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Thoughts on Something Wild

posted 8 years ago by gs-web
3 replies | jump to latest

Contains Spoilers

My husband and I just watched Something Wild for the first time and really hated the ending of the film. Neither of us felt that Baker and Meeker's characters were in love with one another or cared about each other at all. He held her captive and tried to attack her the first night. When she finally got away from him and then went back it made us both SICK.

It reminds me of the man who kept the women captive for 15 years. I initially liked Meeker's character, but that turned around when he would not let her out of his apartment.
The mother may have been annoying to Baker's character, but that would not excuse walking away from your parents' home in New York City and not returning.

When the end came and Baker's character was pulling her mother in to her life with Meeker it made me ill. First, I'm not going to tell my own mother I have been raped, wander off and not come back. Next, after being held captive in an apartment for months until I was going crazy, I got a chance to get away, but walked right back in and married my captor. I didn't find it cute or interesting. It was awful.

I can't say I hated the entire film, because there were good things about the film, such as the camera work, acting and so on. But the story line about a woman marrying her captor is bad and not something I would be wild about seeing.

[–] MozzarElla77 8 years ago

Time Warner Cable's movie description on guide said "simpleminded mechanic" "gave her love"... what?! Based on that, I expected him, upon leaving for work the next day, to certainly not lock her in he apartment! Geez, whoever wrote that description was either a misogynist or didn't truly watch the film.
Depressing that she returned to him. She had no sense of self... and apparently no friendships from school. Found that hard to believe. as she seemed to have a strong personality in growing away from her narcissistic mother. Some background on her should ought to have been, but then maybe the shock and trauma of the rape set her into a daze.
Interesting film and Copland's music was so apt for all the non-speaking times.

[–] oldgoldtop 8 years ago

For me the film is simply a story about understanding, acceptance and forgiveness. Recognizing human frailties and the inner need for humanity in a cold, cruel impersonal, self centered world. It is not necessarily trying to portray a real life situation but can be appreciated more as a symbolic moral tale. It is unfortunate that most people seem uninterested in pursuing these concepts.

[–] gs-web 8 years ago

Contains Spoilers

I'm a woman and I've been raped, so I don't find it to be something I would enjoy watching - I don't take that fact in this film lightly. If I had known she was going to be held in an apartment like that I would not have watched it. If a man wants a woman to stay he shouldn't lock her in. He took away her choice by forcing her to stay there.

I just felt that here is this beautiful young woman and she has been raped, she is hiding it, can't talk to anyone, walks away from her life and is attempting suicide when this man comes along. He could have been kind. He could have been a friend to her. But instead he held her captive. He was a drunken sot and she was locked in with him 24 hours a day.

He seemed like he might turn out to be a nice guy until he came home falling down drunk and freaking her out. Its a story, but its not a story I'm interested in seeing. Its sort of like if someone made a movie about a man who you think is nice, but then he brings home a 9 year old bride. Well, thats the end of thinking anything good about him.

The fact of this film is that she was a quiet girl living with her parents. Parents weren't perfect, but it was weird for her to not tell them she had been hurt and then to wander off and stay in such a nasty place. She went downhill until she was contemplating suicide. She needed the Ralph Meeker character like a hole in the head. Her mother may have seemed selfish, except her mom knew nothing about her daughter being raped. As you could see in the end, her mother loved her and had worried about her. She hadn't known for quite some time whether her daughter was alive or dead.

Then its like, "Here ya go, Mom! I'd like to introduce my husband and baby. What happened to his eye? Oh, I gouged it when he was trying to attack me while holding me hostage. When I finally got out of here I walked a few blocks and then returned and married the guy." I would not call holding a suicidal woman hostage, getting roaring drunk, and attacking her a "human frailty." I would call that a felony.