems meant to be her story. She is just a prize to be won. Love can be central to who she is - that’s fine. I just wanted to simply know that about her. I wanted her to have some ANY agency and an outline of her own thoughts and goals.

This film (and my experience of it) was thrown into sharp relief by the film we watched the next day called Look Both Ways.

This film opens on (let’s call her) Lily the night before her college graduation where (having slept with one of her best friends a few weeks earlier) she is taking a pregnancy test. The story then splits as in scenario A she is not pregnant and in scenario B she is and decides to keep the baby8.

I found the film a delight to watch. I enjoyed the performances. I liked the creative decision of a pink aesthetic for her non baby LA storyline and the blue aesthetic for her yes baby go home to parents storyline. Especially because Lily A initially has a MUCH better time than Lily B, so the pink vs blue has a nice light vs dark thing going and then the film plays with those expectations in a way I enjoyed.

Both avenues follow her life as she navigates a) moving to a big city, the excitement getting her first job, falling in love, getting her heart broken and b) moving home, in an on again off again relationship with baby daddy, lost when it comes to job and direction, and having an actual baby. In both storylines, she has successes and failures/setbacks. In both, she has to figure out how to build a life that she finds fulfilling. And yes, both do include a love but it’s interesting how she navigates love completely differently. We see her make choices and live with those choices. And she also falls in love with two different men (superman (I continue to just be delighted by David Corenswet in these random projects pre-DC) in A and baby daddy in B).

One particularly interesting moment: in scenario A, Lily A runs into said college friend (who is Baby Daddy in B but they have no relationship in A). There is a moment where one almost thinks they’re going to be set up and fall in love but the it turns out that’s he’s married now and has a baby (the movie spans about 10 years). I LOVED THIS. I was worried for a second that we were going to get some pre-destined “see they’re meant to be together anyway” bullshit but WE DIDN’T. I’m not saying that a film written by a man would’ve done this9. However, this film (written by a woman AND directed by a woman - we love to see it) didn’t do that. The point of the story was not to look at the power of love from/for this one man. It was to accompany a complicated woman as she figured out her life in two different scenarios and as a result she became quite a different person and THUSLY loved two different men. You also get to see her navigate her 20s both with a child and without, and she find happiness both personally and professionally in BOTH. Which I also found refreshing. A little bit twee in the way it wraps up at the end, but still refreshing. She built a full life after each choice. And the key here is that SHE built it and we got to see HER decisions and understand how SHE was making them.

I use capitals here to emphasise the point, subtle I know.

At the end of this film, I felt like i had gotten to see this woman grow up and I got to understand her. She felt real to me. And her end goal was not just romance and love, it was incorporating those things as a part of the rest of her life.

One last point: I felt frustrated by the way these two films were marketed. One is an A24 film and it’s tasked with bringing good rom coms back. It’s cinematic and filled with big names. The second was a Netflix release and the marketing screamed “small screen” and “watch with your girlfriends on a girls’ night”. Because what did the second one actually do? It actually centred its female character and in so many ways that is something that we still struggle with in the YEAR OF OUR LORD TWENTY TWENTY SIX. Because how could a woman’s story (and they’re BOTH rom coms remember so it’s not that) be taken seriously? It’s not mainstream. It’s Just For The Girls.

This essay has already gotten long enough, so I may stop here; though I do feel this parlays into the idea that if it’s for women or by women then it’s not for men (I realise I speak in binary terms here - I think this very much applies, more so even, to queer stories/the very evidence that I have not yet seen a romcom with a non-binary lead, and the backlash that happens when queer love stories are showcased (see: Bridgerton Season Five outrage which is so completely idiotic but points to the homophobic landscape that queer stories have to navigate))10. And it should FUCKING BE FOR MEN. They are for everybody. Shock. Horror. Men should watch these. But they aren’t going to if they’re hidden away in Netflix under “Movies You Only Watch If You Are a Girl Doing Girly Things And Being a Girly Girl [pejorative]”.

We are watching the dangers of what happens as men continue to be told that all girl things are bad and to be avoided at all costs. I know these are two movies and it’s not that deep. Except it is. Our culture is founded in small moments that build to big ones. And I do not like this backsliding I am seeing.

Go watch Look Both Ways. It’s fun. And if you watch it while wearing a face mask, your skin will thank you later.