Why was Alice supposed to be able to stop Milan touching her when he tried to grope her breasts but unable to stop him when he said that he wanted to make her come?
The contradiction was utterly stupid and pathetic and completely ruined the film.
Disagree completely. It plays upon the reality that what our head can do logically is often quite different to what our hormones and sexual responses actually do in such situations. It isn't confined to males who get aroused and can't stop.
..*.. TxMike ..*..
So what are you saying?
Are you saying that his going up to her and saying: "I want to make you come?" got her aroused, because she wanted him to do it?
I'm simply saying it is better to try to understand the filmmaker's motivation and intent for such scenes, that is much more interesting than complaining that you somehow don't think the scene was done properly.
..*.. TxMike ..*..
“Trying to understand the film-makers motive and intent for such scenes" is precisely what I’m trying to do, with little success.
What do you think was her motive and intent for these two scenes?
Isn’t the answer made difficult by their being completely contradictory?
In the first scene Alice was disgusted at Milan’s sexual advances and pushed him away, when he tried to grope her by stroking her breasts.
In the second she was not only not disgusted, when he tried to stroke her vagina, and did not push him away, but opened her legs to allow him to grope her, and then, apparently, found it exciting and pleasant, making her a willing participant, which completely contradicts the storyline of the film, which is supposed to be about a girl who was not a willing participant.
I saw this movie just over 8 months ago, I don't have a very fresh vision of all the nuances. But maybe a comparison to a movie I saw a couple of days ago, "Manhattan Night." The protagonist is Wren, an investigative reporter who is happily married to an attractive and successful surgeon. He finds himself in the apartment of a beautiful widow, she tempts him but he restrains himself, gets his coat and leaves. In the hallway he realizes he left his phone on her table, he knocks but no answer. A few minutes earlier he had observed her punching in the code for her door, remembers it, and let himself in. He calls her name, she doesn't answer, he hears the shower running, can't resist peaking, sees her nude in the shower, she notices him, comes out, he can no longer resist and they kiss and get down and dirty.
This scene to me parallels what you are referring to in the movie. It is a portrayal that each of us has limits, we sort of know those limits, but there are also certain triggers that can get us to push those limits aside and do something that might have been uncharacteristic.
As I said I watched it 8 months ago and I recall seeing that scene and I don't recall thinking there was anything out of character in it, taking the whole movie into account and what transpired after. I found it to be difficult to watch but also found it to fit the overall story.
..*.. TxMike ..*..
OK, so are you saying that you thought Alice's sex with Milan was consensual and that she enjoyed it?
shareI'm not certain that she was supposed to be enjoying it as much as she thought it somehow necessary to comply because of the superior position he was in combined with her young age making her unsure how one is supposed to react. As the movie shows she went on as an adult to be rather promiscuous and we don't know, and can never know because she is fictional, which came first - i.e. was she predisposed to being promiscuous and that allowed her to give in to him, or did giving in to him at the early age become the cause of her promiscuousness as an adult?
Which to you think it is?
..*.. TxMike ..*..
Oh right. You have a big problem. You didn’t know what the film was supposed to be about before you saw it.
I knew exactly what it was SUPPOSED to be about because I bought the DVD and it had the plot written on the sleeve.
It says: “A young writer eventually overcomes the demons of her past and is able to find love.”
The only problem is that the demons of her past aren’t revealed at the beginning of the film in chronological order.
Only glimpses of her past as a teenager are shown and are strung out all the way through the film, alongside the story of her present, and then to make matters worse, you find that you can’t work out how she felt anyway, because her behaviour is contradictory.
Alice wasn’t supposed to be promiscuous at all as a teenager.
She was supposed to be utterly disgusted at the way Milan treated her and to have found it “demonic”, utterly disturbing and degrading, which would have meant that she wouldn’t have let him get anywhere near her when he went up to her and said that he wanted to make her come, let alone help him do it, by opening her legs, let alone find it pleasant and exciting!!
The author was barmy to write the script that way. Apparently she suffered abuse herself as a child, and is supposed to be an expert on the subject, but obviously she isn’t, and hasn’t worked out her own problems properly at all.
Alice, as an adult, says in the film that she felt degraded, worthless and unlovable as a result of the way she was abused by Milan as a child, with the result that when a guy smiled at her she felt flattered and thought it meant that he really wanted her, only to find out, to her huge disappointment that he didn’t.
I only bought the film because I’d watched the 100 episodes of “Revenge” on SKY Box Sets, that Emily Vancamp had made where she was utterly, utterly brilliant, but only because, I now realize, the Series was written and directed by a team of experts who knew what they were doing
I guess I will summarize our entire discussion by:
I found that the film editing worked well, it revealed important factors as it progressed, but you didn't. Such it is with watching movies, not everyone reacts the same way.
BTW I took the opportunity to re-watch those scenes today, when Alice was 14 or 15 and was being pursued by Milan. It seemed to me that it all progressed in a reasonable manner. So I really can't identify with your objections.
..*.. TxMike ..*..
So did you think that Milan was nice to her, or nasty to her?
shareNo question he was "nasty" to her, a decent person would not have done what he did. It was all wrong, all inappropriate. I don't know why you would even ask the question, the answer is obvious.
He wasn't a decent person, and his impact on Alice is what the whole story is about. So she took her experiences and wrote her own book.
Nothing in this movie is about "what decent people would do."
..*.. TxMike ..*..
I agree, but this raises the question: “If it was obvious that he was being nasty to her when he went up to her and said that he wanted to make her come, why didn’t she think he was being nasty to her?
shareIt is clear that, being a fictional character, we can never know what she might have thought.
..*.. TxMike ..*..
But we know what she would have thought had she been a real person.
Like you and me she would have thought that he was being nasty to her and would have pushed him away and run off, as she did when he was nasty to her, on an earlier occasion.
Not if she began to find it flattering and enjoyable. Which it appears she did.
..*.. TxMike ..*..
Now you are saying about Milan’s behavior that Alice could have:
“Begun to find it flattering and enjoyable.”
When you said before:
“No question he was "nasty" to her.
A decent person would not have done what he did.
It was all wrong, all inappropriate.
The answer is obvious.”
Which raises the question I asked before: How could Alice have found Milan’s behavior “flattering and enjoyable”, when it was “obviously all wrong, nasty, indecent and inappropriate”?
It doesn’t make sense, does it?
But we know what she would have thought had she been a real person.
Like you and me she would have thought that it was obvious that he was being nasty to her and would have pushed him away and run off, as she did, on an earlier occasion.
The film doesn't spell everything out, but it is basically clear enough, and as in most situations, in order to understand, you have to think in terms of grey, not black and white.
Alice was attracted to Milan initially because he was the only person that seemed to genuinely value her and her writing and therefore was treating her as a real person, rather than an extension of himself as her own father did, so he became her mentor and father figure.
When Milan finally started to reveal his true intentions, it was a gradual process coinciding with her own awakening sexuality, and the scene in which she allows him to bring her to orgasm is right after she reveals that she "hooked up" with a boy for the first time. So Alice let Milan, her father figure and mentor, "mentor" her about sex as well. It also didn't hurt that he appeared jealous, and this is when Alice started to equate sex with self-worth, power, and control, as evidenced by both father figures in her life.
As revealed later on, that was all that ever happened between them, and we don't see what happened afterwards, but we can assume either Milan had gotten everything he needed from Alice, and just didn't bother coming around again, or her father said something to him and he didn't come around again, since Alice had rather coldly and calculatedly told her father that Milan was visiting regularly when nobody was home.
The only real problem with the film for me is that the older Alice is played so much more awkwardly than the younger Alice, and Emily Vancamp could have easily played both parts.
Revenge is a dish that best goes stale.
Can't see it.
shareWell, that's unfortunate, as then the obvious answer is that you stick to movies made for Lifetime and Hallmark, as those should be simple enough for you to see.
Revenge is a dish that best goes stale.
Glad you liked it, but I'm afraid that I found the abuser completely unrealistic and repulsive.
shareI never said I liked the film anywhere in my response, in fact I thought it left a lot to be desired, but you actually bought the dvd based solely on the main actress, so research is key before you waste your money on films that you can't enjoy or understand.
Revenge is a dish that best goes stale.
“I never said I liked the film anywhere in my response, in fact I thought it left a lot to be desired,”
Guess we agree on that then.
“ but you actually bought the dvd based solely on the main actress, so research is key,”
It’s a funny thing you should say that. I was doing research. On Emily Vankampf, because I was so impressed with her amazing performance in “Revenge”, which series I thoroughly recommend to anybody.
“before you waste your money,”
Guess I didn’t.
“ on films that you can't enjoy,”
I knew I wouldn’t enjoy it from having seen the trailer. It made it clear that Milan was a gross and thoroughly unpleasant pervert.
“or understand. “
What makes you think I didn’t understand it?
You are actually asking me to tell you what makes me think you didn't understand the movie?
You know, back in the day, usenet trolling was often amusing, but it's an art, and you don't have the skill. In a forum like this, it's just lame.
Revenge is a dish that best goes stale.
There was nothing difficult to understand was there?
share