Effin' Weird

I suggest that you read the short story, Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been? (by Joyce Carol Oates), on which the film is based.



"FRA-GEE-LAY. That must be Italian!"
"I think that says 'fragile', honey."

It definitely had a David Lynch touch to it. But I love movies that are really, really twisted, morbid, bizarre and weird.

******SPOILERS*******

burnsker, I am very curious to know:

What made you believe that a vulnerable 15 year old, extremely naive and inexperienced girl, alone, who was being both skillfully manipulated as well as covertly and not-so-covertly threatened, "secretly wanted it"?

Did you pay attention to the part where the co-conspirator asks Arnold Friend (twice) if he wants him to cut the house phone lines (so she can't call for help), the references Friend kept making to her family and what they were doing, as well as talking about the house being on fire? Do you think those little details were in the movie for no reason?

By the time Connie left with Arnold Friend, she was terrified but went along with him because she felt she had no choice - she was trapped, and none of her past experiences had prepared her to negotiate, flee or fight.

So, no, she most certainly didn't f&^#ing "secretly want it". She was raped. She consented to have sex in the end, but the sex was not consensual because it was obtained under threat, isolation and manipulation. I literally had tears running down my face when she got in the car.

I'm 43 but I was a tall, pretty and very naive 15 year old girl from a small, rural town background. Given the same unlucky set of circumstances, I easily could have crossed paths with a predator such as Arnold Friend and found myself trapped in the manner that Connie was.

Your post touched a raw nerve with me. What kind of person watches a movie like this and assumes that because Connie was a painfully naive and somewhat clueless flirt, who was just starting to explore her sexuality, that she desired to lose her virginity through being raped?

Friend was a stalker, rapist and murderer.

In the film, they left it ambiguous.

But in the novel it was based upon, Connie was murdered.

Sexual maturity is the very last thing this film was about. It was about how young girls CAN'T achieve full maturity because of the predators out in the world.