En frygtelig kvinde

If you don't look after your self, and who you are as a person, you are in risk of loosing your self. This movie shows all the warnings before you are inside the event horizon, where it is almost impossible to get back.

After watching Amanda Collin in Raised By Wolves, I wanted to see some of her other work. I saw this was available for free on Amazon Prime and the trailer looked good, so I was happy to check this out.

Based on the title, and sinister cover photo, I expected Marie (played by Amanda Collin) to be some kind of devious sadist who enjoyed webbing a weave of evil. But that's not what this film is. And to be honest, I'm not even sure if I would call her "horrible." Perhaps that's because so many of her manipulative behaviors are commonplace and somehow not condemned enough in modern culture.

At the crux of this film lies an all too common relationship with a heavily unbalanced power and personality dynamic. Aggressive women like Marie are toxic, manipulative, and abusive for men like Rasmus. Men like Rasmus would be better with a woman with a different kind of feminine energy.

Despite almost always getting her way, Rasmus doesn't give Marie what she wants, which is a confident man who shares his life with her. She doesn't want to be with a man whose only life is her. With each concession and roll over that Rasmus makes, the less respect she has for him.

This starts to come to a head on their museum date, where Marie articulates the problem in the relationship. Tired of Rasmus lacking a backbone, and unwillingness to confront it, she does it for him.

"Are you afraid of me? It just seems like you're afraid. You walk on eggshells around me. I can't stand it. I don't know what I've done to you. That's why I am asking you. You tip toe around me, and you act like a little puppy. Why do you have to do that? Why can't you just be yourself?"

Both men and women have been in relationships with this unequally yoked dynamic, and this familiarity should cause some introspection. Perhaps we can see how we have been horrible to others or accepted horrible behaviors from others out of fear of losing a relationship. I enjoy films like this because it holds a mirror to us, and for those looking to grow, it challenges us to do better.

...she breaks the fourth wall twice just to let us know that she knows she is horrible too. Ok, got it, now what was the point of that? There is no depth to the characters, they were all good and engaging actors but they were all playing strictly one note ciphers - most likely the intention of the director, to get the audience to fill in the gaps from their own perspectives so the film can be considered deep and introspective, instead of just what it really is, shallow and superficial with obivous stereotypes - the harried husband and the harridan wife, ok, got it, and again, I ask, now what was the point of that?

A question many viewers may have on leaving A Horrible Woman (2017)is whether the film's title is meant to be ironic or judgemental. Today's gender politics make such questions inescapably loaded but this film can also be read as a portrait of perfect complementarity between the sexes.

A simple plotline keeps the focus on its two principal characters. Likeable bachelor Rasmus (Anders Juul) envies his friends' long-term relationships yet values his freedom until he meets the beautiful, vivacious, and interested Marie (Amanda Collin). They are well matched: she is forward and assertive, he is quiet and compliant. Each time she advances into his emotional space, he yields ground. She moves into his apartment and changes everything, while he squirms but is powerless to act.

We observe the story through two frames: one is through the eyes of friends who envy Rasmus his good fortune; the other is through his own diminishing sense of self. The more she deploys femininity to manipulate him the more he meekly acquiesces. In two different scenes, asMarie reaches new thresholds of control, she makes eye contact with us, the viewer, in a "look at what I can do" moment. Chillingly, this conscious duplicity may also be a signal of mental illness and it leaves no doubt that Marie is conscious of her power. Rather than sympathise with her victim, his weakness tempts us to think he deserves what she dishes out. The story takes a few twists and turns through his attempts to stand up to her, but his efforts are not enough to alter the narrative arc of his emasculation.

What are we to make of this unusual film? The director has been attacked as a misogynist, but the recognisability of Rasmus and Marie and their complementary characteristics makes this a broader study of relationships, rather than just another gender battle. They could have swapped gender and the story would play out with as much veracity, but perhaps less entertainment. If this is a valid litmus test, then the film rises above gender discourse.

The performances of the two stars are exemplary. Amanda Collins excels across her repertoire of feminine wiles while Anders Juul is her perfect guileless pawn. The filming style is claustrophobic Nordic domestic drama, with enough black humour to lighten its load. This entertaining study of gender roles makes you wonder how the planet has survived so long.

I knew it would attract a bunch of loser misogynistic men and some weird women who also hate women. I read from someone that the director was also sounding like a misogynist in his tour blaming all on women in relationships.

Right now, I am watching a lot of films about any type of relationship dysfunction. This is not a gender issue. If you are like Rasmus, either have no goal or specific trait in life, or you have one but never stand up for yourself, and get attracted to dominant characters like her *it could be a man too* then you are used like a door mat.

This director's 'speak no evil' was about asserting yourself and your boundaries, this type a couple and their daughter were harmed as a result of their lack of trust in their own instincts, overlooking red flags, self-doubting about right or wrong, being too kind.

Same thing in this film, but this time, the dynamic is not friendship but a romantic relationship of 1-to-1.

I believe this recent triology is about boundaries, regardless of gender or the nature of relationship. I like it in that sense, but I wish he could show a bit more sensitivity over the title knowing some kind of men will use this to criticise and attack women.