Chan-wook Park – Bitch Flicks

‘Stoker’–Family Secrets, Frozen Bodies, and Female Orgasms

Her uncle’s imposing presence has awakened in her at the same time a lust for bloodshed and an intense sexual desire, and she promptly begins to experiment and seek out means with which to satisfy both.

This guest post by Julie Mills appears as part of our theme week on Violent Women.

Turning 18 is a big deal for any teenager. It’s a huge milestone on the rough road to adulthood, a time of change and discovering one’s true self. For India Stoker (Mia Wasikowska), it is so much more. Her whole world is about to be turned upside down.

Right from the beginning, Stoker pulls you into India’s own special microcosm, which is as captivating as it is haunting. This girl is highly intelligent, but introverted and socially awkward, and it is hinted that she has a mild autism spectrum disorder. She is playful and ever curious to feel, to experience, to know everything. She has been raised in a privileged, protective environment and is quiet, shy, and innocent–innocent as a baby predator before she has made her first kill.

India surrounded by her shoe collection. She gets a new pair every year for her birthday.

India has just lost her father, and the arrival of her uncle Charlie (Matthew Goode), who seems to appear out of nowhere and whom neither India nor her mother Evelyn (Nicole Kidman) have ever met before, throws her life off balance even further.

Uncle Charlie is handsome, charming, and creepy as hell. He has “danger” written all over him, and Evelyn falls for him right away, seeing in him a younger version of her late husband. While expertly weaving his web of charms around his sister-in-law, Charlie also immediately starts to subtly influence his niece, deliberately provoking her and testing her reactions, following her every move with his piercing blue eyes. His moving in with India and her mother sets off a new dynamic that might have been a love triangle, but turns out to be more of a three-way power struggle.

A rare moment of intimacy between mother and daughter.

India’s relationship with her mother is distant at the best of times. In focusing all his attention on their daughter, India’s late father had severely neglected his wife Evelyn, who has turned lonely and bitter over the years. There is hardly a scene with her in it where she is not holding on to a glass of wine as if it were a lifeline. Her husband’s death might have finally provided an opportunity for the two women to bond, but their intense jealousy over Charlie threatens to drive them even further apart.

Stoker was Hollywood actor Wentworth Miller’s stunning debut as a script writer, as well as the first English-language work of South Korean director Chan-wook Park (Oldboy), which explains why in some places the film comes across as a little rough around the edges, but on the whole is fresh and highly intriguing. As with Tideland, Pan’s Labyrinth, or Hannah, to truly appreciate the story you must allow yourself to take on the lead character’s unique perspective, to lay aside your judgment and morality and simply enjoy the disturbing yet engrossing visual ride. Just don’t expect an orgy of violence or bloodbath as can be found in some of Park’s previous movies. This is a psychological thriller, not an action movie. The pace is slow, peeling away layer by layer of deceit and building the suspense gradually like a Hitchcock film (the name “Uncle Charlie” is actually a reference to Shadow of a Doubt).

Who knew how much sexual tension can be in a piano duet?

Among other portrayals of violent women, Stoker stands out because there aren’t many stories about female psychopaths around, and because India’s attraction to violence is closely intertwined with her budding sexuality. Her uncle’s imposing presence has awakened in her at the same time a lust for bloodshed and an intense sexual desire, and she promptly begins to experiment and seek out means with which to satisfy both.

What bothered me most about the story was the fact that in the beginning India is presented as passive like a stereotypical female, waiting and longing to be rescued. Apparently she has to rely on male assistance and guidance in order to discover and awaken her full potential. Her father had, not unlike the father of TV’s Dexter, been systematically grooming her all her life, training her to deal with any “bad” feelings by keeping her isolated and taking her hunting regularly, teaching her that “sometimes you need to do something bad to stop you from doing something worse.” And after his death his brother Charlie takes over, leading India in a completely different direction, but still exerting control over her.

This doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, even in the story’s universe, because India’s dark urges are presented as an inherent part of her nature (her uncle mentions the two of them sharing the same blood), yet have remained inexplicably inert. If her violent impulses had been so strong as to warrant the long lasting control by her father, she wouldn’t have needed her uncle’s encouragement to be set free, and vice versa. In contrast, Charles had discovered his lust for killing on his own, when he was just a boy. Also, when her uncle gives India her first pair of high-heeled shoes that somehow instantly completes India’s transformation into womanhood, which feels like a weird variant of the makeover trope.

BAM.

Personally, for me the most gratifying parts are when India resists Charlie and questions what she has been told, even while she is becoming increasingly infatuated with him. She sets off to seek out her own answers, going through her late father’s things and uncovering dark secrets both her father and her uncle had been keeping from her. In the end, the student surpasses the teacher. India breaks free of her uncle’s control and acts out of her own volition, leaving her old life behind.

I would just love a sequel to this, to see the story escalate from here, preferably in the style of Natural Born Killers or The Devil’s Rejects. Unleashed, India is glorious. She is a true psychopath, hurting people and killing without remorse, simply for her own pleasure. She was neither forced to become violent to fight for survival, nor is she looking for retribution for something that has been done to her in the past. It’s just in her nature.

At first glance this appears to be a classical story about a dangerous predator seducing and corrupting the innocent. But maybe India was never innocent to begin with. Maybe she was simply inexperienced.

[youtube_sc url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJWrXKoTpL0″]

Julie Mills is in the process of throwing away a perfectly fine, well-paying career to become a full-time writer. At the moment she is working on her first NaNoWriMo project, which is about a female serial killer. You can find her on Twitter @_Julie_M_

‘Stoker’: Love, Longing, Desire, and Acceptance

In addition to telling a great story, ‘Stoker’ also shows an open and often eerie portrayal of female sexual desire, longing, perception of love and acceptance of one’s self as an autonomous sexual being. The film doesn’t shy away from pure desire and want as justifiable means to actions.

This guest post by Shay Revolver appears as part of our theme week on Representations of Female Sexual Desire.

A good psychological thriller pulls its viewers in like a spider web. The director and cinematographer work together like a couple of spiders, the actors and their performance become the web. If all of these elements come together as they should, a trap is set and the viewer becomes a fly. There is a sense of magic in Chan-wook Park’s Stoker. The story is compelling, the stage wonderfully set , the camera work is intense and the actors are amazing. If you haven’t seen the film yet, I urge you to check it out for these reasons alone. I will warn you, however, that there is an attempted rape in the film, and some of the other scenes might be a bit disturbing to watch. The beauty of the film isn’t the only thing that makes this film amazing. In addition to telling a great story, Stoker also shows an open and often eerie portrayal of female sexual desire, longing, perception of love and acceptance of one’s self as an autonomous sexual being. The film doesn’t shy away from pure desire and want as justifiable means to actions. Seeing such an open portrayal on screen is refreshing.

Virginal India Before the Sexual Awakening

Stoker tells the story of the newly 18 India Stoker, played by a very stoic and introspective Mia Wasikowska. India is coming to terms with the recent death of her father, Richard. He died in a tragic car accident on her birthday, leaving her alone to enter young adulthood with her cold and often irrational mother, Evelyn, played by Nicole Kidman. As if all of these feelings and emotions weren’t enough on their own, the funeral brings India’s uncle, Charlie, into the mix. The women have never met him because he has spent his life traveling the world and he offers, and by offers, I mean tells them that he is going to stick around and help out.

This is the point in the film where female desire starts taking shape and bringing itself to the forefront as a real theme of Stoker. Evelyn is a woman with needs and desires. With her husband now gone she finds herself in need of someone to connect with, someone to take care of her and make her feel wanted, desired, and loved. Her husband devoted himself to their daughter India, which gave India a sense of under-the-surface confidence and stripped away Evelyn’s “value” as a sexual, desirable woman. Because of this shift in the marriage you get the sense from the very beginning of the film that Evelyn has been alone in a sense for a very long time. With her husband now out of the picture, she finds herself alone with her daughter to lean on. However, India has just turned 18 and is trying to figure out who she is as a woman and what she wants. This leaves Evelyn vulnerable and hurt. This desire for a connection and to be needed that exists inside of her makes her easy prey for Charlie’s charm. She welcomes him into the home and her life to fill the hole inside of her.

India, on the other hand, is far more skeptical of her uncle and his motives. While she is mourning the loss of her father, she is not in such a rush to have another male figure come in and take his place. Having recently turned 18 and trying to figure out her place in the world, she’s already begun separating herself from her mother and her father’s death, while hurting her deeply, gave her an added sense of freedom. She also finds herself drawn to her uncle in an odd way. Having never met him she finds his gaze strange and his seduction of her mother even stranger. She watches him with equal parts curiosity and annoyance.

Charlie continues his seduction of Evelyn, which delights Evelyn because she has wanted to be desired for so long. However, the closer that the two of them become the further India pushes both of them away. Soon India’s great aunt arrives to visit and check up on India and Evelyn. This visit and subsequent conversations with her great aunt solidify India’s distrust of her uncle and his motives. Evelyn, on the other hand, believes that great aunt Gwendolyn is just continuing her pattern of being judgmental towards her and ignores her subtle warnings. Evelyn is finally feeling like a woman again, and she refuses to have this feeling ruined.

One of the interesting things about Stoker is that while it doesn’t shy away from female desires or awakenings, it doesn’t exploit them either. It treats them as part of the story. Both female leads are experiencing a sexual awakening of sorts but from different ends of the spectrum. Evelyn is finding a second life through her intimate interactions with Charlie. She’s starting to feel alive again, wanted. Her needs are being met. India is experiencing an awakening as well. She’s exploring her sexuality and figuring out what excites her. After a rather violent day at school where she stabs a bully in the hand with a pencil, she returns home to witness Evelyn and Charlie exploring each other. This drives her from the home and into fellow classmate Whip. Wanting to explore her own sexual feelings she goes with him into the woods, they make out for a while and she begins to discover where her desires lead. As the make-out session gets more exploratory she bites Whip. Not in the playful coy way–in a violent way. A way reminiscent of the stabbing of the bully at school so much so that a correlation can be seen between the penetration of the male bully by the less-than-helpless India as the catalyst to her sexual awakening. This awakening is confirmed by her interaction with Whip.

This interaction with Whip starts to take a turn for the worse and Whip attempts to rape India; this interaction ends with Whip being buried in India’s garden. Her Uncle Charlie shows up at the last minute and breaks Whip’s neck with his belt buckle. This tragic experience doesn’t mortify India like such an horrifying back-to-back interactions would mortify most young women; instead, it excites her. So much so that her awakening comes to a head while she masturbates in the shower and climaxes to the memory of Uncle Charlie breaking the neck of her would-be rapist.

India Stoker masturbates in the shower — India masturbates in the shower

By this point in Stoker, Evelyn has begun to feel alive again and like a vital wanted woman and India has realized that her uncle is a murderer. While going through her dead father’s office, she finds letters from her uncle and realizes that her suspicions were founded–he’s crazy and she shouldn’t trust him. She confronts her uncle and you discover that not only is he delusional and probably in love with her, but he also killed her father. She covers her anger well and plays along nicely when Charlie steps in to save her again by giving her an alibi when the sheriff comes around to find out what happened to Whip, whom he believes has disappeared. As a thank you, India uses her new-found sexuality and seduction techniques on her eager uncle just in time for her mother to catch them before things go too far. Evelyn is hurt. Her need to be desired and to feel like a woman and sexual being seems to be on the verge of yet again being taken away by India. Evelyn begins to verbally attack India in a very cold way before confronting Charlie with the truth–something she plans to use to keep Charlie around as her lover and separate him from her daughter.

Evelyn and India have a mother-daughter talk

Her plan goes awry, and after an intense seduction by Charlie, he attempts to do what he does best and kill her. His plan doesn’t quite go as planned because the very capable India shows up and kills Charlie before he can kill her mother. She buries her uncle in the backyard and decides to follow her original plan and move to New York to start a new life.

As India drives off into to sunset in her/Charlie’s car, you can tell something is different about her. No longer the same unsure little girl she was at the beginning of the film , India had evolved into something altogether new. She experienced her awakening; she discovered the art of seduction. She knew what turned her on, what excited her, and you get the sense that she was going forth to find it. One of the great things about this film is that there is no judgment. Charlie’s character, while prominent, is more of a supporting role than a lead. His sole purpose in the film is to facilitate the awakening of Evelyn and India. His violent actions open the gateway for India to explore her masochistic , violent and dominating desires and his charm facilitate Evelyn’s return to being a sexual being after what the viewer can assume has been an 18-year void.

The film doesn’t ever fully punish the women as they go through their sexual transformations or subject them to a gratuitous male gaze-focused sex scenes like most films would have done. It treats their desires, needs, and curiosities as matter of fact and a part of life. It acknowledges that all women are, at their core sexual, beings just as much as men are, and they have needs and wants. Stoker never once shies away from these needs and desires. It even shows how these desires and awakenings can come on slowly over a period of time, like India’s, or can be latent and come on quick and all at once like Evelyn’s. It gave an actual unapologetic portrayal of women coming alive and actually wanting to be sexually and physically satisfied without condemnation or shame placed upon the act or their desire for it. And that makes Stoker not only an amazing psychological thriller with a gripping story, but also a representation of being a woman: discovering what turns you on and what you need from other people and from yourself, going for it, and being unapologetic for what you want.

Shay Revolver is a vegan, feminist, cinephile, insomniac, recovering NYU student and former roller derby player currently working as a New York-based microcinema filmmaker, web series creator and writer. She’s obsessed with most books, especially the Pop Culture and Philosophy series and loves movies and TV shows from low brow to high class. As long as the image is moving she’s all in and believes that everything is worth a watch. She still believes that movies make the best bedtime stories because books are a daytime activity to rev up your engine and once you flip that first page, you have to keep going until you finish it and that is beautiful in its own right. She enjoys talking about the feminist perspective in comic book and gaming culture and the lack of gender equality in mainstream cinema and television productions. Twitter: @socialslumber13.

‘Stoker’ and the Feminist Female Serial Killer

Move poster for Stoker

Written by Amanda Rodriguez

Spoiler Alert

(Read my fellow Bitch Flicks writer, Stephanie Roger’s, review of Stoker here.)

The first time you watch Stoker, it’s something of a perplexing experience because the narrative is such a genre-bender. I spent at least half the movie wondering what kind of movie I was watching. Not to toot my own horn overly much, but I’ve got a bit of an eye for formulas and am pretty good at spotting them. A film that can keep me on my toes like Stoker did is a rare, commendable animal. The direction Stoker did end up taking was also surprising, unique, and oddly feminist.

Ultimately, Stoker is the coming-of-age tale of a blossoming female serial killer. A “true” female serial killer is not only rare in cinema, but in real life as well. You’re probably thinking, “What the hell is she talking about? There are a slew of female serial killer movies and real-life figures I can think of off the top of my head.” In truth, women serial murderers kill for reasons different from their male counterparts. Typically, women kill for money or revenge, targeting people they know or to whom they’re related. Whereas male serial killers tend to predominantly kill strangers with the motivation being sexual in natural. To clarify, male serial killer motivation surrounds power and usually displays itself in sexualized killings or in the sexual response the killer has to his murders. Not only that, but some of the world’s most famous female serial killers work in partnership with a male serial killer, thus simulating that psychosexuality inherent in their murders.

India Stoker (portrayed by the amazingly talented Mia Wasikowska) meets her creepy serial killer uncle Charlie (Matthew Goode), and the more strangely he behaves and the more evidence India has of his murderousness, the more attracted she is to him.

Finds housekeeper’s dead body in the basement freezer. Starts hanging out with Charlie more.

Their unsettling, incestuous flirtation culminates in their joint murder of India’s classmate, Whip. The boy and India make out in the woods, and when she decides she’s had enough of him, the boy tries to rape her. Charlie swoops in to rescue her, and, together, the two kill India’s assailant. The movie makes it clear that Whip is an utter piece of shit and totally has it coming, so there’s little moral ambiguity in this kill, which differentiates it from Charlie’s prior murders (the housekeeper, an aunt, and, at this point, we suspect India’s father). India’s actions of self-defense and the shittiness of the victim leave the lingering possibility that India is not, in fact, serial killer material.

The following scene is the classic post sexual assault shower scene with a twist. We see India hunched over and whimpering in the shower intercut with flashbacks to the assault and Whip’s death. It gradually dawns on the audience that India isn’t weeping, she’s masturbating. This scene is pivotal and is, in fact, one of the major climaxes of the film, which makes the structure of the film itself more feminist. Feminists have noted for many years that the typical story structure with the single climax near the end of the film followed by the denouement more closely resembles the pattern of male sexual pleasure. A more feminist structure would allow for multiple climactic scenes, which Stoker does. (There are more climactic moments nearer the end of the film, which I’ll get into shortly.) Not only is the film’s first climax a scene that ends with a woman actually orgasming, it is a masturbation scene wherein India is pleasuring herself.

That’s a boat-load of female agency right there.

India comes to realize in yet another climactic, pivotal scene that Charlie is mentally ill (perhaps even more than she is herself), that he wants to take her away with him, and that he has always wanted to be with her. Not only that, but the film reveals to the audience what India strongly suspects: Charlie murdered India’s father in order to be with her.

India goes through the stack of Charlie’s letters addressed to her over the years. She realizes that though Charlie claims to send them from around the world, in fact, they’re all sent from a mental institution.

Despite her realization that Charlie is insane, India agrees to leave with him because his presence and guidance have triggered her coming-of-age and shown her that she isn’t alone in her proclivities. It turns out, though, that a prerequisite for running away with Charlie is allowing him to kill off her mother, Evelyn (Nicole Kidman). Because India and Evelyn have a difficult relationship in which they don’t relate to one another with no love lost between them, Charlie supposes this is an easy enough task to get out of the way before spiriting his beloved India away. While he brutally strangles Evelyn with his belt, India calmly puts her rifle together, aims her sights (at who? Evelyn or Charlie?), and fires.

Let’s take a quick second to examine Charlie and India’s choice of weaponry. Charlie favors a belt, stolen from his brother/India’s father, with which he strangles his victims to death. India, we learn, favors her hunting rifle. Not choosing the tool of her mentor differentiates her from him, allowing her an identity unique to him despite their overwhelming similarities. Not only that, but you could get all psychoanalytic on this shit and view their weapon choices as a form of gender role reversal. Charlie’s belt, which encircles and constricts could be viewed as vaginal, while India’s gun with its shape and its firing of bullets is a common phallic symbol. Within our world that views masculinity and masculine symbols as superior, India’s weapon of choice subtly establishes her dominance over Charlie, a fact that is further reinforced when she kills him.

In spite of the sexual connection India has with Charlie, in spite of their shared interests and secrets, in spite of the estranged relationship she has with her mother, India chooses to save Evelyn and nonchalantly shoots and kills her uncle. I admit I was worried for a minute because it’s not a very strong feminist statement when a young girl must essentially murder her mother in order to come into adulthood and into her sexual identity, even if we’re talking about a budding serial killer. India, unlike her mother, does not choose a man fresh on the scene over the woman with whom she’s been sharing a home and life for 18 years. Neither, though, does India stick around to live out the rest of her life trapped in a mother-daughter dynamic wherein neither one of them is capable of loving the other. Instead, she takes off in her new black pumps wearing her father/Charlie’s belt with her rifle and her uncle’s flashy convertible. If it’s unclear which path she’s chosen, we have a final climactic moment in which India shoots the sheriff (har, har) who pulls her over for speeding.

India with the rifle

The more I think about this movie, the more I like it, and the more feminist tropes I see in it. The Freudian parallels, genre subversion, and feminist subtext (or just regular text?) didn’t happen by accident; director Chan-wook Park is meticulously deliberate about his imagery, symbolism, and delivery of dialogue. The strict, generally accepted, masculine definition I gave above for what constitutes a serial killer is, in itself, a gender-biased, sexist definition that gives legitimacy and near rockstar status to men who murder multiple people (predominantly women) in order to feel a sexualized rush of power. By this definition, serial killers are an elite boys club of He-Man Woman Haters who don’t allow female participation. Trying to make a woman fit into this masculine mold is a dubious honor, but I can’t help but appreciate the deft skill with which Park makes this a believable possibility. Not only is India a multifaceted character, but she is strong, smart, independent, and finds her own path while creating her own moral code outside the patriarchal strictures that Charlie attempts to impose upon her. India may transition from heroine to anti-heroine throughout the course of Stoker, and she may be a scary-ass serial killer, but she is, nonetheless, a powerful, feminist figure.

‘Stoker’: The Creepiest Coming-of-Age Tale I’ve Ever Seen

Stoker movie poster

Written by Stephanie Rogers.

If I were asked to describe my reaction to Stoker using an acronym, I’d go with “WTF,” although I definitely experienced some “OMG” and “STFU” moments here and there. By the end, I could hear myself mentally reviewing the film and toying with the idea of titling this piece merely, “OFFS.” That’s the overall reaction, distilled, I had to Stoker from the first five minutes of watching the film all the way to the final credits. I mean, I’m not saying I didn’t like it. Or even love it. Or possibly want to find all existing film reels (and whatever digital incarnations exist) and set them on fire. I just won’t be able to tell for a few months or so. It’s one of those movies.

Uncomfortable mother-daughter interaction

In a lot of ways—okay, like, two—it reminded me of Silver Linings Playbook. Its genre-mixing, unpredictability, and innovative storytelling, particularly with how it illustrates the hereditary aspect of mental illness, works incredibly well. Of course, while Silver Linings Playbook can make a person joy-cry at the end, Stoker’s ending (and beginning and middle) should come with a Serious Trigger Warning for depictions of violence, sexual assault, and incest. I plan to address those things in this review as well, and I’ll also add a Spoiler Alert, if only to avoid writing a horrible paragraph like this ever in my life:

It’s hard to avoid spoilers at this point, but let’s leave it at this: India discovers that her parents have been concealing something very important regarding her uncle—and, given her emotionally close relationship with him, something very important about herself, about character traits that are a part of her own blood. When the truth comes out, her world is overturned, her monsters are unleashed, and she finds herself without the solid footing of character, self-knowledge, and moral clarity to fight them.

(It’s probably not nice to make fun of Richard Brody of The New Yorker, but since Vida’s Count recently showed us in its annual illustration of literary journals that unapologetically refuse to publish women writers or review the work of women writers, The New Yorker can go fuck itself. Also: “her monsters are unleashed” … No.)

Evie (Nicole Kidman) and India (Mia Wasikowska)

Seriously though, what the hell did I just watch? One could categorize Stoker as any of the following: a coming-of-age tale, a crime thriller, a sexual assault revenge fantasy, a love story, a murder mystery, a slasher film, a romantic comedy (I’m hilarious), or even an allegory about the dangers of bullying, parental neglect, or keeping family secrets. Throw a recurring spider in there, some shoes, a bunch of random objects shaped like balls, along with a hint of incest, some on-screen masturbation, imagined orgasmic piano duets, and a handful of scenes that rip off Hitchcock so hard that Hitchcock could’ve directed it (see Shadow of a Doubt), and you’ll have yourself a nice little freakshow!

Seriously though, shoes and balls are really important in this movie.

Saddle Shoe (girlhood!) and High Heel (womanhood!)

Unlike this review, Stoker starts off straightforwardly enough. Mia Wasikowska (our favorite) plays India Stoker, a comically quiet teenager reminiscent of Wednesday Addams, at least until she evolves into a full-blown psychopath, who hates to be touched, gets bullied by boys at school—they call her “Stroker”—and mourns her father (Dermot Mulroney) after his suspicious death in a car accident on her 18th birthday. Nicole Kidman plays Evie, India’s mother, in typical Kidman as Insufferable Ice Princess casting, and there’s pretty much nothing redeeming about her. She gloms onto her dead husband’s estranged brother Charlie at the funeral (played by Matthew Goode), whom she’s never met and never once questions the presence of, and when Mrs. McGarrick, her housekeeper of a million years mysteriously vanishes, she says things like, “Oh no, what will we do for dinner now!” with earnest incredulity.

Evie loses her shit on India (finally!)

I realize Evie isn’t supposed to be likeable, that we’re meant to roll our eyes at her upper-class privilege and displays of affection toward her husband’s mysterious younger brother, that maybe we’re even supposed to feel a tiny bit sorry for her. But I despise one-dimensional women characters onscreen, and Evie is just that, a collection of simplistic tropes used to move the narrative forward: a bad wife, a bad mother, a bad boss (like, aren’t you even going to look for your missing housekeeper?), and a bad niece-in-law (Aunt Gin needs to talk to you alone for a reason, you idiot.) Her obliviousness to everything happening around her doesn’t read as the dissociated or even unstable response of a wife in mourning; it reads as the selfish and feigned cluelessness of a generally awful person.

Goodbye, Auntie Gin

Evie—hats off to Nicole Kidman—eventually delivers one of the scariest monologues I’ve ever seen on film. It’s the first time she utters anything longer than a few sentences at once (which are usually about the importance of polite behavior and playing the piano), but this monologue, I mean, chills. It’s also the only time Evie exhibits just as much overt “crazy” as the other characters, and I found myself savoring that moment. Isn’t it funny how a character can become interesting once she’s allowed to do things other than comment on etiquette and pass out drunk?

I wish we got to see that less passive side of Evie earlier in the film because, the thing is, we don’t need to dislike Evie in order to feel sympathy for her daughter. It’s certainly possible to make characters bad and villainous while also making them complex and even charming. The makers of this film know that, too. You know how I know that? Because Charlie Stoker exists.

Evie and Charlie (Matthew Goode)

This fuckin’ guy. He rolls onto the family estate during his brother’s funeral like he’s been there all along, and somehow, “I’ve been travelling the world for 20 years” seems like a reasonable excuse for his lifelong absence. Naturally, he decides to move in with Evie and India because why not, I’m sure everyone will be totally fine with that, nice to meet you! And they are. Except for Aunt Gin and Housekeeper McGarrick, who genuinely—rightfully—fear this bro, even with all his charisma and sexy-sheepish smiles. They know some shit. India mistrusts him at first, too, but the more she learns about him, and the creepier (and more murderous) he becomes, the more India identifies with him. Queue The New Yorker’s Richard Brody: her monsters are unleashed.

Accompanied by a few feminist themes.

India imitating a yard statue, accompanied by saddle shoes

For one, I don’t think it’s possible to not read Stoker as a coming-of-age tale, mainly because it puts so much emphasis on India’s burgeoning womanhood. We see her in flashbacks as a young girl, a semi-tomboy who hunted birds with her dad, who wore the same pair of black-and-white saddle shoes all her life—she received a bigger size every year on her birthday (remember, shoes and balls are really important in this movie)—who never identified with her beautiful, quintessentially feminine mother, and whose experiences with boys include stabbing one in the hand with a sharpened pencil (loved that) when he and a group of friends sexually harass her behind their high school.

These fucking shoes!

That foreshadows India’s upcoming attempted rape … because what would an onscreen coming-of-age tale of burgeoning womanhood be without an attempted rape scene? (I’m only half-joking here; considering one in three women lives through a sexual assault in her lifetime, and most films seek to reveal some Truth About Humanity, I’m surprised the issue of sexual assault and rape isn’t addressed more often—and accurately—onscreen. Oh wait, I forgot we’re talking about women’s stories here: UNIMPORTANT.) Um.

In my mind, the film exists in two parts: everything that happens before the attempted rape and everything that happens after it.

I’m sure this is a 100% acceptable uncle-niece interaction

Stoker addresses India’s sexual feelings early on; she clearly feels an attraction toward her uncle, and she seeks out a boy from school immediately after she catches her mother and uncle kissing. The juxtaposition of these scenes—India watching two people engage in sexual activity and her subsequent desire to do so herself—touches on a couple of familiar adolescent emotions. One could read India’s reaction to discovering her mom and uncle’s indiscretion as a big Fuck You to both of them. One could also read India’s reaction to discovering her mom and uncle’s indiscretion as an attempt to behave like an adult, to emulate what she sees (remember: coming of age!). Both of those responses ring true to me, and Stoker effectively captures the confusion inherent in leaving the familiarity of girlhood and entering a not-yet-entirely-defined womanhood.

But India decides during her make out session in the woods with the rapist that she doesn’t want to do anything more than kiss, at which point she tells him she wants to go home. He ignores her, physically assaults her, and attempts to rape her. And that’s when her monsters are unleashed. (I can’t stop saying it.)

India as Hunter

I won’t reveal what happens during this scene because—damn—but believe me, it changes everything for India, for everyone. From here until the end of the film, Stoker explores India’s equating of death and violence with sexual awakening, and it looks at the relationship between power, innocence, and what it means for a young woman to lose both. It also asks a question about choice, about how much power we really have over ourselves, our actions, over who we become.

The film opens with a voiceover (that bookends the film) of India telling us, “Just as a flower does not choose its color, we are not responsible for what we have come to be. Only once you realize this do you become free.” This, contrasted with what the film reveals about Charlie’s past and India’s present—and the similarities of both—raise an important, albeit subtle point regarding mental health and the genetic predisposition of mental illness. Stoker takes it even further though, with a welcomed feminist slant; because, while India seems to make difficult choices to protect her mother and herself from violence at the hands of men, we’re ultimately left wondering just how much of a choice—like many women in relationships with abusive men—she really has.