MovieChat Forums > Spider (2002) Discussion > So... what actually happened?

So... what actually happened?

posted 20 years ago by harekrishna
38 replies | jump to latest

OK, I'm not the type who watches a film then spends hours on the net describing in pin-point detail exactly why it sucked. Personally I just found it slow and boring for the most part, so in my opinion: not a great movie, as no boring movie can really be classified as 'good'. However the fantastic acting, moody scenery and twisting plot were all pretty haunting, and today I've found myself wondering what exactly happened in it. As far as I can tell:

The whole thing about Spider/Dennis Clegg's mother being murdered by his father was a fantasy he made up to shield himself from reality, which is that Spider himself killed her. The young Spider was in love with his mother, and came to see her as a whore after he saw his father fondling and touching her all the time. Hence the fantasy about his father going to the blonde prostitute and killing Spider's 'real' mother (the quiet brunette - who never existed) with a spade.

The 'blonde prostitute' was Spider's real mother all along, but because of his jealousy he came not to believe it. He set up a weird device in the house using ropes and strings which would turn the gas on when he closed his bedroom door (I think) - does anyone know why in particular he chose such a convoluted way of killing her?

After that, the boy was sent to a mental asylum. The older Spider/Dennis Clegg comes out and goes to live in that halfway house, he comes to see the landlady as his mother, and again tries to kill her. This time he doesn't succeed, and he is sent back to the asylum.

Have I pretty much got it? If anyone can explain it a bit better I'd be grateful, cos despite the actual film boring the arse off me, I thought the plot was pretty cool.

[–] Merlyn-1 20 years ago

I think you've basically got it... he saw his mother in a sexual way (dad pawing her, Spider discovering her in her new lingerie)and she became a whore. Don't forget how much he loved the story of how the caring, real momma spider is supposed to shuffle off and die after having her babies. That's essentially what his "pure" mom did in his fantasy sequence about his father killing her. Then he killed the whore who killed his mother. I think one of the truly great things about the script and direction is that whenever the young Spider isn't in the scene, everything the older Spider observes eventually ends up as a part of his fantasy version of the events, as they would naturally have to be since he was never there in the first place. I'm pretty sure that if you watch the film disbelieving all of those scenes, you see what actually happened.

Why did he kill her in such a convoluted way? Besides the obvious allusion to it being a trap involving a web? Maybe to abdicate his responsibility? All he did was pull a little string... notice how he seemed happy that he eventually could smell the gas himself, as if he didn't even know it would work. He clearly became disconnected with the reality that he killed his own mother even as an adult, so I would suspect that he concocted the plan to feel as much as possible that he had nothing to do with it.

Just a thought...

[–] llwwkk 20 years ago

I saw it long times ago,maybe nearly one year.I have to say it's a boring film,although the end is quiet astonishing.all of the previous thing about his parents was imagination.his father's with the hooker and his mother's murder.I think Ralph is quite a good actor,but I still do not understand what's the meaning of the film?a thriller?no,about some physcho disease suffer?seems not.who can tell me.

[–] mascisman 20 years ago

I agree with most of this, only I think it was the brunette (and not the tart) who was Spider's real mother: after all, she was the one who was dragged out of the gassed house by his father in what I think was a more or less "real" scene. (Actually there's another thing with which I don't agree: David Cronenberg hasn't made a boring movie in his life.)

[–] dcohen-4 20 years ago

So how does the nude pictures of the blonde fit into this theory? Did he actually have these pictures, or just imagine them? If they did exist, how did Spider get them? Did his father actually have an affair with the blonde and kept the pictures as a reminder? Were they pictures of his actual mother and the brunette was the imagination?

Did I imagine the pictures?

[–] whitecats 20 years ago

I think Spider's real mother is the brunette. Remember, his mother sent him to the bar once and there he 'met' and was taunted by the blond tart. This is who Spider sees, instead of his mother, once he has twisted the sexual person that she is into the whore that he met. Essentially a sociopathic child whose fantasy life cannot be separated from reality. After the gassing he does see the world briefly for what it is, but cannot understand on a human level what has transpired.

[–] Trish33 20 years ago

If you watch that scene again, notice the faces on the women in the nudie photos. (It happens really fast, so I understand the confusion here.)

When he looks at the photos, they are just some cheesecake models. After he puts his hands on them, and takes them off, the faces of the models become the Yvonne/mother face. According to the Cronenberg commentary on the DVD, Spider has some serious sexual issues with his mother that he's never quite figured out as an adult, which is why he keeps screwing up the women in his real/imagined life. (Including Mrs. Wilkensen, the house mother at the half way house. I find it interesting to note after seeing this the second time around that the tart intrudes herself as "Yvonne Wilkensen", which may explain why Spider starts screwing the house mother up with The Tart.) Instead of dealing with his mom as a sexual being (Recall how upset he got when he saw his mom and dad necking outside the house), he envisions her as The Tart, Yvonne.

[–] fredrik-josefsson 20 years ago

Ah, now I get it. Thanks! It seems a year of phychology studies is required before watching this film.

/ Fredrik

[–] Trish33 20 years ago

According to Cronenberg's commentary on the DVD, here's how you can tell reality from non reality in Spider's flashbacks:

When the flashback has young Spider in it, then that is a real flashback, it actually happened.

When there's a flashback WITHOUT young Spider, this is what the older Spider believes may have happened in the past.

Makes sense. I mean, when I was watching the cannal scenes, I kept saying to myself, "How the heck can he be reliving an experience he wasn't around to see?" The reason is he wasn't there.

His real mother is the Brunette. There WAS a real Yvonne - the first time young Spider sees her in the pub (She flashes her boob at him). But all the times after that are his imagination; she's played by a different actress the rest of the film (By the same one who plays the mother!).

[–] gilead-1 20 years ago

Yes, you got it! This makes sense: young Spider is traumathised the first time he sees the real Yvonne, so what happens when he has to deal with his own mother as a sexual being? He sees her as Yvonne!!

Wow, just how did they come up with such a story? Everything makes perfect sense, in the end. Brrr...

[–] Inglezoid 20 years ago

I also felt that he'd made up the fact that the prostitute wasn't his mother, and that there were various sexual issues between spider and his mother, and that he was jealous of his father.
The first time I thought of this was when his mother bought the new undergown and was trying it on. Spider arrives, and she asks if he thinks his father would like it. Spider runs away, and you can see that his mother doesn't understand why he did.

It looks like a variation of the Oedipus Complex, except he kills his mother instead of his father (maybe).

[–] 20 years ago

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[–] FargoUT 20 years ago

This was one of my favorite films from 2002. I thought it was incredibly insightful and intelligent. I don't see that he viewed his mother in any sort of sexual light whatsoever. In fact, I don't think he had any sort of sexual longing for her. Here's how I view the film:

Spider, as a boy, views his mother as a wonderful saint. However, he can not cope with her alcoholism which begins when his father takes her to a bar. So instead of destroying the image of her sanctity in his mind, he creates this illusion of his father killing his mother and bringing a prostitute home to replace her. The film is a depiction of how he views the events which lead up to his mother's murder (the real murder by Spider, that is). A lot of critics were quick to point out that adult Spider saw things young Spider could not have. I think they perhaps missed the point Cronenberg was trying to make. :)

In short, this is a brutally savage portrayal of alcoholism and its detrimental effects on children. Brilliant, brilliant Cronenberg.

[–] 20 years ago

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[–] flyingcowherder 15 years ago

I don't think this film is really about alcoholism and its effects on children, despite the story quite possibly be centred around this issue. I think that overall the film is about the way in which people tend to form complex psychological "webs" like Spider's which cause us great anguish. Spider's mother asks what other creatures spin webs... the obvious answer is humans.

[–] jeebusenroute 14 years ago

I think it's about the Madonna/whore complex that some men have - a cliche but worth exploring.

[–] hodie 11 years ago

I like your take on the film. But I'm not exactly sure it was the mom's drinking. Though at some point he realized he wasn't going to have the mother he exactly wanted.

"Joey, have you ever been in a Turkish prison?"

[–] 20 years ago

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[–] 20 years ago

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[–] Kevlar01 14 years ago

Original Poster wrote: "...as no boring movie can really be classified as 'good'."

Ummmmmm... no. That's a rather unsubstantiated statement. I'd love to hear what brought you to this indefensible understanding of cinema.

[–] devilrob6 14 years ago

I have seen Spider and i can relate to the people who thought it was boring..for me movies don't have to be action packed with explosions and car chases (which IS boring), but at certain moments of this movie my mind drifted off. But the acting was good and so was the atmosphere and the ending.

The point with this movie, in my experience, is that didn't realise how good it is until the ending. The twist makes people rethink of what you have seen and that makes it a good movie.

One of the 'problems' i had with this movie, while watching it, is that i didn't understand why Spider knew all those events with his father and the whore, while he hadn't been there while it happened. Why he could literally remember what people had said. After the twist it all made sense.

[–] caitsith01 13 years ago

Hardly an "indefensible understanding of cinema".

After I watched this film the first comment I made to the other people I watched it with was that it committed the one really unforgivable sin of cinema - it was boring.

A movie can be smart, stupid, serious, silly, plausible, ridiculous - but if it's boring, it fails in its fundamental mission, which is to engage you for 2 hours in order to tell you a story. Boredom leads to a lack of engagement, which robs a film of the chance to show you something.

[–] franzkabuki 13 years ago

Got nothing to do with the film and everything to do with you.

"facts are stupid things" - Ronald Reagan

[–] caitsith01 12 years ago

You're right. I'm not boring.

[–] hodie 11 years ago

If you find a film boring, why do you assume the deficiency is in the film, and not in you?

"Joey, have you ever been in a Turkish prison?"

[–] Xeokym 9 years ago

If you find a film boring, why do you assume the deficiency is in the film, and not in you?

That always bothers me. There seem to be a lot of people who are incapable of differentiating between something being "good" or "bad" despite whether they liked it or not. There are a lot of movies that are just not my taste that I find terribly boring, that I know are great, well-made movies. I just can't relate or get into them. But people are egotistical & would rather blame the movie for being bad than taking the blame onto themselves and just admitting they didn't have the patience, attention span or interest.

Anyway...I didn't find the movie boring at all. I've watched it 4 or 5 times now over the years, it was on again the other day & I watched it again. One thing I noticed this time that I don't think I really thought about the last time I watched, was that possibly the parents liked to do some roleplaying, which might have only further confused Spider as a child. We're not seeing his entire childhood, only fragments. They obviously enjoy going out with each other to the pub for drinks, and the mother also seems to have another side to her personality when she gets drunk. The booze has a lot to do with the "split in personalities" that causes Spider to see his mother as 2 different people.

It's difficult to tell if the father cheated on the mom or not...I guess it was the actual other blonde chick who gives him the handjob under the bridge & not his wife, but in the garden shack it IS supposed to actually be the wife, right?

[–] srinath_r_htanirs 11 years ago

Interesting need not mean fast action scenes, cheap scares etc. First, any movie that draws you in can't be boring. Spider drew me in (supposedly the OP too because he's even got a theory of his own) and hence it's first not at all boring and second very intelligent and third deeply moving - possible ingredients of a masterpiece.

[–] mistedshadow 14 years ago

Another interesting twist is there are clues that indicatethat young spider was sexually abused by the mother....anyone care to take a stab at that?

also I predict older spider may have been dealing with tendencies toward homosexuality

[–] tremas-1 12 years ago

TO: MISTEDSHADOW
FROM: TREMAS
I saw only one suggestion that Young Spider was sexually abused by the mother (or THOUGHT he was abused). It was the scene in Adult Spider's bedroom in the halfway house, when the door opened and The Tart walked in, guzzling a bottle of gin and saying "Wakey, wakey!" with a wicked grin on her face.
What other clue did you see?
By the way, I didn't think the scene where Young Spider sees his Mum trying on a slip was at all salacious or suggestive. The boy ran away because it bothered him that his mother had bought the garment to please her husband.

[–] bunnywithanaxe 9 years ago

I didn't think he was abused at all-- Tart Mum woke him in a creepy fashion because he percieved her as generally creepy.

I think it was a bit vapid of Real Mum to not realise that a growing boy might start getting uncomfortable at the sight of his mother in her underwear, but it was innocent cluelessness on her part. And maybe her pandering to Dad was part of what made him run, but really- Mum in a slip is all the excuse he needed.

[–] bunnywithanaxe 9 years ago