This is a guest post by Laura Shamas.
Laggies, a new comedy written by Andrea Seigel and directed by Lynn Shelton, explores how indecision and passivity wreak havoc in the personal life of Megan (played by Keira Knightly), a Seattle woman in her late 20s. Various themes and motifs explored in the film include: the desire to be “adolescent forever” or the appeal of the “puella aeterna” complex; the meaning of animal spirit guides; and complications of father-daughter relationships in terms of female identity. In the growing body of work from talented filmmaker Shelton, this movie’s theme could be categorized under a general umbrella of healing troubled family ties, as seen in her previous films Touchy Feely (2013) and Your Sister’s Sister (2011).
Megan (hilariously portrayed by Keira Knightly) is still part of a circle of friends formed in high school. As 30-ish young adults, they are collectively moving on to marriage, parenthood, and ascending careers. Floundering Megan, who quit grad school therapist training, lives with her serious boyfriend Anthony (Mark Webber), and works for her accountant father (Jeff Garlin) by waving signs on the street to advertise his business. Her friends and her mother express impatience with Megan’s inability to “grow up” and commit to a solid direction in life, be it by marrying, getting career counseling, or finding a new interest of any kind.
A Peter Pan syndrome, or in Jungian terms, the “puer aeternus” complex (forever young), is active here for Megan’s character as she fears personal and professional commitment; the term is “puella aeterna” for women. The appeal of this complex is to stay “forever young,” a girl-woman without adult-level commitments. Her complex is strongly activated by her friend Allison’s (Ellie Kemper) bridal shower and large wedding. When boyfriend Anthony proposes to her at the wedding reception, Megan takes a moment to consider things and goes outside, where she catches her father passionately kissing another woman.
Upset Megan, in true “puella” style, flees the wedding without explanation, and drives away alone. In front of a store, teenaged Annika (Chloë Grace Moretz), asks Megan to buy alcohol for her lively group of high school friends. Megan agrees, saying it’s a “rite of passage” since someone once did it for her; Megan ends up spending the rest of the evening drinking with the teenagers outside, and even TPing a house. When she returns home, Megan finds that Anthony, her friends and parents were understandably alarmed by her abrupt disappearance from the wedding reception. However, Megan and Anthony seal their elopement plans and look forward to getting married in the next week or so in Las Vegas.
This first “regression” sequence for Megan, of hanging out with high school kids, leads to more, as Megan eventually fakes attending a business conference for a week, while in reality, hanging out with Annika’s crowd, staying at her house and getting to know Craig (Sam Rockwell), Annika’s charismatic father. Megan poses as Annika’s mom for a conference with a school counselor, trying on the role of “mother.” Megan’s ongoing vocational interest in “healing” is foreshadowed here as she inquires about the credentials needed to work as a school counselor.
The leitmotif of animal spirit guides is present in the film, used to metaphorically probe the undercurrents of character. Anthony learns, while attending a conference, that his animal guide is “Shark,” a motivating image for him in terms of personal/professional growth. But what is Megan’s spiritual animal avatar? During her weeklong “secret residency” at Annika’s house, Megan takes care of a pet tortoise left behind by Annika’s mother, who moved away. Although the pet has feeding issues, Megan gets on the ground with it in the back yard and cures its eating disorder – another sign of her continued interest in the act of healing. Megan declares to Craig that “Tortoise” is her animal spirit guide. At the teenager’s request, Annika and Megan visit estranged mom Bethany (Gretchen Mol), by tracking her down from a return address on checks sent to Craig. Inside Bethany’s apartment, there are tortoise images on the walls, heading downward towards the floor – a symbolic tie to the family Bethany left behind. Megan, in the encounter in Bethany’s apartment, tries to help both mother and daughter connect, a third instance in the film of Megan promoting a healing process.
In the end of the film, Megan falls in love with Craig while engaged to Anthony, without either of the men knowing about each other. She declares herself to be “a Snake,” but one in the act of transformation, shedding skin. Although some have interpreted the film’s ending to be in the “romantic comedy” vein, the animal imagery here signals that it’s more about Megan’s understanding of herself. More than a simple “happily ever after” ending, she comes to terms with who she really is. Her admission of her own “slow pace” (Tortoise) and duplicity in romance (Snake), along with an articulation of a desire to change (her connection to the “snake’s skin”) leads her to break free from the passivity of her “in-between” life and the stereotypical social pressures of her friends, to go for what she really wants. Siegel and Shelton remind us that our “animal” instincts connect to personal identity and self-acceptance.
Father-daughter relationships get a lot of screen time in Laggies. Two daughters, with loving dads, struggle with identity issues and passivity. Ed has always loved Megan unconditionally, cutting her slack when others judged her “laggie” ways harshly. He never “pushed” her towards easy answers as others in the film seem to do. But Megan cuts off all contact from her dad after seeing him kissing another woman. In the film’s third act, Megan admits that she is like her father with her own recent bout of cheating; she confronts Ed about his “cheating” incident, and also listens to his advice about the changing nature of relationships, and the ongoing need to work at maintaining them. She’s also happy that he told her mother the truth about what happened, and her parents are going to work through their relationship issues.
Craig and Annika also have a paired focus in the film. Craig’s initial alarm upon finding the adult Megan hanging out in his daughter’s bedroom highlights his role of “protector.” But Annika is protective of her father, too; she cuts off her friendship with wayward Megan upon learning that she’s engaged to another man while becoming involved with her dad. Annika misses her mother; Megan functions as a surrogate mother-mentor figure to her in a large portion of the film, but facilitates a reconciliation visit between Annika and Bethany.
Laggies investigates how a Peter Pan syndrome might lose its appeal, and what happens, at the quarter-life mark, when one outgrows a circle of former high school friends. The film begins with old footage of Megan and her friends jumping into a fenced off pool on their high school prom night. In Act Three, Megan ends up at Annika’s prom night, and mentors her by urging Annika to “take action” at the dance and disclose her romantic interest in high schooler Junior (Daniel Zovatto) to him. Megan realizes that she must take her own advice. The clear emphasis on the need for women to claim agency in the final moments of Laggies elevates its message beyond a “romantic” ending. Megan regrets her own passivity; she learns, by the end when she finally knocks on Craig’s door, that she’s the one who’s responsible for what happens in her life, and doing something about it.